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The family of a young United Parcel Service (UPS) worker who died on the job in Waco in August has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the company.

Jose Cruz Rodriguez, Jr., 23, was found dead around 2 a.m. August 12 in the parking lot of his work, the UPS Facility at 5700 Franklin Ave.

The civil suit was filed in the State District Court of Dallas County Tuesday. Along with UPS, two of Rodriguez’ supervisors are named as defendants in the suit.

According to the petition filed by Rodriguez’ mother and father, their son died as a result of heat stroke, which was preventable, and as a result, management was negligent.

Driver Jeff Barron goes above and beyond what’s asked of him

Every Thursday over the next few weeks, we’re highlighting Central Georgians who bring positivity to people in their community.

This week, we’re celebrating UPS Driver Jeff Barron. He’s an employee that truly goes beyond the call of duty, and folks in Bleckley County believe he puts a little YAY in their day.

On weekdays, Barron spreading love and happiness to the people of Cochran.

“You get to meet so many people in their businesses and their homes, and they seem most of time they’re happy to see you because it is something they ordered they want, they’re looking for,” said Barron.

Like letter carriers at the Postal Service, UPS drivers are also facing forced overtime—and the problem is only going to get worse as the holidays get closer.

In Columbus, Ohio, a little collective action “did a lot of good for morale,” said delivery driver and Teamsters Local 413 steward Nick Perry.

The issue: UPS is ordering drivers in the top tier, called “regular package car drivers,” to work on Saturdays.

There’s already a second tier, “hybrid drivers,” who work every Saturday (and earn lower wages). But the union contract limits hybrids to 25 percent of the workforce, so UPS can’t hire any more of them.

Rather than pay all the benefits costs of hiring more regular drivers, the company is willing to pay the premium to force its existing regular drivers in on their day off so it can run more routes on the weekends.

A keynote session at the “Groundbreakers 2021: Breaking New Ground” conference hosted by San Francisco-based real estate investment trust company Prologis this week touched upon both the pain points and the opportunities that the Covid-19 pandemic has created for the supply chain.

The session featured Prologis CEO Hamid Moghadam and Carol Tomé, CEO of Atlanta-based global transportation and logistics bellwether UPS, two leading industry executives. And they both talked about the impact of the ongoing global supply chain issues on their respective companies.

Tomé said that UPS delivers small packages to 2% of the world’s GDP and 6% of the United States’ GDP on a daily basis, but the pandemic, she said, brought about a steep change in demand.

“We were flooded with volume that we did not expect to see until 2023,” said Tomé. “A year ago, we had to hire 40,000 people into our network to handle that demand, in the face of Covid and keeping everyone safe. The supply chain issues are real. If you go upstream, not downstream, which is where we play, from raw materials to manufacturer, with so much of that outside the U.S. and then flowing into the U.S., you see [things] really jammed up.”

Several customers awaiting deliveries of their new redesigned MacBook Pros are being told that their shipments are being delayed due to “mechanical” issues impacting UPS, a courier used by Apple to ship its devices worldwide.

“A mechanical failure has caused a delay” is the message several customers are being told when they track their new MacBook Pro shipment. Customers on the MacRumors Forum are also reporting that UPS is sending emails to customers informing them of unknown mechanical failures and that estimated delivery dates will vary depending on the conditions on the ground.

The mechanical failures, possibly about aircraft, are causing shipments of MacBook Pros, and presumably, other consumer electronic devices, to be left stationary on the ground in cities in China. Some shipments are still on-the-ground in Shanghai and Seoul, South Korea, and publicly available flight records show few UPS flights scheduled to depart either city today, at the time of writing