CACH Illinois hub Service Failing milions of packages this week!

The Other Side

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I just got home from CACH Illinois where we had to run to grab a ton of trailers that were already failed by the giant hub. UPS is currently flying out managers, supervisors and any other management personnel with a Class A license to move trailers around Chicago.

What a mess, the month after a disastrous peak and UPS is still failing millions of packages.

Weather was horrible in Chicago when we arrived in our tractors. I would never live there, both the Bedford Park Hub and Cach facilities are huge and amazing to visit.

UPS is extremely busy and maybe now that they are consistently failing the operation, they will make the investments into infrastructure that is necessary to properly run this business once again.

Maybe those cuts to the bone are finally exposing the weakness of the company?

Who knows, all I know, is that I spent 5 days on the road being diverted from state to state all the way home.

We got to see Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri,Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and back home to California!

We lost a sleeper team in the rockies when the ICC forced us all to continue driving in the rockies ( glenwood springs) in a major snowstorm with near zero visibility. The team jacknifed at marker 128 tunnel before vail in heavy snow and ice without chains.

The tractor was a total loss, and the trailers damaged (while full) were towed all the way down to Denver. Both drivers had to be airlifted off the mountain. This crashed happened at 9pm in the pitch black causing a three hour delay for the rest of our teams making our way to Cach.

The trailers we picked up in Cach, had an expected arrival date of 1/8/14 to grande vista hub in Vernon California and we hooked them up on 1/9/14 and brought them home today saturday 1/11/14.

Time for this company to see the err's of its ways before the water begins circling the drain.

TOS.
 

The Other Side

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Correction: the two drivers who crashed were not "lost" as it may have implied. They were both injured badly enough for airlift and their condition stabilized. By saying "lost" I meant the team itself, the tractor, trailers and the run.

I dont want to give the wrong impression.

TOS.
 

Brownslave688

You want a toe? I can get you a toe.
Slightly off topic but one of the head union guys at our last meeting made it sound like he thinks there is a full time hiring spree on the way.
 

Inthegame

Well-Known Member
Hope the drivers are OK. We had a little weather in the Midwest last week that had CACH pretty jammed up. Would've been a nice ride in the summer.
PS Bedford is an outpost compared to CACH.
 

'Lord Brown's bidding'

Well-Known Member
Slightly off topic but one of the head union guys at our last meeting made it sound like he thinks there is a full time hiring spree on the way.

Does he have an inside connection? Is he a solid lead?

I am hoping that all of this leads to more feeder gigs, especially considering a lot of the failures are due to shortages of feeder drivers. Here, during peak we were affected by 60 trailers that were in Burtonsville MD that couldn't be moved due to a lack of drivers.

I am just hoping for a call for a class in Feb (and for no snow, to avoid having a silly accident that would disqualify me from joining feeders).
 

Brownslave688

You want a toe? I can get you a toe.
Does he have an inside connection? Is he a solid lead?

I am hoping that all of this leads to more feeder gigs, especially considering a lot of the failures are due to shortages of feeder drivers. Here, during peak we were affected by 60 trailers that were in Burtonsville MD that couldn't be moved due to a lack of drivers.

I am just hoping for a call for a class in Feb (and for no snow, to avoid having a silly accident that would disqualify me from joining feeders).
I do know after 5 years of begging they are finally doing a feeder school here and it may have been more center specific for us but we all expect 4-5 drivers to be hired before summer seasonal.

I think it was more he's hoping the company is starting to realize they cut about as much as they can cut and some hiring needs to happen. You have centers that have lost 15,20,25 drivers and only filled a handful of those positions if that. At some point you've cut the max and hiring must start.
 

'Lord Brown's bidding'

Well-Known Member
In my center we have had a few utilities be allowed to make seniority this summer, a number equal to the total for the past year or so, and there are more coming apparently.
 

lazydriver

Well-Known Member
I hope and pray for the sleeper team.
When I retired last Oct. I did not think the company would start to fall apart. I might have to sell my UPS stock.
My feeder run was put up for bid immediately, and a senior driver took it over. Of the six other feeder drivers that retired around the same time as me, their runs did not go to bid, because their runs were on vacation coverage til the free period in Nov. The shop steward called me 3 weeks ago and said this was the worst Peak he has seen.
 

The Other Side

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One of the best parts of my trip was seeing my instructor driving a tractor like a WAD driver in CACH..! Several of our on road sups are still in CACH driving WAD feeder. I am sure nobody in CACH knows these are supervisors and not hourly drivers.

Plenty of WLA so cal supervisors are working up in cach this week...

TOS
 

UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)

Well-Known Member
TOS, your OP contradicts itself. On the one hand, you comment on how horrible the weather was in Chicago, yet on the other hand you complain that we are constantly failing the operation and need to invest in our infrastructure.

UPS can't control the weather which also shut down Indy for 2 days. No amount of expanded infrastructure would have allowed Indy to operate either of those 2 days.

Locally, Watertown NY got slammed with lake-effect snow, with up to 5' in some areas. They shut down for 1 day and are still struggling to get caught up. Expanding the facility does not stop the wind from drawing moisture from Lake Erie and dumping it on to the Watertown area.

Weather happens----it is how the company responds that is important and expanding infrastructure is not an appropriate response.
 

Richard Harrow

Deplorable.
That's terrible news about our guys on that feeder team, I hope that they'll be OK. This is just another example of profits before people. Last week with temps here in the single digits and ice and snow everywhere, they still went on with the operation and then scratched their heads when my center alone had 1 accident and 1 injury.

Scotty boy is trying his damnedest to go down as the worst CEO in the history of the company. Sure he's maximizing profits, but it's at the expense of safety and service.
 
One of the best parts of my trip was seeing my instructor driving a tractor like a WAD driver in CACH..! Several of our on road sups are still in CACH driving WAD feeder. I am sure nobody in CACH knows these are supervisors and not hourly drivers.

Plenty of WLA so cal supervisors are working up in cach this week...

TOS
So you've gone to feeders?
 

UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)

Well-Known Member
Last week with temps here in the single digits and ice and snow everywhere, they still went on with the operation and then scratched their heads when my center alone had 1 accident and 1 injury.

Suppose they had shut down the operation for the day. Do those packages mysteriously disappear? Of course they don't-----shutting down begins a snowball effect which take up to a week to fully recover from. Yes, it was a business decision, with the costs associated with the accident and injury considered to be a cost of doing business, but the costs associated with shutting down for the day are normally much higher.

We had an ice storm a few weeks and up until yesterday we still had sidewalks and driveways caked in ice. Our rural drivers are told to use extreme caution and to think twice before going down any driveway. City drivers are told to use extreme caution in all parking lots and on sidewalks, walkways and driveways. There was a stretch of 2+ days where the temp remained below zero. Was any thought given to shutting down? No.
 
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