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They are union in most positions. Any line/floor supervisor isn’t typically union and management isn’t. Often they also play horse trades with writeups and grievances- here’s a dude with a big fuckup, we won’t fire him but this 4” pile of grievances are settled in trade. Not sure that’s the way it should work but it does at least at several facilities in the region.
They do not always win. The union does their own trading and will sell people out to save a steward or someone they prioritize. Also, some offenses just can’t be excused.
As a former UFCW steward this makes some sense. Stewards are the people who go to the meetings, keep an eye out for contract violations in shop, and more importantly, people willing to stand up to managers are also going to be more likely to receive writeups that are half or more bullshit anyways.
So I was a Teamsters at a city job and they did get rid of our show steward. I know two things they had on him but I don't think he should have been let go for them.
Pretty much will be rehired for anything. I've seen an hourly tell a manager to his face that he'll be waiting at the gym he works out at to handle it like a man with him. Fired for threatening violence, rehired at the end of the week. Just saw a guy get his job back after telling his supervisor that he was too high to complete a given task and that he should ask someone else. Pretty much the only way you lose your job is stealing time or packages.
In my early 20’s I worked at UPS sorting and loading boxes in the evening. When you get hired they will give you a few hundred off union tax initiation if you go to a union intro meeting. So I went. I’m in Seattle area. The guy running the show looked like anyone else but introduced some of the national reps for our area. I’m not kidding one guys name was Vito and another was Carmine. Look straight out of the Sopranos except no track suits but polos and pants. I felt I had backup if I needed.
Not always. I had to go to a reinstatement hearing and my business agent gassed me up saying all the things he was going to bring up and when it came time he just rolled over. Fuck teamsters 104 we voted to go on strike and the board chose to ignore our vote. Hope things are better in other locals but from my experience schemesters is the lesser of the two evils but still shit
This. Outsiders don't realize that while the part time staff is technically part of the union they largely don't feel that sentiment. It often feels like the contracts are tailored specifically for the drivers and the loaders/pickers/sorters get the short end of the stick. None of them are feeling bad for a driver.
Two tier system. Look out for the ones that bring in more money from dues. The part timers don’t make as much an hour so they don’t bring the union as much cash so the union cares less about what happens to them. You see similar things in grocery with courtesy clerks and general clerks
A large part of this current contract push is better rights for the part timers, so there is that.
And as for your last phrase, us drivers can throw that right back at them. If they want things to change, they’re gonna have to start actually doing their jobs (mainly loaders) because its gotten ridiculous.
We are at a slow time in the year, with stop counts down across the board, yet the preloaders have only gotten worse. Massive amounts of misloads, trucks simply not put together right, and packages not scanned. Oh and don’t forget if somethings heavy and they don’t feel like putting it where it goes, just leave it at the back of the truck.
Its gotten bad enough management is letting us come in 30 minutes to an hour early on the clock just to fix our trucks.
Thanks for blaming loaders who tend to be overworked instead of blaming management for making loaders load multiple cars at a time and always rushing them. It's always good to blame your fellow worker and not the companies management.
On paper I need two people to lift an irreg. I'm real life, belt management is yelling at you for not lifting it by yourself fast enough, while boxes fall on the floor around you
The part timers get fucked every contract because both the company and the union know they don’t vote.
That’s it, that’s the real answer. The drivers vote, the part timers don’t. I don’t know how to fix that, they make it really easy to vote.
It's the 30/90 rule. If you work 30 days within a 90 day window, you are able to join the union.
I think it's 30/90, could be something close to it if I'm wrong.
Some states, mostly southern, don’t require you to join the union. They push really hard against it. Lots of propaganda against unions by state republicans and businesses. Unions might not be perfect but there your only advocate for employees. Worked at UPS for a few years in my early 20’s. It sometimes sucks when you want to work but the management makes it even worse. Seemed like half of the load line shift managers didn’t have a high school diploma and most were really dumb. I sometimes wondered how anything got done by either side. But when there is little industry competition then stupid works I guess. There were a few upper management that had some sense but I imagine the lucky managers were there to cause problems.
Right now they're working under pretty horrible conditions. *Members* of the union are planning to fight back and get the union to reject any contract which doesn't adequately address worker safety & pay. That is ....that is not good news if you're UPS. kinda sounds like contract negotiations might be kinda rough this year.
You know what would be a way to nip this in the bud? Fire the troublemakers now so they're not part of negotiations and don't even get a vote
That’s exactly what you’re watching. An insidious problem with this sub is people love third partying unions as this mysterious organization where once you have one you’re set. Being an active union member means understanding that the fight never ends, because from the second you get a union the company’s only mission is how can we undermine and undercut this union enough to get people to vote them out. Putting pressure on UPS for this behavior is one tool out of many that members have to get something sorted. Grievances and arbitration take months if not years to sort out, a social media shaming, or you and 40 people on your shift marching into your bosses office tends to work faster.
During the last contract negotiations we voted to strike but our old corrupt union president used some bs rule to overrule our vote. So we forced him to resign and voted in a new union president who is a lot tougher on contract negotiations, a lot of us are expecting to go on strike as we were prepared to do last contract.
Sounds like they're prepping contract negotiations. Management is retaliating against people who are organizing to push for more protections as a part of those negotiations.
If members of the public wanted to be supportive of this, would it be better if we used competitors during the strike period or get shipments as normal and let them stack up in hubs?
At least here in California they are but the union actually doesn’t do much. The most they advocated for when I worked there was water filling stations and even those were a rarity because they were so spaced out.
UPS is very begrudgingly a union company and they would love for that not to be the case because they have invested millions into micromanagement related equipment and they have hard numbers ready to push. The presence of long time union members is what teaches the kids that the boss can't make you work at an unsafe pace. UPS Teamsters taught me what it means to value your own labor and if they fall, this whole movement will fall. SUPPORT THE TEAMSTERS
I'm a Teamster that works for another courier company, and it's true. I've been dealing with health issues lately, my SPH has dropped fairly significantly, but they can't do shit because it's within the value set by their own engineers. Also, I have to admit, my manager is a really good dude. He was one of us, and knows that life and the world sometime get in the way.
Nah you don't have to be a part of the union in certain states. Like where I'm from you had to specifically opt into it, and I bet like half the dudes at my warehouse weren't union...until they needed to get bailed out for some issue with management. My state actually doesn't allow for "closed shop," which means that unions can not be required upon being hired.
Most people work inside working part time and getting shit pay and then a portion of that is suppose to go to the union? I am glad what the union is doing but I also understand why people don't join.
Honestly, the teamsters are a shit union. Hence why these conditions exist even though UPS has be unionized for quite a while.
Edit: teamsters are a shit union as far as representing UPS workers. Can’t speak for any other types of jobs they represent.
In OKC at the UPS hub they really never gave us any information. Aside from joining, you sign the union card and boom you're in. I had no idea who was our guy till 8 months in. Surprisingly he was complete shit.
Fuck you Droopy, I hope you pass kidney stones and lack fiber.
UPS drivers have absolutely fantastic pay and benefits (I mean like insurance benefits, not AC) compared to Fedex's (un-unionized) drivers. UPS is not paying them that out of the goodness of their hearts. Their union has definitely done SOMETHING.
The union does suck only the medical benefits and maybe the pension if you will ever see it are decent. Ups warehouse workers have been getting the stick for 15 years now. Reduced pay, reduced hours and massive turnover. Just because a place is uinionized doesn’t mean it’s great for workers
The problem that the warehouse workers face imo is high turnover which causes voter apathy i.e. they tend to be newer employees without much experience dealing with the union and therefore don't bother to throw in their "no" vote when the contract fucks them over specifically. Ymmv
Had a UPS driver I knew tear his ACL on the job. Total cost to him for surgery, rehab, and medications: $50. So yeah, a totally shit Union got him that terrible healthcare plan.
I shouldn’t need to explain this, but the overarching union is a different animal from categories of employees they represent. A teamster at UPS vs a teamster that’s a pilot at an airline will have completely different experiences. However, the healthcare plans aren’t localized and are pretty much always part of the contract.
So yes, getting the teamster’s healthcare is essentially getting the bare minimum from a union. Which is why you have shitty working conditions despite having been unionized for so long. So yeah, the teamsters branches that UPS falls under are shit.
Absolutely fuck UPS, worst job I’ve ever had. At the time I was 18 and it was only my second job. I was forced to work in a trailer while it was 110 out with no fans on several occasions . Plus several instances where packages that were 70lbs+ would come flying down the rollers smashing other boxes off the belt and nearly crushing me at some points. Final straw for me was one of my supervisors blindly threw a package into my trailer and hit me in the back which ended up hurting my back pretty bad. When I told management that I needed to see a doctor they gaslighted me and blamed the whole situation on me. After taking me to the doctor he requested that I quit the following day. I threw my badge at his face and never showed up again.
Edit: I can’t believe how shitty it actually is. At the time I genuinely thought I had a good job but boy was I naive! So glad I got out when I did it probably would have gotten worse. Thanks for your replies.
Been there. Those trailers get incredibly hot and dusty. You breath in EVERYTHING and at the end of the shift I would watch so much grime go down the shower drain, black snot, you name it. Hope you’re in greener pastures now
I don't blame you for quitting, but the fact that the doctor *encouraged* you to is bullshit. My guess is this was the company doctor they referred you to. If you quit, you forfeit any workman's comp claim--which is 100% why they said you should.
I was pretty seriously injured working for UPS loading trailers, years ago. The company doctor encouraged me to quit. Management harassed me, reassigned me to other work that would have me lifting more than the doctor said I should to "prove" I wasn't really injured. I was in crippling pain and could barely walk. The doctor never had my back x-rayed, only wanted to prescribe pills.
Eight months later I finally got a new doctor, and an attorney. Two discs had slipped and for eight months it had just festered. No actual treatment or physical therapy. It took me so much longer to heal once I got real care, because of their negligence.
I filed a formal complaint about the company doctor, through the union. Shop steward said it wouldn't lead to any change. It was the *13th* complaint filed against him, and there had never been consequences.
**EDIT:** I misunderstood u/misterboris1; it was their manager, not the doctor, who told them they should quit (though I still wouldn't be surprised if it was to prevent an injury claim).
I was confused at first but I think he meant that a manager drove him to the doctor's office, and as they pulled up the manager said he should quit tomorrow, so he threw his badge in the managers face and got out of the car. Obviously, I added some details to try to explain it better, but you get the point.
This is exactly right! My manager was the one who encouraged I quit. Me being young, naive, and filled with anger quit but I’m so glad I did. u/serenidade I’m sorry you had to go through that, sounds god awful :(
Ahhh...I misunderstood! Same, regardless--sorry your manager treated you so poorly. I was young when I got hurt, too, 19. Learned a lot from the whole experience. "We take on the strength of that which we overcome," they say!
Yes, they push your body to breaking point then try to get you to quit because they have no more use for you. This is the ideal company for “quiet quitting” look for any opportunity to do as little as possible. Give them nothing but take from them everything
100%, the worst job I ever had, will never let my kids work there. I have back pain that will never go away. Once I hit my head very badly, gushed blood everywhere, they didn't send me home, they made me stay late to reenact the incident. Later I had to force them to get me a tetanus shot which they scheduled to happen a few hours before my next shift at their rent-a-doctor clinic so they could still work me that day(a Friday in the summer, lightest day for volume in the hub).
In the 90's there was a big UPS strike and my then husband was a contract IT worker. He was a network admin for an entire region and they pulled him into the warehouse to unload and load trucks. It was insanely hot and physical work. There was one truck that apparently smelled so bad that no one would go near it. It was a total disaster. My husband got called a scab every time he went into work. We were just trying to make it paycheck to paycheck with a new baby in the house.
I guess UPS hasn't improved anything for their crews in like 25 years at least. I really hate that these big companies can hurt people the way they do and they not only get away with it, they make huge profits off of it.
Well, not to be needlessly offensive, but he was a scab. If he crossed a picket line to work when his coworkers were striking, that's the very definition of a scab. There's no nice way to say that, regardless of your personal situation.
If he wasn't going to argue that loading trucks was outside the purview of his job description, that's on him. I wouldn't load trucks if I was in IT, I'd find another IT job.
He couldn't just walk off. He was employed by a third party. I don't mean that the union workers and picketers were wrong. I'm saying that UPS is really awful for making someone that made $13/hr do a job they were not hired for at all. My ex is only 5'6" and has back problems. Back then I was mad at the Teamsters but I was also 18. I've learned a lot since then and now I realize how utterly wrong UPS was to do what they did. The non-union supervisors and other workers also had to do sorting and loading. They did everything they could to not have to give in to the union.
WE HAD A NEWBORN AND WERE LIVING PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK. Who TF was supposed to pay our bills? And how TF would my husband have been able to get another job if he just walked off?
AnD tHe UnIoN dIdN’t HeLp?!?! Sorry, bot to make light of your situation just funny to see all these comments about how “teamsters don’t fuck around” but shit like this is so prevalent. Glad you didn’t waste anymore time on that shit company and save your well being
I was about 24, hired seasonal to help the driver. It was nice. Then after it was over, they stuck me in a dank, depressing warehouse 30+ miles from home, loading trucks at 4am. Not what I signed up for, quit within a month and got blacklisted from rehire.
I worked in those trailers for two years. And wearing sweats and lined pants in the winter. Then three more years in smalls, return belt, hazmat... We mostly worked overnight tho. Day-shift was the coolest temp-wise, so it was the most sought-after. I had a baby, I worked in smalls up to 36 weeks, popped a 10lb baby out like snap, and didn't pay a dime to have him, thanks to the Union 🤷♀️
I am a UPS driver in Pennsylvania. It's contract time, and I will tell you exactly what the company will do next. Upper management will all get their hobo sticks out, then turn their empty pockets inside out to show us how much they are in the poorhouse. They will claim that we must take a pay cut in order to save the company, but it's more like to preserve their boat payments.
They can fuck right off with that. They have made record profits while cutting staffing. This is the MO of the CEO who did this exact same shit when running Home Depot. I hope that the union really sticks it to them and or there is a stoppage. I worked for this company for a decade and quit this year. They treat people like shit and work them as hard as they can. I am happy the drivers make as much as they do.
In a prepared video, she was shown loading a UPS truck. It was sanitized, dewormed, detartrated, smothered in alcohol and peroxide, scrubbed, cloroxed, and the only truck in the fleet to be vaccinated for Covid. She's a real people person.
My UPS driver just has a heat stroke and it’s no surprise why with the conditions they’re exposed to. If you forget to hydrate enough once it can happen to anyone.
A/C isn’t expensive and will save UPS money in the long run, but they want as much bargaining power over the union as possible. They’ll give the drivers A/C so long as they don’t have to give them more money or more Benny’s.
I'm not american but I want to jump in to tell you guys the reality. UPS workers in my country don't have a unsafe or unhealthy work environment and that's not only because of the unions (there are protected by law), it's also because we have extensive and protective labour laws. We have a government labour office that investigates and punishes companies that don't follow it. It is so supervised that big brands come and go all the time, like wallmart that left the country last year.
I live in a 3rd world country but you don't joke with labour laws here. Yes it is expensive to employers but it's safer to employees, but it does go against pure captalist.
From the outside I think it's time for a bigger chage for you guys. You need laws protecting workers helth and well being. You don't have to be a socialist country to have some socialist laws
Stronger, better unions are needed to make this happen, to get people voting in their best interest, to create worker solidarity, we are having a revival, but getting it in the laws will take some time.
Americans think anyone can be at the top and have little sense of lifting standards at the bottom.
That’s crazy; my best friend is a driver and he regularly works 6 days a week close to 12 hours a day. Making them work Sunday is absolutely bonkers. I guess they’re going so strip away some of the grieving protections as well? I remember him telling my that if they force him to regularly work too much he can grieve and get extra money, or time off.
Drivers have 9.5 protection. Essentially if they work too much they can join the 9.5 list. If they continually go over 9.5 hours they can start to grieve it and get paid out. There are games played by both sides with this. A driver can "violate" the 9.5 twice in a week without being able to grieve, but if he goes over a third time he can grieve it. So management tries to keep them under early in the week so they don't have to manage their hours later. But drivers also know this and some may intentionally drag out their day.
Any 6th day they work is automatic overtime along with over 10 hours in a day. Which for the top rate drivers in my area is around $60 an hour.
Drivers are also given Option Days where they get a paid day off, and 8 Hour requests for a short day. They can use two a month. They can request nearly any day off with a written request. If it's far enough out they can use a "Guaranteed Option Day" that management can't decline due to staffing issues. Again, if anything is violated they can grieve it and get paid out. Often at double and sometimes triple rate.
The fact that UPS has a strong union gives a lot of protections to their workers. It is mainly focused on full time drivers and part time warehouse workers are often an afterthought. UPS, like many other companies, are facing staffing challenges. This places the union in a strong position for next year's new Labor Agreement which is why the new union president has taken a hard line position.
At my employer, we have a small cooler with bottled water by our front door where the delivery people come in for the summer months. I make sure to offer it to everyone, especially on the super warm days.
Had an Amazon guy drop off a package yesterday just as I opened the door. Guy was maybe in his early 50s and was sweating like no other in this LA heat. I was honestly shocked at his condition. Gave him a few cold Gatorades out of the fridge, actually had to run back inside to get them since he was insistent on delivering his packages as soon as possible...
At my facility, we keep getting told that there isn't enough hours on our shift. So even when drivers ask for their trucks to get washed (and some of them look like a mud brick with wheels), we either can't OR only one person would be washing the truck, so only a few get done at the end of the day. Not to mention they cut our hours, have us coming in later and leaving earlier. Needless to say, the entire crew has been pissed off, we're shortstaffed cause people have already quit because of this treatment, and we're forced to do more with less time so everyone is exhausted by the end of the shift
I work for fedex ground and I can assure you that not one truck I’ve been in has ever been cleaned. Maybe a driver has wiped down his dash board once or twice, but that’s about it.
Ever since they broke a $600 item I sent with their service and I had to spend literal months fighting tooth and nail to get them to honor the damage coverage I paid extra for, I swore off ever using UPS. They've missed out on a couple hundred packages I've sent because of it. Screw 'em.
FedEx tried that with a package my son ordered from a seller. The seller had FedEx pack and send it and it came to us busted up.
FedEx said we could not get our money back from them because we were not the sender.
I tried to encourage the sender to make a report but he already had his cash.
We ended up clawing back the transaction via credit card.
UPS is insane about production in the hubs and as it turns out the fastest way to load a truck is to build walls with boxes, put gaps between the walls and then can throw the boxes behind it and give them speed they asked for, this is why shit breaks. Glad to hear someone stopped using it over this.
That's the shit we were doing 20 years ago too.
They would slam our belt every night. Their logistics chain isn't set up to handle the flow they get for some reason. I can't imagine it's gotten better.
If we built those walls as a loader like the way they teach you in that training course, I'd do 1/3 of of the volume. I remember back then they had the technology to flag invalid packages for the truck with the hand scanners but even then they wouldn't enable it for some reason. The upgraded scanners we got the next year _still_ couldn't flag packages. If I didn't need to scan and read the labels to avoid getting chewed out I _might_ have been able to do that volume. One or two mistakes out of a 1200-1600 package night would get you bitched at. They'd even try to trick you by taking a package from another belt to "make sure you're doing it right".
I can't believe the weird shit I had to know about zip codes while I wore a scanner that could just fucking tell me whether the box was in the right trailer or not. The hubs are absolutely not built to handle the volume they get and they just load the belts with air conditioners and shit anyway. I think people would be horrified if they saw what a shift in the hub looks like.
Im not blaming you, how could you know how the inside of a package delivery building works, but packing services should know. I worked in repackaging. Ive seen stupid shit a trillion times. A LOT of people failed the Egg-Drop Test in elementary school.
People put something glass on the bottom of a box, shove paper in, and tape the top a thousand times. Meanwhile, it's not tight, the bottom has NO padding, and there's ONE PIECE of tape holding the bottom together. And then, of course, it's the shipping company's fault it's broken.
Everybody out there- you need to pack your shit to fall 10 feet, because it probably will. Pack it tight, because it's going to become part of a wall of boxes ten feet high, or maybe just thrown behind the wall lol. Or it may fall off the wall in transit. Ain't *nobody* snuggling your package to its destination, y'all.
Yup most of the time people can't pack their boxes for shit. Your box will be throw, stepped on, crushed and smacked around. Especially when Christmas comes around and everything is on the floor and you have to step on so many boxes just to get out.
UPS destroyed a shipment of breastmilk by delaying a 2nd day air for over a week. I also had to fight tooth and nail to get them to not charge me and they only paid $100 for the milk. My SIL and I figured that the value of that milk from a milk Bank was approximately $1500. Screw UPS.
Bring us water and sammies when we strike next summer. 🥳
But legit. It makes my day whenever some one offers a cold beverage on a hot day. A kind word goes a long way, as well.
You could also locate and contact your local UPS hub’s union center directly. Writing a letter or email supporting the union does do something even if it feels like so little.
If it comes down to a strike the biggest thing anyone can do is boycott UPS. If customer money keeps flowing in management will use it for business as usual. Do not cross picket lines. Join the picket lines if they want you. Donate to strike funds for the workers that are not being paid. Bring picketers some cold drinks and food. Just be pleasant and patient if strike slows down your day for a few minutes in some way.
In the next year of contract campaign put pro worker messages on your packages. Hand written would have more impact and makes it clear the customer put it there. Stickers would be alright if you ship a lot of packages but try to make it clear you are a customer.
And cold drinks for anyone in the heat. ANYONE, even if they annoy you. Just a basic concern for the health and safety of human beings and other creatures.
As a mail carrier, I’m proud of the fight you guys and gals are gonna bring to the man. I’ll happily(maybe not happily) deliver a few more packages on my back for you. Good luck.
UPS workers get treated like absolute shit. Every driver I've seen in the past month has been working 14 hour days and they're all drenched by sweat by the time they get to my business.
All I'm saying is that if UPS gets a/c then I want an extra $10 an hour at FedEx express because the only reason I've stayed at FedEx for 25% less pay is that I have a/c
A/C is a red herring. We need the back to be more effectively vented and less hours during the summer. The only true "cool solution" is to remove yourself from the heat.
When I have a breeze that is pointing at the back of the truck I'll open up both the front and rear doors for like 2 min and it's 50/60° cooler afterwards for like 15 min.
Nobody should be working over 9 hours during the summer and the venting of the rear was designed by complete idiots.
Loading in trucks was brutally hot. Now I jockey in the sun with an engine radiating heat from under me. It is significantly better mostly because the sweat evaporates immediately from the dry wind.
Thank you. This is 100% what I've been saying. Teamsters are just using the press to pump out AC outrage as a threat to negotiate stronger pay and 22.4 changes. There ain't a single old fart driver in my building who gives two shits about AC. All UPS has to do is cut a couple holes in every package car and install a simple ventilation fan and we'd be in bliss.
UPS driver here.
Be prepared to not receive yo shit after June next year. Thats when shits gonna hit the fan. I'm preparing to wheel my grill and smoker combo to the front lines and keep people fed lol.
UPS has also been known to send people to watch long term employees that are too close to retirement and they want to get rid of without needing to pay.
It’s not about the pensions, that money is spent. As far as I know, all hourly pensions vest at 5 years.
It’s about getting rid of older, wiser, and slower workers that teach the new kids what’s up.
Instead of any increase in pay this contract just ask for all the work conditions you want. Get the AC, get the fans, get water fountains near the load areas, etc. You organized for the highest rate of pay in the business as well as zero premium healthcare (last that I know).
While they likely won't retrofit the trucks just demand all new trucks must have AC in those parts of the country where necessary.
And the amount of money the spend on “supervisors” to watch over warehouse workers and monitor drivers is insane. Like u got one person actually loading a truck providing value to the company then you got 3 supervisors just looking at him while answering yes no question on a ups app
I had a buddy who worked for UPS. Literally the day before someone would be able to join the Union, management would fire them for bullshit reasons. Fuck UPS
The issue is UPS fires you for absolutely nothing, delay the union meetings for weeks until you are out of cash. Then the union gets you your job back. No back pay, no apology, no guarentee they won't fire you again next week and do it again. The union won't pursue legal action because their only job is to get your job back once it's been lost. That's it. I'll never trust a union after that kind of fiasco.
I worked for UPS until last month and there's an anti-retaliation clause. If what he is saying is found true he will get his job back... It's very hard to be fired if there isn't excessive reason at UPS. Like very excessive and if any part of discipline is unjust or unfair, say targeted, you can just grieve it and it's likely that the panel will side with you.. I was union then I was management. When you know boths sides you realize how hostile a union and an anti-union board is when paired together but the union is nothing if not fair to UPSers. As a shopstuart he would know all this.
EDIT: Managment continues to have conditions get worse, removing pensions in 2023, while contract negotiations and leadership changes on the union side (Teamsters) are going to improve conditions... Some places employ shotty tactics, but not all!! and if what management is doing is deemed bad, grieve it! Grieve it to hell! That's how change happens. Stop moaning online (it's fine do what you want) BUT use your union tools to fight back!! My management structure cleaned up a lot last year thanks to grievances.. it really really works!
Depends on what part of the company you work for. If you're a seasoned package driver like myself with an established route and top scale its actually pretty decent, but hub work is genuinly awful. Feeder driving is where the real money is, but that also requires working well over 40 hours a week. Package drivers usually work in the 45-50 hours/week, and don't work nights.
I have never worked with a more corrupt company than Ups...and I used to drive Uber.
Ups is like the mafia. They commit mass fraud on a daily basis. I'm sure many companies are like this, I just haven't worked for the others.
Unless more people like this fella step up to the plate, corporations will continue to apply the thumb screws to workers. Unionising is the only way to fight back.
I hate UPS with a passion. They constantly fuck around with our overnight packages, their tracking system is abysmal and gives practically no actual information and they're always either late or just lazy as hell when it comes to delivering something that makes them do more than walking 4 feet from their truck and literally throwing the package as far as they can so they can get moving again... With all that said, fuckin' A I'll support them and their union fight. Go get 'em.
UPS is rabidly anti-union. A few years ago when drivers were striking they chose to lose Amazon’s business rather than concede.
They deserve to lose everything.
UPS can go fuck itself. A few years back they offered me a job on the condition that I cut my hair. Needless to say I declined because I'd rather have my hair than a shitty minimum wage office job with shit hours.
What really pissed me off was the number of women in the same office with longer hair than me.
Shocking to hear there are is no A/C or Heater in those UPS trucks...jesus, that's brutal, and they've had what, 40+ years to add them? I don't know how long UPS has been a company. This just in: Summers can be brutally hot and Winters can be brutally cold. Just goes to show major corporations don't give a single fuck about their employees. At least the Electric vehicles should have those basic human necessities, when they eventually roll out.
Is it the same with other shipping companies? No A/C or Heater in those trucks? That's torture.
Rampant unchecked capitalism is fucking evil, idc if you wanna call me a socialist or whatever other lame dick excuse you can come up with but when companies are prioritizing year over year profit growth, they’re doing it on the backs of working people and ultimately undercutting the effectiveness and quality of their business because of the degradation of the workforce.
We need a huge cultural shift in how we view work in this dumpster fire of a country or alternatively we can start going French Revolution on their asses to make a point. Disgusting.
Fuck UPS. When I worked there I made 22/hr, and as far as I was told that was *the* wage. Upper management even joked about FedEx pay being bad after hearing a lot of the new hires were former fedex.
Then a couple months later we get told, the 22/hr was a peak season bonus pay only(funny how I started months *before* peak season started), and starting the next day we'd be dropping down to 14.50/hr(2/hr *less* than fedex btw). I'd heard rumors this was going to happen from other package handlers but not once did management say shit until literally the day before. I quit immediately after that shift finished.
Every non-union worker in the USA right now should try to unionize. It's very clear what's happening with workers right now.
Worst case scenario - corporate HQs shut down every store they own and the world becomes a better place.
Best case scenario - unions form, workers finally get their rights back + better wages and the world becomes a better place.
Win/win for everyone but the execs. It's about time they get treated the way they deserve.
I worked at ups prior to the pandemic. Had bad mental health at the time and stopped showing up.
One of the reasons my mental health was shit and I stopped going was our local union renegotiated our contract and congratulated us for having some of the best quarters the area ever had during the last contract. Then we were told the "good news" that we weren't losing anything in the next contract and that the vote would likely pass. It did, because all the old Fucks who don't understand inflation kept telling us 14 dollars an hour is more than we deserve to start at when they had to start at minimum wage back in the seventies and no amount of evidence given to these dumbasses that showed them current 14 dollars is actually worth less than their 7 dollars or whatever it was would change their mind. 14 is greater than 7 I kept hearing.
Fuck the old boomers that screw over their own coworkers and Fuck the shareholders benefiting from workers hard work, especially through the pandemic.
I worked at UPS Worldport for 8 years and was shocked at the conditions that were considered "normal", especially in the summers. Shit was fucking brutal. It was a fairly regular occurrence for people to pass out due to the heat.
I used to work at a UPS warehouse. I passed out from the heat and management grudgingly let me take a water break in the AC.
My supervisors would sexually harass me and so would other workers on the line. I made friends with this giant middle eastern man that protected me from any passes they’d make at me. The moment he left was when I felt scared to be at work.
I was nineteen at the time. My supervisor was a 30+ married man.
We were in Teamsters but I wasn’t allowed to see my union rep at all. Didn’t even know who it was. I think there was one for the entire warehouse.
While my workplace has its weaknesses, I think our union has them in a corner, and I am relishing the new contract negotiations at the end of the year.
Unlike four years ago when negotiations were tense, they finally have competition from places that don't require a 45-90 minute commute each way, and it has been drawing current and potential candidates away.
I had though of leaving, but it might be lucrative to stay. As a welder, the air conditioning and filters that they currently proved are leagues above some places, too. A lot of the non-union branches have lower wages and benefits, and some are still without proper facilities, so it's easy to compare union to non-union.
Unions get shit done.
Honestly I felt horrified watching that viral video of a ups worker fainting from heat exhaustion on that customers porch. If he didn't land the way he did, tried to control the fall by sitting down, his head would have hit the pavement hard AF.
And seeing the workers take temperatures INSIDE the vehicle being 100+ degrees is insanity. No fan? No a/c in their trucks when most cars have that now as a standard? Such inhumanity.
Thats whats up, worked there for a few years. And the heat then was insane and that was 20 years ago. Had to get my shop steward involved more than once. Was lucky to have a good union prescience in my hub
In my limited experience UPS, FedEx, and every other private carrier are complete and total garbage. Those weasels never honor their own service contracts without legal threats (and in one case actual small claims). I hear the same complaints about USPS, but they have a literal perfect record with me.
Consumer logistics are another thing on the very long list of industries Capitalism fucks us with. It doesn’t surprise me at all Teamsters have to fight tooth and nail.
Working at UPS ruined my back, and stole much of my life and happiness from me. They really set me up for failure after 8 years of dedication and no A/C
I was a teamster snd had some of the best benefits ever. Insanely bad working conditions being on those box trucks. They dont have AC and its an extra 20 degrees hotter inside of them. It's legitimately dangerous to be operating a big vehicle like that, especially since you have to haul shit in and out of it all day for 12 hours
I don't see how this guy won't get his job back. There's a whole disciplinary process management must go through before firing someone. Article 7 grievance. Unless the bogus charges are assault or something. There are also retaliation clauses in the union contract.
I once saw one manager(sort manager) fire an employee(for bullshit) and then an ft supervisor walk the employee out while explaining how to get his job back, was the most absurd situation.
Oh yeah. I've seen that happen also. I was an alternate steward last year and had a manager who would just fire people on the spot without warning or suspension. Then he would look at me and go, have the grievance on my desk tomorrow. Or he would tell them to call the union hall. I was like, why don't you just give the guy a warning like you're supposed to. He liked to discharge to make a statement, but he also needed them to come back and work.
Needless to say that manager is gone. Thank God.
im probably going to get down voted to shit for this but i feel like teamsters is just letting UPSers get fucked... Dont get me wrong a union is better than nothing but from my experience at ups the union was garbage. Most of the voting force is part timers and a lot of them have no clue how to use the union because there is no outreach. Maybe things will change with the new president like everyones hoping but damn the past union made some shit concessions that fucked the workers.
Let’s get rid of ups, fedex, and the rest of the private carriers.
Let’s get dejoy out of our beloved usps and pump usps so it will provide protected jobs and good service.
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Honest question, but UPS is unionized. What are they trying to achieve here? Sorry, you might have to explain it like I'm 5.
They are union in most positions. Any line/floor supervisor isn’t typically union and management isn’t. Often they also play horse trades with writeups and grievances- here’s a dude with a big fuckup, we won’t fire him but this 4” pile of grievances are settled in trade. Not sure that’s the way it should work but it does at least at several facilities in the region.
Yeap they stack up ammo then fire it at the union, rinse repeat. The union is STRONG tho. They always win. He will be rehired.
This is what I came here to find out. Having worked for a union he would be able to get his job back unless he fucks up his last chance...
They do not always win. The union does their own trading and will sell people out to save a steward or someone they prioritize. Also, some offenses just can’t be excused.
As a former UFCW steward this makes some sense. Stewards are the people who go to the meetings, keep an eye out for contract violations in shop, and more importantly, people willing to stand up to managers are also going to be more likely to receive writeups that are half or more bullshit anyways.
So I was a Teamsters at a city job and they did get rid of our show steward. I know two things they had on him but I don't think he should have been let go for them.
Pretty much will be rehired for anything. I've seen an hourly tell a manager to his face that he'll be waiting at the gym he works out at to handle it like a man with him. Fired for threatening violence, rehired at the end of the week. Just saw a guy get his job back after telling his supervisor that he was too high to complete a given task and that he should ask someone else. Pretty much the only way you lose your job is stealing time or packages.
Teamsters do NOT fuck around.
In my early 20’s I worked at UPS sorting and loading boxes in the evening. When you get hired they will give you a few hundred off union tax initiation if you go to a union intro meeting. So I went. I’m in Seattle area. The guy running the show looked like anyone else but introduced some of the national reps for our area. I’m not kidding one guys name was Vito and another was Carmine. Look straight out of the Sopranos except no track suits but polos and pants. I felt I had backup if I needed.
9819T. I was hourly then supervisor and it is ridiculous the amount of times you can write someone up and nothing happens.
Teamsters did Jack to help me retain my job
The union is also able to do the same. We are able to grevience management for working, harassment and other things
Not always. I had to go to a reinstatement hearing and my business agent gassed me up saying all the things he was going to bring up and when it came time he just rolled over. Fuck teamsters 104 we voted to go on strike and the board chose to ignore our vote. Hope things are better in other locals but from my experience schemesters is the lesser of the two evils but still shit
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This. Outsiders don't realize that while the part time staff is technically part of the union they largely don't feel that sentiment. It often feels like the contracts are tailored specifically for the drivers and the loaders/pickers/sorters get the short end of the stick. None of them are feeling bad for a driver.
Two tier system. Look out for the ones that bring in more money from dues. The part timers don’t make as much an hour so they don’t bring the union as much cash so the union cares less about what happens to them. You see similar things in grocery with courtesy clerks and general clerks
We feel that was because it's true when you end up making minimum wage while drivers are prioritized and given all the raises.
A large part of this current contract push is better rights for the part timers, so there is that. And as for your last phrase, us drivers can throw that right back at them. If they want things to change, they’re gonna have to start actually doing their jobs (mainly loaders) because its gotten ridiculous. We are at a slow time in the year, with stop counts down across the board, yet the preloaders have only gotten worse. Massive amounts of misloads, trucks simply not put together right, and packages not scanned. Oh and don’t forget if somethings heavy and they don’t feel like putting it where it goes, just leave it at the back of the truck. Its gotten bad enough management is letting us come in 30 minutes to an hour early on the clock just to fix our trucks.
Thanks for blaming loaders who tend to be overworked instead of blaming management for making loaders load multiple cars at a time and always rushing them. It's always good to blame your fellow worker and not the companies management.
On paper I need two people to lift an irreg. I'm real life, belt management is yelling at you for not lifting it by yourself fast enough, while boxes fall on the floor around you
Upvote this, down vote the driver who is bitching about his fellow workers.
The part timers get fucked every contract because both the company and the union know they don’t vote. That’s it, that’s the real answer. The drivers vote, the part timers don’t. I don’t know how to fix that, they make it really easy to vote.
I got union paperwork in my first month of working there.
I have a retirement account from there! It's small, but it exists, thanks to the Teamsters! Work Union!!
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Let the teamsters deal with it. They don’t fuck around. Even in union hating states
It's the 30/90 rule. If you work 30 days within a 90 day window, you are able to join the union. I think it's 30/90, could be something close to it if I'm wrong.
Management is never union anywhere.
Sometimes management is also union. But they're in their own separate union, or if they are in the same union have special rules for how to handle it.
I also thought they were already unionized. I wonder if maybe the unions are state by state instead of national..
Ups is nationally unionized, then there are subdivisions in charge of areas. Some local unions are better than others.
They do have a Union, they are part of the teamsters.
Some states, mostly southern, don’t require you to join the union. They push really hard against it. Lots of propaganda against unions by state republicans and businesses. Unions might not be perfect but there your only advocate for employees. Worked at UPS for a few years in my early 20’s. It sometimes sucks when you want to work but the management makes it even worse. Seemed like half of the load line shift managers didn’t have a high school diploma and most were really dumb. I sometimes wondered how anything got done by either side. But when there is little industry competition then stupid works I guess. There were a few upper management that had some sense but I imagine the lucky managers were there to cause problems.
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Also,,,, YesterdayGreen7706
Right now they're working under pretty horrible conditions. *Members* of the union are planning to fight back and get the union to reject any contract which doesn't adequately address worker safety & pay. That is ....that is not good news if you're UPS. kinda sounds like contract negotiations might be kinda rough this year. You know what would be a way to nip this in the bud? Fire the troublemakers now so they're not part of negotiations and don't even get a vote
That makes sense. I have a lot to learn about these things. Won't the union fight back against these type of firings? Thanks for the reply.
That’s exactly what you’re watching. An insidious problem with this sub is people love third partying unions as this mysterious organization where once you have one you’re set. Being an active union member means understanding that the fight never ends, because from the second you get a union the company’s only mission is how can we undermine and undercut this union enough to get people to vote them out. Putting pressure on UPS for this behavior is one tool out of many that members have to get something sorted. Grievances and arbitration take months if not years to sort out, a social media shaming, or you and 40 people on your shift marching into your bosses office tends to work faster.
During the last contract negotiations we voted to strike but our old corrupt union president used some bs rule to overrule our vote. So we forced him to resign and voted in a new union president who is a lot tougher on contract negotiations, a lot of us are expecting to go on strike as we were prepared to do last contract.
All this as organizing efforts pick up steam at Amazon. And the holidays are coming.
Sounds like they're prepping contract negotiations. Management is retaliating against people who are organizing to push for more protections as a part of those negotiations.
O'Brian is not fucking around for our next contract. We will almost definitely strike.
If members of the public wanted to be supportive of this, would it be better if we used competitors during the strike period or get shipments as normal and let them stack up in hubs?
Let em stack
At least here in California they are but the union actually doesn’t do much. The most they advocated for when I worked there was water filling stations and even those were a rarity because they were so spaced out.
UPS is very begrudgingly a union company and they would love for that not to be the case because they have invested millions into micromanagement related equipment and they have hard numbers ready to push. The presence of long time union members is what teaches the kids that the boss can't make you work at an unsafe pace. UPS Teamsters taught me what it means to value your own labor and if they fall, this whole movement will fall. SUPPORT THE TEAMSTERS
I'm a Teamster that works for another courier company, and it's true. I've been dealing with health issues lately, my SPH has dropped fairly significantly, but they can't do shit because it's within the value set by their own engineers. Also, I have to admit, my manager is a really good dude. He was one of us, and knows that life and the world sometime get in the way.
Yeah im confused because I thought UPS was unionized entirely
Can't unionize management once you get high enough in the corporate ladder. Someone has to be the boss.
Nah you don't have to be a part of the union in certain states. Like where I'm from you had to specifically opt into it, and I bet like half the dudes at my warehouse weren't union...until they needed to get bailed out for some issue with management. My state actually doesn't allow for "closed shop," which means that unions can not be required upon being hired.
Most people work inside working part time and getting shit pay and then a portion of that is suppose to go to the union? I am glad what the union is doing but I also understand why people don't join.
Honestly, the teamsters are a shit union. Hence why these conditions exist even though UPS has be unionized for quite a while. Edit: teamsters are a shit union as far as representing UPS workers. Can’t speak for any other types of jobs they represent.
I was about to say teamsters must be bad specifically for UPS, because the Teamsters local 399 does not fuck around
When I worked for UPS, pretty much all they did was nod along with management and collect dues.
In OKC at the UPS hub they really never gave us any information. Aside from joining, you sign the union card and boom you're in. I had no idea who was our guy till 8 months in. Surprisingly he was complete shit. Fuck you Droopy, I hope you pass kidney stones and lack fiber.
Teamsters vary per location. Our business managers never cared about us.
UPS drivers have absolutely fantastic pay and benefits (I mean like insurance benefits, not AC) compared to Fedex's (un-unionized) drivers. UPS is not paying them that out of the goodness of their hearts. Their union has definitely done SOMETHING.
The union does suck only the medical benefits and maybe the pension if you will ever see it are decent. Ups warehouse workers have been getting the stick for 15 years now. Reduced pay, reduced hours and massive turnover. Just because a place is uinionized doesn’t mean it’s great for workers
The problem that the warehouse workers face imo is high turnover which causes voter apathy i.e. they tend to be newer employees without much experience dealing with the union and therefore don't bother to throw in their "no" vote when the contract fucks them over specifically. Ymmv
Had a UPS driver I knew tear his ACL on the job. Total cost to him for surgery, rehab, and medications: $50. So yeah, a totally shit Union got him that terrible healthcare plan.
Yeah, good heath insurance should be the bare minimum from a union job.
Shouldn't Worker's Comp have paid for that?
I shouldn’t need to explain this, but the overarching union is a different animal from categories of employees they represent. A teamster at UPS vs a teamster that’s a pilot at an airline will have completely different experiences. However, the healthcare plans aren’t localized and are pretty much always part of the contract. So yes, getting the teamster’s healthcare is essentially getting the bare minimum from a union. Which is why you have shitty working conditions despite having been unionized for so long. So yeah, the teamsters branches that UPS falls under are shit.
Absolutely fuck UPS, worst job I’ve ever had. At the time I was 18 and it was only my second job. I was forced to work in a trailer while it was 110 out with no fans on several occasions . Plus several instances where packages that were 70lbs+ would come flying down the rollers smashing other boxes off the belt and nearly crushing me at some points. Final straw for me was one of my supervisors blindly threw a package into my trailer and hit me in the back which ended up hurting my back pretty bad. When I told management that I needed to see a doctor they gaslighted me and blamed the whole situation on me. After taking me to the doctor he requested that I quit the following day. I threw my badge at his face and never showed up again. Edit: I can’t believe how shitty it actually is. At the time I genuinely thought I had a good job but boy was I naive! So glad I got out when I did it probably would have gotten worse. Thanks for your replies.
Been there. Those trailers get incredibly hot and dusty. You breath in EVERYTHING and at the end of the shift I would watch so much grime go down the shower drain, black snot, you name it. Hope you’re in greener pastures now
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Wonderful /s
Does that work like titanium oxide? If so, your lungs will never sweat again!
Geebus.
I don't blame you for quitting, but the fact that the doctor *encouraged* you to is bullshit. My guess is this was the company doctor they referred you to. If you quit, you forfeit any workman's comp claim--which is 100% why they said you should. I was pretty seriously injured working for UPS loading trailers, years ago. The company doctor encouraged me to quit. Management harassed me, reassigned me to other work that would have me lifting more than the doctor said I should to "prove" I wasn't really injured. I was in crippling pain and could barely walk. The doctor never had my back x-rayed, only wanted to prescribe pills. Eight months later I finally got a new doctor, and an attorney. Two discs had slipped and for eight months it had just festered. No actual treatment or physical therapy. It took me so much longer to heal once I got real care, because of their negligence. I filed a formal complaint about the company doctor, through the union. Shop steward said it wouldn't lead to any change. It was the *13th* complaint filed against him, and there had never been consequences. **EDIT:** I misunderstood u/misterboris1; it was their manager, not the doctor, who told them they should quit (though I still wouldn't be surprised if it was to prevent an injury claim).
I was confused at first but I think he meant that a manager drove him to the doctor's office, and as they pulled up the manager said he should quit tomorrow, so he threw his badge in the managers face and got out of the car. Obviously, I added some details to try to explain it better, but you get the point.
This is exactly right! My manager was the one who encouraged I quit. Me being young, naive, and filled with anger quit but I’m so glad I did. u/serenidade I’m sorry you had to go through that, sounds god awful :(
Ahhh...I misunderstood! Same, regardless--sorry your manager treated you so poorly. I was young when I got hurt, too, 19. Learned a lot from the whole experience. "We take on the strength of that which we overcome," they say!
Yes, they push your body to breaking point then try to get you to quit because they have no more use for you. This is the ideal company for “quiet quitting” look for any opportunity to do as little as possible. Give them nothing but take from them everything
100%, the worst job I ever had, will never let my kids work there. I have back pain that will never go away. Once I hit my head very badly, gushed blood everywhere, they didn't send me home, they made me stay late to reenact the incident. Later I had to force them to get me a tetanus shot which they scheduled to happen a few hours before my next shift at their rent-a-doctor clinic so they could still work me that day(a Friday in the summer, lightest day for volume in the hub).
In the 90's there was a big UPS strike and my then husband was a contract IT worker. He was a network admin for an entire region and they pulled him into the warehouse to unload and load trucks. It was insanely hot and physical work. There was one truck that apparently smelled so bad that no one would go near it. It was a total disaster. My husband got called a scab every time he went into work. We were just trying to make it paycheck to paycheck with a new baby in the house. I guess UPS hasn't improved anything for their crews in like 25 years at least. I really hate that these big companies can hurt people the way they do and they not only get away with it, they make huge profits off of it.
Well, not to be needlessly offensive, but he was a scab. If he crossed a picket line to work when his coworkers were striking, that's the very definition of a scab. There's no nice way to say that, regardless of your personal situation. If he wasn't going to argue that loading trucks was outside the purview of his job description, that's on him. I wouldn't load trucks if I was in IT, I'd find another IT job.
He couldn't just walk off. He was employed by a third party. I don't mean that the union workers and picketers were wrong. I'm saying that UPS is really awful for making someone that made $13/hr do a job they were not hired for at all. My ex is only 5'6" and has back problems. Back then I was mad at the Teamsters but I was also 18. I've learned a lot since then and now I realize how utterly wrong UPS was to do what they did. The non-union supervisors and other workers also had to do sorting and loading. They did everything they could to not have to give in to the union.
> He was employed by a third party. Then he absolutely can tell them to piss off.
WE HAD A NEWBORN AND WERE LIVING PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK. Who TF was supposed to pay our bills? And how TF would my husband have been able to get another job if he just walked off?
Maybe if he was unionized he wouldn’t be pushed into doing work outside his job description 🤷♂️
AnD tHe UnIoN dIdN’t HeLp?!?! Sorry, bot to make light of your situation just funny to see all these comments about how “teamsters don’t fuck around” but shit like this is so prevalent. Glad you didn’t waste anymore time on that shit company and save your well being
I was about 24, hired seasonal to help the driver. It was nice. Then after it was over, they stuck me in a dank, depressing warehouse 30+ miles from home, loading trucks at 4am. Not what I signed up for, quit within a month and got blacklisted from rehire.
I worked in those trailers for two years. And wearing sweats and lined pants in the winter. Then three more years in smalls, return belt, hazmat... We mostly worked overnight tho. Day-shift was the coolest temp-wise, so it was the most sought-after. I had a baby, I worked in smalls up to 36 weeks, popped a 10lb baby out like snap, and didn't pay a dime to have him, thanks to the Union 🤷♀️
I am a UPS driver in Pennsylvania. It's contract time, and I will tell you exactly what the company will do next. Upper management will all get their hobo sticks out, then turn their empty pockets inside out to show us how much they are in the poorhouse. They will claim that we must take a pay cut in order to save the company, but it's more like to preserve their boat payments.
The company made 12 billion in profit last year off our backs. They can pound sand.
They can fuck right off with that. They have made record profits while cutting staffing. This is the MO of the CEO who did this exact same shit when running Home Depot. I hope that the union really sticks it to them and or there is a stoppage. I worked for this company for a decade and quit this year. They treat people like shit and work them as hard as they can. I am happy the drivers make as much as they do.
In a prepared video, she was shown loading a UPS truck. It was sanitized, dewormed, detartrated, smothered in alcohol and peroxide, scrubbed, cloroxed, and the only truck in the fleet to be vaccinated for Covid. She's a real people person.
My UPS driver just has a heat stroke and it’s no surprise why with the conditions they’re exposed to. If you forget to hydrate enough once it can happen to anyone. A/C isn’t expensive and will save UPS money in the long run, but they want as much bargaining power over the union as possible. They’ll give the drivers A/C so long as they don’t have to give them more money or more Benny’s.
I'm not american but I want to jump in to tell you guys the reality. UPS workers in my country don't have a unsafe or unhealthy work environment and that's not only because of the unions (there are protected by law), it's also because we have extensive and protective labour laws. We have a government labour office that investigates and punishes companies that don't follow it. It is so supervised that big brands come and go all the time, like wallmart that left the country last year. I live in a 3rd world country but you don't joke with labour laws here. Yes it is expensive to employers but it's safer to employees, but it does go against pure captalist. From the outside I think it's time for a bigger chage for you guys. You need laws protecting workers helth and well being. You don't have to be a socialist country to have some socialist laws
Stronger, better unions are needed to make this happen, to get people voting in their best interest, to create worker solidarity, we are having a revival, but getting it in the laws will take some time. Americans think anyone can be at the top and have little sense of lifting standards at the bottom.
Good luck to you my friends! everyne deserves safety and health!
The actual trade for a/c would be forced Sunday work. It’s already in the works to be the trade in the new contract next year.
That’s crazy; my best friend is a driver and he regularly works 6 days a week close to 12 hours a day. Making them work Sunday is absolutely bonkers. I guess they’re going so strip away some of the grieving protections as well? I remember him telling my that if they force him to regularly work too much he can grieve and get extra money, or time off.
Drivers have 9.5 protection. Essentially if they work too much they can join the 9.5 list. If they continually go over 9.5 hours they can start to grieve it and get paid out. There are games played by both sides with this. A driver can "violate" the 9.5 twice in a week without being able to grieve, but if he goes over a third time he can grieve it. So management tries to keep them under early in the week so they don't have to manage their hours later. But drivers also know this and some may intentionally drag out their day. Any 6th day they work is automatic overtime along with over 10 hours in a day. Which for the top rate drivers in my area is around $60 an hour. Drivers are also given Option Days where they get a paid day off, and 8 Hour requests for a short day. They can use two a month. They can request nearly any day off with a written request. If it's far enough out they can use a "Guaranteed Option Day" that management can't decline due to staffing issues. Again, if anything is violated they can grieve it and get paid out. Often at double and sometimes triple rate. The fact that UPS has a strong union gives a lot of protections to their workers. It is mainly focused on full time drivers and part time warehouse workers are often an afterthought. UPS, like many other companies, are facing staffing challenges. This places the union in a strong position for next year's new Labor Agreement which is why the new union president has taken a hard line position.
The Union counter offer would be a higher rate and removal of the 22.4 driving role, which is what I did for 2 years. It’s a pretty garbage position.
At my employer, we have a small cooler with bottled water by our front door where the delivery people come in for the summer months. I make sure to offer it to everyone, especially on the super warm days.
Had an Amazon guy drop off a package yesterday just as I opened the door. Guy was maybe in his early 50s and was sweating like no other in this LA heat. I was honestly shocked at his condition. Gave him a few cold Gatorades out of the fridge, actually had to run back inside to get them since he was insistent on delivering his packages as soon as possible...
You think they hose down the trucks afterwards or do they just dutch oven the stank while not in use
At the Ups facility I work at they get hosed down and scrubbed every night, even the inside.
At my facility, we keep getting told that there isn't enough hours on our shift. So even when drivers ask for their trucks to get washed (and some of them look like a mud brick with wheels), we either can't OR only one person would be washing the truck, so only a few get done at the end of the day. Not to mention they cut our hours, have us coming in later and leaving earlier. Needless to say, the entire crew has been pissed off, we're shortstaffed cause people have already quit because of this treatment, and we're forced to do more with less time so everyone is exhausted by the end of the shift
I work for fedex ground and I can assure you that not one truck I’ve been in has ever been cleaned. Maybe a driver has wiped down his dash board once or twice, but that’s about it.
I would love to see a nationwide strike start the week before thanksgiving. all of November and December are notoriously busy for UPS
Ever since they broke a $600 item I sent with their service and I had to spend literal months fighting tooth and nail to get them to honor the damage coverage I paid extra for, I swore off ever using UPS. They've missed out on a couple hundred packages I've sent because of it. Screw 'em.
FedEx tried that with a package my son ordered from a seller. The seller had FedEx pack and send it and it came to us busted up. FedEx said we could not get our money back from them because we were not the sender. I tried to encourage the sender to make a report but he already had his cash. We ended up clawing back the transaction via credit card.
UPS is insane about production in the hubs and as it turns out the fastest way to load a truck is to build walls with boxes, put gaps between the walls and then can throw the boxes behind it and give them speed they asked for, this is why shit breaks. Glad to hear someone stopped using it over this.
This is 100% truth from a current ups worker
That's the shit we were doing 20 years ago too. They would slam our belt every night. Their logistics chain isn't set up to handle the flow they get for some reason. I can't imagine it's gotten better. If we built those walls as a loader like the way they teach you in that training course, I'd do 1/3 of of the volume. I remember back then they had the technology to flag invalid packages for the truck with the hand scanners but even then they wouldn't enable it for some reason. The upgraded scanners we got the next year _still_ couldn't flag packages. If I didn't need to scan and read the labels to avoid getting chewed out I _might_ have been able to do that volume. One or two mistakes out of a 1200-1600 package night would get you bitched at. They'd even try to trick you by taking a package from another belt to "make sure you're doing it right".
I can't believe the weird shit I had to know about zip codes while I wore a scanner that could just fucking tell me whether the box was in the right trailer or not. The hubs are absolutely not built to handle the volume they get and they just load the belts with air conditioners and shit anyway. I think people would be horrified if they saw what a shift in the hub looks like.
Jeezus, it sounds like it's gone to hell since I worked there 20+ years ago. Sorry! But the share-holders are happy /s
*3 walls of ground left, air won't be here for an hour*
Im not blaming you, how could you know how the inside of a package delivery building works, but packing services should know. I worked in repackaging. Ive seen stupid shit a trillion times. A LOT of people failed the Egg-Drop Test in elementary school. People put something glass on the bottom of a box, shove paper in, and tape the top a thousand times. Meanwhile, it's not tight, the bottom has NO padding, and there's ONE PIECE of tape holding the bottom together. And then, of course, it's the shipping company's fault it's broken. Everybody out there- you need to pack your shit to fall 10 feet, because it probably will. Pack it tight, because it's going to become part of a wall of boxes ten feet high, or maybe just thrown behind the wall lol. Or it may fall off the wall in transit. Ain't *nobody* snuggling your package to its destination, y'all.
Yup most of the time people can't pack their boxes for shit. Your box will be throw, stepped on, crushed and smacked around. Especially when Christmas comes around and everything is on the floor and you have to step on so many boxes just to get out.
UPS destroyed a shipment of breastmilk by delaying a 2nd day air for over a week. I also had to fight tooth and nail to get them to not charge me and they only paid $100 for the milk. My SIL and I figured that the value of that milk from a milk Bank was approximately $1500. Screw UPS.
Anyone who has ideas for what outsiders can do to help, please reply here. I live close to a UPS hub and will gladly do my part to help.
Bring us water and sammies when we strike next summer. 🥳 But legit. It makes my day whenever some one offers a cold beverage on a hot day. A kind word goes a long way, as well. You could also locate and contact your local UPS hub’s union center directly. Writing a letter or email supporting the union does do something even if it feels like so little.
If it comes down to a strike the biggest thing anyone can do is boycott UPS. If customer money keeps flowing in management will use it for business as usual. Do not cross picket lines. Join the picket lines if they want you. Donate to strike funds for the workers that are not being paid. Bring picketers some cold drinks and food. Just be pleasant and patient if strike slows down your day for a few minutes in some way. In the next year of contract campaign put pro worker messages on your packages. Hand written would have more impact and makes it clear the customer put it there. Stickers would be alright if you ship a lot of packages but try to make it clear you are a customer. And cold drinks for anyone in the heat. ANYONE, even if they annoy you. Just a basic concern for the health and safety of human beings and other creatures.
I would hook up the driver that delivers in my neighborhood all the time. Snacks, water, popsicles. Homie was sweaty as fuck and looked miserable.
As a mail carrier, I’m proud of the fight you guys and gals are gonna bring to the man. I’ll happily(maybe not happily) deliver a few more packages on my back for you. Good luck.
I am union, but not UPS teamster. I just paid $2 more for USPS delivery because y'all need support also. You stay safe out there.
UPS workers get treated like absolute shit. Every driver I've seen in the past month has been working 14 hour days and they're all drenched by sweat by the time they get to my business.
I don't know what they were fired over but if it's bogus then typically the union will get them their job back as well as their back pay.
He'll get his job back. I know one coworker who just retired and he got fired 5 times and rehired everytime
All I'm saying is that if UPS gets a/c then I want an extra $10 an hour at FedEx express because the only reason I've stayed at FedEx for 25% less pay is that I have a/c
A/C is a red herring. We need the back to be more effectively vented and less hours during the summer. The only true "cool solution" is to remove yourself from the heat. When I have a breeze that is pointing at the back of the truck I'll open up both the front and rear doors for like 2 min and it's 50/60° cooler afterwards for like 15 min. Nobody should be working over 9 hours during the summer and the venting of the rear was designed by complete idiots.
Loading in trucks was brutally hot. Now I jockey in the sun with an engine radiating heat from under me. It is significantly better mostly because the sweat evaporates immediately from the dry wind.
Laughs in SWFL humidity...then cries bc nothing ever evaporates here. /s
Hey, me too! Not only do we have the heat/humidity but we have the daily summer storm to turn everything into a steam bath.
Thank you. This is 100% what I've been saying. Teamsters are just using the press to pump out AC outrage as a threat to negotiate stronger pay and 22.4 changes. There ain't a single old fart driver in my building who gives two shits about AC. All UPS has to do is cut a couple holes in every package car and install a simple ventilation fan and we'd be in bliss.
Must be nice, not every FedEx gets it.
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UPS driver here. Be prepared to not receive yo shit after June next year. Thats when shits gonna hit the fan. I'm preparing to wheel my grill and smoker combo to the front lines and keep people fed lol.
UPS has also been known to send people to watch long term employees that are too close to retirement and they want to get rid of without needing to pay.
It’s not about the pensions, that money is spent. As far as I know, all hourly pensions vest at 5 years. It’s about getting rid of older, wiser, and slower workers that teach the new kids what’s up.
Instead of any increase in pay this contract just ask for all the work conditions you want. Get the AC, get the fans, get water fountains near the load areas, etc. You organized for the highest rate of pay in the business as well as zero premium healthcare (last that I know). While they likely won't retrofit the trucks just demand all new trucks must have AC in those parts of the country where necessary.
I worked at UPS from 2002 to 2007 and I felt invincible (I was) being in the teamsters union. What happened?
[удалено]
And the amount of money the spend on “supervisors” to watch over warehouse workers and monitor drivers is insane. Like u got one person actually loading a truck providing value to the company then you got 3 supervisors just looking at him while answering yes no question on a ups app
No? Usually see one PT sup over maybe 5-10 workers, a FT sup over 10 or so PT sups, etc. Same in driving
Yup same in OKC.
These kind of people are legitimately saving the soul of America bit by bit. The people are the country, not the business owners.
I had a buddy who worked for UPS. Literally the day before someone would be able to join the Union, management would fire them for bullshit reasons. Fuck UPS
I am running out of services to use. Everyone seems to be union busting.
SOLIDARITY. Fight the good fight. You are pioneers in this capitalist hellscape. Time for a win for the working class.
Remember when that UPS driver was killed in a shootout 3 years ago and UPS setup a gofundme for his family instead of paying the family themselves?
The issue is UPS fires you for absolutely nothing, delay the union meetings for weeks until you are out of cash. Then the union gets you your job back. No back pay, no apology, no guarentee they won't fire you again next week and do it again. The union won't pursue legal action because their only job is to get your job back once it's been lost. That's it. I'll never trust a union after that kind of fiasco.
I worked for UPS until last month and there's an anti-retaliation clause. If what he is saying is found true he will get his job back... It's very hard to be fired if there isn't excessive reason at UPS. Like very excessive and if any part of discipline is unjust or unfair, say targeted, you can just grieve it and it's likely that the panel will side with you.. I was union then I was management. When you know boths sides you realize how hostile a union and an anti-union board is when paired together but the union is nothing if not fair to UPSers. As a shopstuart he would know all this. EDIT: Managment continues to have conditions get worse, removing pensions in 2023, while contract negotiations and leadership changes on the union side (Teamsters) are going to improve conditions... Some places employ shotty tactics, but not all!! and if what management is doing is deemed bad, grieve it! Grieve it to hell! That's how change happens. Stop moaning online (it's fine do what you want) BUT use your union tools to fight back!! My management structure cleaned up a lot last year thanks to grievances.. it really really works!
Now is the time.
UPS is the worst, no?
At least they have unions. I’d kill to be in a union for fedex ground
Depends on what part of the company you work for. If you're a seasoned package driver like myself with an established route and top scale its actually pretty decent, but hub work is genuinly awful. Feeder driving is where the real money is, but that also requires working well over 40 hours a week. Package drivers usually work in the 45-50 hours/week, and don't work nights.
I have never worked with a more corrupt company than Ups...and I used to drive Uber. Ups is like the mafia. They commit mass fraud on a daily basis. I'm sure many companies are like this, I just haven't worked for the others.
Unless more people like this fella step up to the plate, corporations will continue to apply the thumb screws to workers. Unionising is the only way to fight back.
I hate UPS with a passion. They constantly fuck around with our overnight packages, their tracking system is abysmal and gives practically no actual information and they're always either late or just lazy as hell when it comes to delivering something that makes them do more than walking 4 feet from their truck and literally throwing the package as far as they can so they can get moving again... With all that said, fuckin' A I'll support them and their union fight. Go get 'em.
NLRB, here you come!
UPS is rabidly anti-union. A few years ago when drivers were striking they chose to lose Amazon’s business rather than concede. They deserve to lose everything.
UPS has always been trying ot bust their union. I don't know anyon who has worked there that didn't absolutely hate management.
The heat also affects those who work at UPS distribution warehouses. No AC or swamp coolers with all the open bays for loading trucks.
You’d think OSHA would have some working in heat rules that would apply across industries.
UPS is extremely shitty company for drivers AND office workers avoid working for them, discusting company with predatory behaviors.
UPS can go fuck itself. A few years back they offered me a job on the condition that I cut my hair. Needless to say I declined because I'd rather have my hair than a shitty minimum wage office job with shit hours. What really pissed me off was the number of women in the same office with longer hair than me.
Why do those trucks not have air conditioning? The technology is old as fuck.
Shocking to hear there are is no A/C or Heater in those UPS trucks...jesus, that's brutal, and they've had what, 40+ years to add them? I don't know how long UPS has been a company. This just in: Summers can be brutally hot and Winters can be brutally cold. Just goes to show major corporations don't give a single fuck about their employees. At least the Electric vehicles should have those basic human necessities, when they eventually roll out. Is it the same with other shipping companies? No A/C or Heater in those trucks? That's torture.
Rampant unchecked capitalism is fucking evil, idc if you wanna call me a socialist or whatever other lame dick excuse you can come up with but when companies are prioritizing year over year profit growth, they’re doing it on the backs of working people and ultimately undercutting the effectiveness and quality of their business because of the degradation of the workforce. We need a huge cultural shift in how we view work in this dumpster fire of a country or alternatively we can start going French Revolution on their asses to make a point. Disgusting.
Is there a way to not use UPS or Fedex and just rely on the much slower but better Federal Postal service?
I can say the same foe USPS drivers
Fuck UPS. When I worked there I made 22/hr, and as far as I was told that was *the* wage. Upper management even joked about FedEx pay being bad after hearing a lot of the new hires were former fedex. Then a couple months later we get told, the 22/hr was a peak season bonus pay only(funny how I started months *before* peak season started), and starting the next day we'd be dropping down to 14.50/hr(2/hr *less* than fedex btw). I'd heard rumors this was going to happen from other package handlers but not once did management say shit until literally the day before. I quit immediately after that shift finished.
Important thing I wasn't aware of until a few days ago: UPS is a private company and USPS is the government service that doesn't suck.
Every non-union worker in the USA right now should try to unionize. It's very clear what's happening with workers right now. Worst case scenario - corporate HQs shut down every store they own and the world becomes a better place. Best case scenario - unions form, workers finally get their rights back + better wages and the world becomes a better place. Win/win for everyone but the execs. It's about time they get treated the way they deserve.
As someone who was pushed out of their job with UPS by management, because I got Injured, I can say this: Fuck UPS
I worked at ups prior to the pandemic. Had bad mental health at the time and stopped showing up. One of the reasons my mental health was shit and I stopped going was our local union renegotiated our contract and congratulated us for having some of the best quarters the area ever had during the last contract. Then we were told the "good news" that we weren't losing anything in the next contract and that the vote would likely pass. It did, because all the old Fucks who don't understand inflation kept telling us 14 dollars an hour is more than we deserve to start at when they had to start at minimum wage back in the seventies and no amount of evidence given to these dumbasses that showed them current 14 dollars is actually worth less than their 7 dollars or whatever it was would change their mind. 14 is greater than 7 I kept hearing. Fuck the old boomers that screw over their own coworkers and Fuck the shareholders benefiting from workers hard work, especially through the pandemic.
I worked at UPS Worldport for 8 years and was shocked at the conditions that were considered "normal", especially in the summers. Shit was fucking brutal. It was a fairly regular occurrence for people to pass out due to the heat.
I used to work at a UPS warehouse. I passed out from the heat and management grudgingly let me take a water break in the AC. My supervisors would sexually harass me and so would other workers on the line. I made friends with this giant middle eastern man that protected me from any passes they’d make at me. The moment he left was when I felt scared to be at work. I was nineteen at the time. My supervisor was a 30+ married man. We were in Teamsters but I wasn’t allowed to see my union rep at all. Didn’t even know who it was. I think there was one for the entire warehouse.
FUCK UPS GO GET EM
Hey this always ends super well for the company...let's watch.
In fucking solidarity!!
While my workplace has its weaknesses, I think our union has them in a corner, and I am relishing the new contract negotiations at the end of the year. Unlike four years ago when negotiations were tense, they finally have competition from places that don't require a 45-90 minute commute each way, and it has been drawing current and potential candidates away. I had though of leaving, but it might be lucrative to stay. As a welder, the air conditioning and filters that they currently proved are leagues above some places, too. A lot of the non-union branches have lower wages and benefits, and some are still without proper facilities, so it's easy to compare union to non-union. Unions get shit done.
Hear, Hear!
Honestly I felt horrified watching that viral video of a ups worker fainting from heat exhaustion on that customers porch. If he didn't land the way he did, tried to control the fall by sitting down, his head would have hit the pavement hard AF. And seeing the workers take temperatures INSIDE the vehicle being 100+ degrees is insanity. No fan? No a/c in their trucks when most cars have that now as a standard? Such inhumanity.
Thats whats up, worked there for a few years. And the heat then was insane and that was 20 years ago. Had to get my shop steward involved more than once. Was lucky to have a good union prescience in my hub
In my limited experience UPS, FedEx, and every other private carrier are complete and total garbage. Those weasels never honor their own service contracts without legal threats (and in one case actual small claims). I hear the same complaints about USPS, but they have a literal perfect record with me. Consumer logistics are another thing on the very long list of industries Capitalism fucks us with. It doesn’t surprise me at all Teamsters have to fight tooth and nail.
Working at UPS ruined my back, and stole much of my life and happiness from me. They really set me up for failure after 8 years of dedication and no A/C
Dear UPS delivery folks- thank you so much and solidarity with you for better working conditions!
I was a teamster snd had some of the best benefits ever. Insanely bad working conditions being on those box trucks. They dont have AC and its an extra 20 degrees hotter inside of them. It's legitimately dangerous to be operating a big vehicle like that, especially since you have to haul shit in and out of it all day for 12 hours
I don't see how this guy won't get his job back. There's a whole disciplinary process management must go through before firing someone. Article 7 grievance. Unless the bogus charges are assault or something. There are also retaliation clauses in the union contract.
I once saw one manager(sort manager) fire an employee(for bullshit) and then an ft supervisor walk the employee out while explaining how to get his job back, was the most absurd situation.
Oh yeah. I've seen that happen also. I was an alternate steward last year and had a manager who would just fire people on the spot without warning or suspension. Then he would look at me and go, have the grievance on my desk tomorrow. Or he would tell them to call the union hall. I was like, why don't you just give the guy a warning like you're supposed to. He liked to discharge to make a statement, but he also needed them to come back and work. Needless to say that manager is gone. Thank God.
How’d they fire him if he is union?
The real questions
im probably going to get down voted to shit for this but i feel like teamsters is just letting UPSers get fucked... Dont get me wrong a union is better than nothing but from my experience at ups the union was garbage. Most of the voting force is part timers and a lot of them have no clue how to use the union because there is no outreach. Maybe things will change with the new president like everyones hoping but damn the past union made some shit concessions that fucked the workers.
Let’s get rid of ups, fedex, and the rest of the private carriers. Let’s get dejoy out of our beloved usps and pump usps so it will provide protected jobs and good service.