Fed Expectations

Dfigtree

Well-Known Member
They knew they were going public within five years. Thus why not offer it to the hourlies.

The job action (no one actually goes on strike anymore), the job action was about the pension fund as I recall. Would you like to pay for your neighbor's kid's college education? UPS did not want to put money into a general fund for the benefit of all Teamsters. UPS wanted to pay just for UPS teamsters and UPS wanted to manage the fund's investments. No more funding the building of casinos in Nevada. I could be wrong but that is how I recall it.
 

dilligaf

IN VINO VERITAS
How much more in profits has UPS earned since the strike in 97? Around 30 billion give or take a million.

How many more full time jobs do we have over that strike?

And I also remember that the other delivery companies combined would not handle our packages! If fedex closed up to day we could just about absorb it right in without blinking an eye! Not that I want to see this happen.
Tell me about it. I was working on a freight dock when that strike happened. We were slammed and could not keep up with the volume. :surprised:
 

brownIEman

Well-Known Member
Kelly was trying to break the union. Why do you think stock was offered to hourlies in 95.


If that is true then Kelly was a maroon. Offering to sell a bit of stock to hourlies is not a smart way to break a union. If you want to break a union, you get them to instigate a strike and then walk away from the negotiations and hire replacements off the street and start over as a slimmer opperation. Maybe even as an express airline under the RLA. You don't capitulate after two weeks.

Or, alternately, maybe Kelly was not a maroon and was not trying to break the union.
 

Brown287

Im not the Mail Man!
Contractors and thier employees wil be the first to feel the pain at Fed-Ex when thier scheme comes to an end. The reason is simple, they arnt employees of Fed-Ex remember so out of all the Fed-Ex delivery people they are the most expendable. It will be as if "bbsam" and his employees never existed. Just like RPS they will be nothing more than a fading memory.
 

dragracer66

Well-Known Member
the "cheap" contractor will be one of the "first tossed out in the street"? so that fred can hire the more expensive and more susceptible to unionization hourly workers? really? do you have any idea of how economics works, and if so why on earth would fedex jettison the less expensive labor for the more expensive? and just so you know, should your scenario play out, i'm not too proud to clean toilets and pick up gargage. i'd even stoop low enough to turn some wrenches as a mechanic at ups.:happy-very:
You have no idea how the union works. The teamsters would never allow them to keep contractors after getting organized so yea you would be gone. Stooping low enough to turn wrenches???. You make me laugh. I make more in 3 days than you do in 6 days as a contractor. Hows your benefits you pay for, hows your dental you pay for, hows your prescription you pay for, hows your pension that you don't get from fed ex. Oh yea how about vacation, sick personal days?? So it does look like I know how economics work you get jack!!! Also as a contractor all you do is take work from the "real" fed ex driver. Thats more of a reason they would want to get organized!!!
 

skir

Los Angeles CA
Contractors and thier employees wil be the first to feel the pain at Fed-Ex when thier scheme comes to an end. The reason is simple, they arnt employees of Fed-Ex remember so out of all the Fed-Ex delivery people they are the most expendable. It will be as if "bbsam" and his employees never existed. Just like RPS they will be nothing more than a fading memory.

And like 90% of the DHL drivers and their trucks gone
 

bbsam

Moderator
Staff member
:sick:
You have no idea how the union works. The teamsters would never allow them to keep contractors after getting organized so yea you would be gone. Stooping low enough to turn wrenches???. You make me laugh. I make more in 3 days than you do in 6 days as a contractor. Hows your benefits you pay for, hows your dental you pay for, hows your prescription you pay for, hows your pension that you don't get from fed ex. Oh yea how about vacation, sick personal days?? So it does look like I know how economics work you get jack!!! Also as a contractor all you do is take work from the "real" fed ex driver. Thats more of a reason they would want to get organized!!!
apparently we make each other laugh. my benefits are paid for out of pocket. yeah, a little over eight hundred a month. good plan for the money though. vacation? one of my contracts is the vacation contract, but i hire someone else to do most of the work. i usually work 3-4 hours a day, easy stuff though. no, no pension, but i do have 6 routes i can sell for 70-100k each. actually one of them is for sale if you're interested. as for making more money, i doubt it, but if you do, i guarantee you work harder for it than i do.:happy2:sick personal days? any day i want. as mel brooks once said, "it's good to be the king." "get jack"? what is "get jack" i think i'm supposed to be offended, but for the life of me i'm only intrigued in what it could possibly mean. "get jack" and please, relax i can almost feel your blood pressure through the keyboard. i'm sure you're position at brown is secure so why incur the need to use your health care over something as frivolous as words on a page. that just makes everyone's health care costs go up.
 

BrownBlue

New Jack
All that, and you are a break down, serious crash, or lawsuit against you away from bancrupcy. Live the dream while you can, because it is only a dream, brought to you by your lord and master Fred. How's the Koolaid, and did you have to pay for those purple tinted glasses.
 

skir

Los Angeles CA
:sick:
apparently we make each other laugh. my benefits are paid for out of pocket. yeah, a little over eight hundred a month. good plan for the money though. vacation? one of my contracts is the vacation contract, but i hire someone else to do most of the work. i usually work 3-4 hours a day, easy stuff though. no, no pension, but i do have 6 routes i can sell for 70-100k each. actually one of them is for sale if you're interested. as for making more money, i doubt it, but if you do, i guarantee you work harder for it than i do.:happy2:sick personal days? any day i want. as mel brooks once said, "it's good to be the king." "get jack"? what is "get jack" i think i'm supposed to be offended, but for the life of me i'm only intrigued in what it could possibly mean. "get jack" and please, relax i can almost feel your blood pressure through the keyboard. i'm sure you're position at brown is secure so why incur the need to use your health care over something as frivolous as words
on a page. that just makes everyone's health care costs go up.

hopefully fedex still need you when you retire, just ask the DHL contractors what happen to them. I don't their routes are $100,000 anymore.
 

tieguy

Banned
Kelly was trying to break the union. Why do you think stock was offered to hourlies in 95.

As far as breaking the union consider a couple of points:

The teamsters were well prepared for this strike. They had thier marketing plan already set up selling the part timers wanting full time jobs theme. They had professional spokes people already hired to go out on tv and sell that theme.

UPS on the other hand stumbled badly in public and quickly lost the marketing war because they were not prepared for the strike.

Jim Kelly went on meet the press and was constantly asked about replacement workers. He refused to consider that option and continously answered that he just wanted to get this settled and get "our people" back.

As the strike continued into the third week we had large shippers begging us to start picking them up. As we cleaned up our system during this time the plan that was being formulated would have had us picking up from these large shippers charging them premium prices with no time guarantees. We could have ridden this strike out for a long time charging premium prices. Shippers would have had no other option but to pay what we asked.

Put it all together and I think it shows that UPS was ill prepared for any such concept of breaking the union and had no intent to do so.
 

brownmonster

Man of Great Wisdom
As far as breaking the union consider a couple of points:

The teamsters were well prepared for this strike. They had thier marketing plan already set up selling the part timers wanting full time jobs theme. They had professional spokes people already hired to go out on tv and sell that theme.

UPS on the other hand stumbled badly in public and quickly lost the marketing war because they were not prepared for the strike.

Jim Kelly went on meet the press and was constantly asked about replacement workers. He refused to consider that option and continously answered that he just wanted to get this settled and get "our people" back.

As the strike continued into the third week we had large shippers begging us to start picking them up. As we cleaned up our system during this time the plan that was being formulated would have had us picking up from these large shippers charging them premium prices with no time guarantees. We could have ridden this strike out for a long time charging premium prices. Shippers would have had no other option but to pay what we asked.

Put it all together and I think it shows that UPS was ill prepared for any such concept of breaking the union and had no intent to do so.

I don't mean breaking it by causing a strike. I mean offering stock so employees would also be "partners". Offering a contract with minimal raises, but bonuses each year based on profitability. Taking over the pension and health care. Sure, they said these issues could still be negotiated by the union but you have to be blind not to see where this was heading.
 

brownIEman

Well-Known Member
I don't mean breaking it by causing a strike. I mean offering stock so employees would also be "partners". Offering a contract with minimal raises, but bonuses each year based on profitability. Taking over the pension and health care. Sure, they said these issues could still be negotiated by the union but you have to be blind not to see where this was heading.

Are you saying that anything that would reward employees for the company doing well (stock ownership and bonuses) can only be explained as a plan to break the union? Really? You can’t think of any other legitimate reason the company might want to have employees have a vested interest in the company doing well other than union breaking?

To clarify another misconception: The company never asked to “Take over” as you put it, the pension. UPS asked to buy out of the multi-employer pension plans so UPS dollars would go only to UPS pensioners. The plan was a win-win for UPS and UPSers, because with UPS dollars only going to UPS pensioners, UPS could spend fewer dollars, but the UPS pensioners would have more dollars between them in the plan. The plan was set up to be managed by an equal number of UPS and Teamsters representatives. So, really, UPS was asking for UPS AND the Teamsters to take over the pensions.
 

pretzel_man

Well-Known Member
I don't mean breaking it by causing a strike. I mean offering stock so employees would also be "partners". Offering a contract with minimal raises, but bonuses each year based on profitability. Taking over the pension and health care. Sure, they said these issues could still be negotiated by the union but you have to be blind not to see where this was heading.

Of course, this is just one side of the story.

After the strike, I had a chance to be in Atlanta for a meeting. Those on the negotiating committee, including the management committee representative made a presentation.

They tell a different story.

I think Tie did an excellent job of presenting some information. Kelly constantly said he did NOT want replcement workers.

The strike was bad for everyone. I think NEITHER UPS nor the union are blameless.

P-Man
 

JimJimmyJames

Big Time Feeder Driver
UPS asked to buy out of the multi-employer pension plans so UPS dollars would go only to UPS pensioners.

The ironic thing is, isn't that what happened anyways in the last contract, with UPS buying it's way out of Central States?
 

bbsam

Moderator
Staff member
All that, and you are a break down, serious crash, or lawsuit against you away from bancrupcy. Live the dream while you can, because it is only a dream, brought to you by your lord and master Fred. How's the Koolaid, and did you have to pay for those purple tinted glasses.
i'be been doing this for 15 years now. you really think there haven't been the break-downs, lawsuits, etc. in that period of time? bankruptcy? not yet, but if i do we'll just call it "reorganization". you get to do that when you are a business owner. :happy2: and i don't think purple tinted glasses are any more expensive than the brown ones.
 

tieguy

Banned
Are you saying that anything that would reward employees for the company doing well (stock ownership and bonuses) can only be explained as a plan to break the union? Really? You can’t think of any other legitimate reason the company might want to have employees have a vested interest in the company doing well other than union breaking?

To clarify another misconception: The company never asked to “Take over” as you put it, the pension. UPS asked to buy out of the multi-employer pension plans so UPS dollars would go only to UPS pensioners. The plan was a win-win for UPS and UPSers, because with UPS dollars only going to UPS pensioners, UPS could spend fewer dollars, but the UPS pensioners would have more dollars between them in the plan. The plan was set up to be managed by an equal number of UPS and Teamsters representatives. So, really, UPS was asking for UPS AND the Teamsters to take over the pensions.

that is a good point. We did want out of the multi-employer plans. We knew there was legislation going in that would make our buying out much more expensive in the future thus 97 was the last chance we had to get out of multi-employer plans before the overall cost became prohibitive.

The CS buyout does show that this could have happened without UPS controlling the plans.

The teamsters could not afford ups buying out of multi-employer plans since it would have adversly affected non-ups company employees relying on the brown dollars feeding thier pension plans.
 
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