Chemah Air Drivah Rumah

UnconTROLLed

perfection
We have 22.3 combo EAM drivers. If anything more comes that they can't handle they would call in an air exception driver. Come to find out, someone filled a grievance (my building or yours I don't know) that went to the national air board or where ever it went that came back and said EAM work is FT driver work. Maybe this is what is hapening.

EAM is not FT driver in our center, however the other 3 centers I am not sure. THere are 3 EAM drivers in our center; all 3 are 22.3.

I believe 22.3 air drivers are considered full-time drivers by contract. However they are not full-time "package car" classification drivers. Not sure the meat and potatos of the grievance and whether or not the outcome has definitive wording.
 

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EAM is not FT driver in our center, however the other 3 centers I am not sure. THere are 3 EAM drivers in our center; all 3 are 22.3.

I believe 22.3 air drivers are considered full-time drivers by contract.

Ours are FT. But any extra work is given in seniority order to FT drivers that want it. THey simply lose 1030 air to an air exception driver and make it back to the building when they make it and their trucks are loaded and waiting. It used to be that air exception drivers would run the eams but not after that grievance cleared the national level.
 

UnconTROLLed

perfection
The guys who run early AM have to leave early, before preload is down. So they have another route that shuttles all the stuff out to them that comes down after they leave. The guys who pick up the drop boxes start late, like 0945 - 1000. All the routes involved were set up before the last bid, so anyone doing it now is doing it by choice.

The EAM drivers you are talking about that lost work, were part-time air? full-time air?
 

Jones

fILE A GRIEVE!
Staff member
Are those low seniority routes now? I would imagine there aren't many people who want to start (and finish) later.
You'd be surprised. Guys with 15 - 20 years take those routes. No PCM, and very little hassle. They can't really over dispatch you too much because you're bringing back all those airs from the boxes.
 

browniehound

Well-Known Member
Where are the savings, you ask? If each center eliminates just 1 or 2 air drivers, that's maybe 1500 less package cars that the company needs to purchase, maintain and fuel. 1500 less health plans, retirement fundings, uniforms, DIADs and in some cases a pt or ft sup position can be saved. NDA is down 20-25% from where it used to be. Driver levels down about 10%. Air drivers end up driving the same to and from miles as a ground driver, only to deliver or pickup a few stops. It only makes sense to consolidate the routes. The wage differential is not that great of a difference once you add benefits. The vehicle costs more than make up for it.

You make an excellent point '2yearsAgo' and in theory what you say makes a lot of sense. More sense than I ever hear from UPS.

Problem is, UPS never puts it into practice. I see supervisors driving around in package cars by themselves. Why? What are they doing? They are wasting fuel and putting another package car on the road that doesn't show up in the center numbers.

You can only cut the air route so many times before they realize there is a need for it. It was put in for a reason and that reason becomes quite clear when the route is cut. Yes, you may get away with it for a day here and a day here, but never on a regular basis

There are always packages left behind that must be delivered or shuttled out also. So here is another package car going unnecessarily every day! Shuttled out is the worst because you are wasting 2 drivers time so one of them can deliver one ground package. Now we are talking 10 minutes of time for each driver plus 10-15 minutes of trace-breaking time for the other driver to deliver a ground package.

That's 30 minutes of labor I would never pay if it were my business.

I understand service is important, but if it were my business I would leave the packages to be delivered the following day. Only UPS fanatical managers would pay a driver $29/hour to deliver or shuttle 10 ground packages over a 4 hour period.

I say eat the 10 packages, no? I bet none of the customers will look for a refund on any of those packages. If someone does look for a refund, UPS will most likely stiff them anyway, so what are we loosing here? Just send them the next day in the 'efficiency mobile' any other way would be a cost KILLER!

Why send Joe all over the place to make service on parcels that 99% of our customers don't care about? If the customer really cared, they would have sent it air!

Doesn't make sense to pay someone $100 to obtain $10 in profit. Does it?

Just send them the next day, I would if it were my business....
 

UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)

Well-Known Member
...and you would quickly be out of business as word of mouth would spread about your lack of concern for customer service.

I was missing a pkg yesterday which ended up on one of our Lake Placid package cars. The driver was instructed to sheet as missed. We happened to get back to the bldg at the same time. He asked me if I was missing a package and I said yes. He voided the pkg and I sheeted and delivered on my way home and, yes, they adjusted my punch out time accordingly. Package was delivered and customer was taken care of. (I would have run it for free--her parents are friends of mine and she played hockey with my daughter)

We had an incident last week in which 8 large packages for a marina in Lake Placid would not fit on the PC. Rather than run them up there our center sheeted as CLO VAC. Customer tracked the packages and blew a gasket.
 

over9five

Moderator
Staff member
We had an incident last week in which 8 large packages for a marina in Lake Placid would not fit on the PC. Rather than run them up there our center sheeted as CLO VAC. Customer tracked the packages and blew a gasket.

And the person who did that should be terminated immediately. I hate unethical behaviour.
 

iowa boy

Well-Known Member
And the person who did that should be terminated immediately. I hate unethical behaviour.

If it was an hourly that made that decision, they would have, in the least, earned themselves a piece of paper stated that they screwed up and dont do it again. Or be fired for falsification. But most, ( and I mean most, not all), management that make decisions like that never have a word said to them, let alone receive a letter or told you are fired.
 

UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)

Well-Known Member
If it was an hourly that made that decision, they would have, in the least, earned themselves a piece of paper stated that they screwed up and dont do it again. Or be fired for falsification. But most, ( and I mean most, not all), management that make decisions like that never have a word said to them, let alone receive a letter or told you are fired.

It was not an hourly. The ironic part is that it was an hourly who heard it from that same customer the following day when he had to deliver those same 8 boxes.
 

JonFrum

Member
. . .This can't really happen, can it?. Why pay a full-time driver $44/hour or $88 over 2 hours to deliver 3 EAM parcels when you can pay an air driver 16-$22 an hour to do so? In the same spirit, how can you pay a full-time driver $44/hour from 1730-2030 to pick-up letter boxes when you can pay an air-driver 16-22$ to do so?

It just doesn't make any sense to me?
What you and a lot of people are forgetting is the Contract (still) requires almost all air packages to be processed by regular package car drivers, just like any other less profitable ground package.

ARTICLE 40. AIR OPERATION
Section 1 - Air Drivers
(a) Air driver work shall consist of delivery and pickup of air packages which, because of time and customer commitments, cannot be reasonably performed by regular package drivers. . . .

Indeed, once upon a time, before contract concessions became the norm, there were no lower paid "air" drivers, so all packages were handled by the regular package car driver.
 

over9five

Moderator
Staff member
I think Upstate should do the right thing and report this dishonest cheating of our customer to the Ethics Hotline.
 

tourists24

Well-Known Member
What you and a lot of people are forgetting is the Contract (still) requires almost all air packages to be processed by regular package car drivers, just like any other less profitable ground package.

ARTICLE 40. AIR OPERATION
Section 1 - Air Drivers
(a) Air driver work shall consist of delivery and pickup of air packages which, because of time and customer commitments, cannot be reasonably performed by regular package drivers. . . .

Indeed, once upon a time, before contract concessions became the norm, there were no lower paid "air" drivers, so all packages were handled by the regular package car driver.
lol.... I remember when our part time air drivers were accused of taking the work from the package drivers. Then we saw how convenient it was to not have any air commitments so we became happy again. Now things are going back to the way it was.... I think the company sees us getting happy and just change their minds....
 

edd_tv

Cardboard picker upper
when they eliminated our pm air drivers we had a few letter boxes that had 1930 pickup times. a few days of setting for 2 or sometimes three hours at overtime rate caused them to change the time on the boxes
 

barnyard

KTM rider
We have 22.3 combo EAM drivers. If anything more comes that they can't handle they would call in an air exception driver. Come to find out, someone filled a grievance (my building or yours I don't know) that went to the national air board or where ever it went that came back and said EAM work is FT driver work. Maybe this is what is hapening.

We had a couple of FT drivers file the same grievance. They were told that they can take work from a PT air driver, but not a 22.3 combo.

In our building, there are weeks that air drivers only work on Saturdays. Also, we had one air driver quit and that driver was not replaced. Instead, they put up a bid for a PT preloader or local sorter to sign. It hung for 2 weeks before someone signed it. Until that person was trained, they allowed a FT driver to work a 6th day. They offered the work by seniority.

We also have routes that start early to cover EAMs. The route that I am covering meets an early starter and drops off any packages that came down the belt after he left.

I can see that having an air driver that only works one day per week would be expensive. All that person's benefits still have to be paid for that week.

Clearly a case where a few ruined it for many.
 

UnconTROLLed

perfection
You'd be surprised. Guys with 15 - 20 years take those routes. No PCM, and very little hassle. They can't really over dispatch you too much because you're bringing back all those airs from the boxes.

Many drivers, I would imagine, hop on that bid! Wake up late, no/less crazy traffic coming in, no/less AM madness in the building, no/less traffic getting on route...staying up later at night....

Sounds like a decent retirement route if your kids are grown, Or even for the less seniority drivers who have less home commitments.
 
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