Everybody better pack a lunch.

705red

Browncafe Steward
Sorry, I could not find in the Federal Law the provisions about the DOT regulated employee must have access to restrooms and proper lunch place.
You are probably right though (with your degree in locker room law), I'll go back and read that law again or maybe UPS lawyers already have. :wink2:

So as a Cut Driver who spends alot of days in the middle of nowhere.........
New rules regarding how and where break is spent in the Minnesnowta district.

Any driver who wishes to take break cannot break trace by more than .25 miles.

Break starts as soon as driver breaks trace, and ends when driver is back on trace. Break time must be coded when the vehicle is stopped and the engine is shut off.

And finally for those of us who can't make it to a gas station or restaurant when it -10, any break taken on trace must be done so with the vehicle stopped and the engine shut OFF.

All this is very interesting. What's even more interesting is when meeting with the strongarms from the Union to tell them that " we own the trucks and pay for the gas, so we get to make the rules." All they said in reply was NOTHING. I'm glad to see where my dues go.

I don't really think any of this will fly in the long run, but until then I'll just continue to bang my head against my bulkhead.


http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regulations/topics/hos/index.htm


File a complaint with your DOT and don't listen to wanna be operation sups that are tied down to a cubicle in the basement somewhere! Ups lawyers are not god and have been proved wrong many many many times over and over again. I have already filed a complaint with the DOT because on Thursday they instructed us to do this. DO not falsify your diad, this is our log book and you can and will be charged for altering and falsifying it.











i
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
Somthing to bear in mind is that we do not actually "clock off" until after our lunch is over and we enter then duration of that lunch into the DIAD.

A driver who is operating a UPS vehicle is automatically on the clock and if an accident occured on the way to/from lunch he would be on the clock for the purposes of liability and workmens comp.

I will not disagree with the fact that the company should have every right to limit "personal' use of its vehicles and minimize excess mileage and nonproductive time.

A driver in an urban area with numerous public restrooms/restraunts should have little or no need to break trace by any significant amount in order to eat or go to the bathroom.

In rural areas however, the company does not have the right to effectively deny its employees the right to use suitable sanitary toilet facilities by chaining them to a "trace".

The company and the union need to agree upon a reasonable set of rules to cover these situations. Arbitrary .25 mile "boundaries" are not reasonable. Telling drivers they must pee in the bushes is not reasonable. Telling drivers that they cannot wash their hands is not reasonable.Telling drivers that they must sit in the truck in sub-zero weather without idling for heat is not reasonable.

Lets be reasonable!
 

Catatonic

Nine Lives
Hoax, the rules apply to all employees, not just DOT-regulated employees.

It's against the Law to urinate and/or defecate in public. You can't just step outside your package car and relieve yourself by the curb. You'll be arrested. You need a restroom.

Agreed ... there may be some routes where the ability to relieve yourself is not on trace (or within a 1/4 mile) and UPS may have to find a way to comply with the law on those routes. This probably does not apply to many routes though and probably none of the drivers posting in this thread.
 

Catatonic

Nine Lives
My elected and Teamster officials are not the ones making up operational rules that deny employees the right to use a restroom.

They are the ones that wrote this law and thus causing UPS to react so it's employees can take their lunch with their integrity intact by not stealing time.
Just another example of a poorly crafted law whose implementation and enforcement has unintended effects.

The ADA law had the unintended effect of causing homelessness because abandoned houses and apartment buildings seized by the local governments could not be converted to housing for the homeless unless they were converted to be handicap accessible.
 
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40 and out

Well-Known Member
Part of this is simple and part of this is the good old gray area. Your lunch and break are from the time the package car is shut off until it is turned back on. If you are driving, you are on the clock. If they try to tell you different,work as directed and grieve it. No way this b.s. will stand. Breaking trace is the good old gray area. Talk to 100 different people and get 100 different answers on this. Again,work as directed and grieve it,but who knows what the result would be. Maybe by grieving it we could get some kind of reasonable ruling,
 

Catatonic

Nine Lives
Part of this is simple and part of this is the good old gray area. Your lunch and break are from the time the package car is shut off until it is turned back on. If you are driving, you are on the clock. If they try to tell you different,work as directed and grieve it. No way this b.s. will stand. Breaking trace is the good old gray area. Talk to 100 different people and get 100 different answers on this. Again,work as directed and grieve it,but who knows what the result would be. Maybe by grieving it we could get some kind of reasonable ruling,

Good advice ... don't do anything stupid based on principle (UPS has too many employees).

PS - I've never read anywhere in this thread or in other threads where UPS has instructed a driver to drive the PC while on the clock. Drivers have been instructed to take their lunch on trace (or up to .25 miles off-trace).

It is unfortunate that the Federal Government and the Teamsters have put the drivers in this position. Common sense and a sense of integrity allowed flexibility in this area until this law was passed.
 

MC4YOU2

Wherever I see Trump, it smells like he's Putin.
Good advice ... don't do anything stupid based on principle (UPS has too many employees).

PS - I've never read anywhere in this thread or in other threads where UPS has instructed a driver to drive the PC while on the clock. Drivers have been instructed to take their lunch on trace (or up to .25 miles off-trace).

It is unfortunate that the Federal Government and the Teamsters have put the drivers in this position. Common sense and a sense of integrity allowed flexibility in this area until this law was passed.


Is the instruction a one way or round trip limit? Is it a 1/2 mile total, or a 1/4 mile total?
 

Catatonic

Nine Lives
Is the instruction a one way or round trip limit? Is it a 1/2 mile total, or a 1/4 mile total?

That was dookiebrowns that brought that up ... I'll let him speak to that.

I have a feeling that is a general guideline that may vary by location. Corporate IE would probably say "Can't break trace".
 

upsgrunt

Well-Known Member
It is unfortunate that the Federal Government and the Teamsters have put the drivers in this position. Common sense and a sense of integrity allowed flexibility in this area until this law was passed.

So, in your opinion, UPS has no blame in this decision about lunches, breaks, and going off trace to do so?
 

Catatonic

Nine Lives
So, in your opinion, UPS has no blame in this decision about lunches, breaks, and going off trace to do so?

I don't see as a situation with "Blame".
UPS has the responsibility to comply with the law and to have their employees work with integrity.
There is no blame ... it is a reaction to a change in law.
 

bumped

Well-Known Member
I don't argue, nor do I complain about it. I take my lunch and my breaks when I'm at a viable location after the 3rd hour. Then, I break trace later to deliver my businesses before my pickups. It takes more time and more miles, but thats the way they want it. So be it.
 

upsgrunt

Well-Known Member
I don't see as a situation with "Blame".
UPS has the responsibility to comply with the law and to have their employees work with integrity.
There is no blame ... it is a reaction to a change in law.


That's a pretty good answer. I don't understand how the change in the law, the Teamsters blame, and why UPS must make new guidelines concerning this area are all linked together. (At least the part about "reasonablility")
 

Bubblehead

My Senior Picture
Just don't advertise it Cement at your building - appears your management is operating under the "Don't ask, don't tell" program.

Call DOT because a driver disobeyed orders and drove a DOT regulated vehicle while not on the clock?
I don't quite follow the logic.

Sorry, I could not find in the Federal Law the provisions about the DOT regulated employee must have access to restrooms and proper lunch place.
You are probably right though (with your degree in locker room law), I'll go back and read that law again or maybe UPS lawyers already have. :wink2:

Don't talk about your elected officials and Teamster officials like that.

Excellent advice.

My boy is all worked up tonight.
Or should I say liquored up?
 
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