profits to management!! WHY??

[upsdawg]

ok2b----I am just saying that many of the drivers that I speak to would like the flexibility to take their lunch---OR NOT---and be home with their family---or doing other things instead of taking a 1 hour lunch.

You don't agree that is expensive to hire another driver? I have been a Package Driver in a district where their is no OT----and have also driven in another district where it is o.k. to work 12 hour days--just don't go over 60 in a week! I agree with the union concept---but disagree with some of the things that are forced on "everyone"

The driver is "UPS" in the customers eyes and it is important for each and all to project a positive image to the customer---there definitely needs to be a middle ground regarding dispatch--which has always been and always will be a topic that is at the top of every drivers list!!
I am also aware of efforts to reduce the paid day and have known of several drivers who wanted the $$$$$$$$ to work the longer days!!!

 

[ok2bclever]

Ok, I can live with that.

I would agree to the "flexibility" of skipping lunch to get out early on a heavy day or to make commitments to the customers and in fact that is an unofficial practice that goes on all over the country everyday.

A supe says "hey, I'll pay your lunch if you'll skip it and make XX pickups" or some such.

Or a driver says " hey, you've blown my eight hour, but if you'll pay my lunch I can finish my pickup/delivery commitments and still get out early enough for what I took the eight hour for".

It goes on every day unofficially and I would be in favor of making it contractually mutually agreeable.

I fully agree drivers are an expensive resource and OT is cheaper than additional drivers.

However, when taken to excess it is only cheaper in the short run.

I find it hard to believe there has ever been a center where there is no OT.

With the 8 hour guarantee that would just be just be a really financially unsound business practice.

Drivers that want the OT will always exist and if they want it fine.

9.5 is not an automatic violation, you have to inform management that you do not want the excessive overtime and have them ignore you to make it a greivable violation.

So I guess we are not in disagreement here after all.

There is no reason management and the workforce needs to be "enemies" and many many reasons for them to be partners.

What I am saying is this trend to continually jack up the standards so that good drivers "average" an hour or more over allowed is dishonest and does nothing to improve the business.

With the 8 hour guarantee imperative the bumping of these standards to unrealistic levels is causing excessive overtime, increased service failures and really bad attitudes.

This will certainly financially damage the business over the long run.

 

[gadistrict]

A supe says "hey, I'll pay your lunch if you'll skip it and make XX pickups" or some such.

Or a driver says " hey, you've blown my eight hour, but if you'll pay my lunch I can finish my pickup/delivery commitments and still get out early enough for what I took the eight hour for".

It is called an 05 - that is the way it would be coded in PTRS if a driver is paid for lunch. I give them out all the time.}

 

[swingdriver]

I'll skip my lunch hour everday if u didn't subtract an hour from my pay. I've never heard of telling the supe that "i skipped my lunch today so don't take an hour out of my pay." If that were true i would make it to my kids baseball games. I'd skip lunch everyday and my sporph would be much higher. Sounds like a win, win situation, but it doesn't happen here. If i don't take a lunch hour, i am working for free. I'm not willing to do that because i'm already pushed to the exteme.

 

[upsdude]

gadistrict

It is called an 05 - that is the way it would be coded in PTRS if a driver is paid for lunch. I give them out all the time.}

No go in my district. Besides, if you get in early you will be going back out. Some of the new guys have learned that lesson. Bust your tail, skip lunch, roll in the building at 5:00 only to be sent back out and return at 7:00 or so. We actually have a system among the drivers. The first guy that makes it back and clocks out calls the others to say the coast is clear.

I agree with ok2b, the management/hourly situation is getting way too adversarial. There will always be problems but it is quickly becoming a serious problem. Some folks on both sides will never accept/trust the other but this needs to be fixed.

 

[ezrider]

Swingdriver this is the first I've ever heard of this practice also and I'd be curious to know just how many drivers would elect to take it if available. I don't know if I could forgo a lunch everyday, but yeah sometimes there are other things in life that happen and can take priority so I wouldn't condemn any driver for taking the option if it's there.

I could have sworn I was told by a supe that it was the law that required us to put the lunch and break times into DIAD. And hey, management always tells the truth of course...

 

[ok2bclever]

A code 5 just means a "pay actual" which isn't necessarily the same thing because sometimes the lunch seems to be automatically taken out (subtracted) of the workday regardless of what is put down in the diad.

Example: they blow your stop count by an hour on an eight hour request giving you nine hours of work which would take you till 6:30 pm.

If you skip your whole hour lunch, you work a nine hour day straight through and get out at 5:30 pm.

If this works for you and works for your manager it would obviously benefit both sides to agree to skip your lunch and be paid your actual hours worked necessitating a code 5 rather than a code 6.

However, a code 5 by itself may take in account that you skipped your lunch or it just could easily be accounted that "you must take a lunch and just neglected to record it into your diad" and is figured in automatically (subtracted from your total hours).

So you would get the guaranteed 8 hours which is what 5:30 pm represents anyway in this example.

You just got screwed out of an hour of overtime rate of pay.

That is why the term, at least from my experience is "pay your lunch".

That expressly means the lunch will not be subtracted out of your day.

This practice is officially "forbidden", "not to be done", or "frowned upon" depending on current unofficial local policy, day, season, situation or state of mind by management, but it happens and can benefit both sides.

I would be in favor of making this contractually acceptable, but I don't believe upper management would be as interested in this.

Nationwide I cannot imagine how much money UPS saves (makes) from drivers skipping their lunch and not getting paid for this just to get out earlier for the multitude of things that go on in their "life beyond UPS", but I bet it's a ton.

Making code 5, pay your lunch officially common place would lose a significant percentage of this "free" work and I don't see upper management in favor of that however much they mouth "follow the contract".

 

[swingdriver]

ezrider: this is the first that i've heard of this too. i've never had that option.

 

[tieguy]

"Its about time to see the light. They dont really care if you work late every night. The only concern is the production numbers. Less cars, more stops, satellite centers, Over 9.5 problems , Supervisors working all of these things will make the Company more money at the cost of the employ"

I can understand why you may feel that way but ultimately its still a company run by people not cold lifeless uncaring robots. I think there are some good arguments made about why etc. I do believe most management do care about their people. They may not have the quick fix to fix the problems but I do think they care.

 

[1timepu]

Tie guy what districts are down ???? Montana? Idaho? Kansas? North Dakota? I know here in North Jersey they could use more drivers!! I doubt in areas like LA or NYC or Boston or Miami or Dallas or Atlanta or other big cities are down drivers...maybe in rural areas yes,but thats not from down volume it's from cost savings from the company cutting routes..if they cut them here in NJ..then they are cutting them everywhere, now they are starting reg drivers at 1200 and working them till 900pm doing a half of a ground rt and then doing an air rt (pm) eliminating an Air Driver. I know what is going on, as we get raises every year you look for ways to boost production, and fellow drivers I can only say it is going to get worse when we are making $28 an hr...they have to make up the difference,and they can only pass so much onto the customer, so the it comes down to cutting routes, eliminating Air routes, sure Tie there may be districts down drivers but like I said it is not because the volume is down

 

[trickpony1]

"I do believe most management do care about their people."

Care in one hand and crap in the other and see which one fills up the quickest.

 

[trickpony1]

ok2bc,
I talked to a pkg driver recently who said he hasn't taken a meal in 4 years. He said he figured that was about $8000 a year or $32,000 thus far that he has given the company. He has two young sons at home that he wants to hurry home and spend time with.
When it's time for his sons to get a car or a college education will this driver miss that money? Will he wish he hadn't given his lunch away? Will his body still be able to endure the rigors of the job? Will the job still be here?
Draw your own conclusions.

 

[air_upser]

It's all personal choices. I think I lost 5 years of my life because I put UPS first. I moved up the ranks, but when my friends were getting married and having kids, I was working. While I still work hard and strive for promotions, I no longer put my personal life on the backburner. Life's too short.

As far as flexibility in scheduling goes, I have a team of non-union employees, so it's a little different. But, I'm sure there are similarities. I always tried to accomadate employee wishes....taking lunch at the end of the shift to leave early, combining breaks to run an errand, making up hours because their child was sick, etc. Unfortunately, when you try and do the right thing (in my opinion it was), you can create problems. People abuse the flexibility. You can let everyone take their lunch late. Other managers don't allow their employees to make up hours. etc, etc. In the long run, it would have been easier to be the "jerk" supervisor versus the one that stands up for his employees.
So there are managers that care about their employees. Asking an employee to work late knowing they would miss thier kid's ballgame was the hardest thing to do. In my area, I was able to work for them so they didn't have to miss a birthday or something like that. Unfortunately, that's not the case in the operation. But that's the drawback from having a contract, isn't it?
With everything I hear on this board, UPS will hire more drivers. They have to. When??? Well, that's another story!

 

[ok2bclever]

That is also the advantage of the contract, that limitations are set so management cannot fulfill a "whim" without consequences.

It is great when you have a common sense, ethical manager who cares about people, but what about when you don't.

And then there is the point that even with a good manager there are strict limits imposed by the "policies" set by upper management.

There is no telling what upper management, totally divorced from any personal interaction with us ants, would mandate the local manager to due without any contractual limitations.

If an objectionable order comes down from above with instructions to do it or lose your job. . .

Even a "common sense, ethical manager who cares about people" will have little recourse.

There will always be someone willing to step into fired shoes and follow the order.

Thus the contract.

 

[tieguy]

metro DC district covering DC and northern VA was reported to be down as many as a 100 deliver drivers. Training helpf from all over the region was sent in to help out. Needless to say thats an extreme number of drivers for one district. But listening to other posters on this message board I would have to guess that there are other districts down drivers.

 

[tieguy]

"If an objectionable order comes down from above with instructions to do it or lose your job. . .

If you're referring to the unethical or immoral than managment today has many more options to deal with these orders than at any time while I have been with this company.

 

[dannyboy]

If you use code 5 and work 9 hours and get in at 5:50 here, you get paid 9 hours. But that is if managment leaves the code 5 alone. It would seem that here they have a problem with changing it to see if you catch it on your next pay check. Most do, some do not. What I cant figure out is how they come ahead, because if they do not pay the shortage in the time allowed, they are out 1/2 the difference again. And usually they end up with it dragging out until the following week, so it is two hours of OT they have to pay.

And what is really funny, they try and blame it on the OMS, who in our center will not move unless instructed by upper management.

d

 

[trickpony1]

"....management today has many more options to deal with these orders....", is that why management at my hub are quitting in droves?

"....they try to blame it on the OMS....", management has always been skilled at playing the blame game and veneering themselves from any liability.

 

[ok2bclever]

I guess it depends on the definition of immoral or unethical.

When upper management sends down the intentfully dishonest order to boost already tight standards so a good driver who was already averaging an hour over allowed (use to be under allowed, but standards were tweaked and then he was scratch for a long time until standards were tweaked again, no time studies involved in any of this) to 1.5 hours over allowed do you call that unethical or immoral?

I would.

All know they have eliminated fair 8 hour requests with the ridiculously dishonest standards being imposed and that it takes on road contractual overides to bring them in on time.

The local management knows what can be really done in the 8 hours, but sending the driver out with that will show him/her severely underdispatched on the computer stats the next day which they will have to take in the shorts on the conference call and so they have to send the drivers out purposefully overdispatched and then "rescue" them.

Same with 9.5 issues.

When they do this for entire centers the supes walk around during dispatch rolling their eyes and muttering under their breaths this is ridiculous, but only under their breaths, because they want to keep their own job.

You are correct in that UPS has strengthened paths that one can take for overt unethical or immoral acts and that is laudable, but I doubt if these recourses you are referring to would view standards as such, right?

Of course not, somewhere they can show how these standards are justifiable in a computer.

Just like they could when the driver was .5 over, scratch and .5 under.

 

[1timepu]

Is it because of lost volume,Tie Guy? I doubt it! Is it because Pas has come to D.C. nad northern Va? Again the volume is NOT down...management is trying to make up cost with the raises we are getting now so they cut routes. Management keeps askingfor maore everyday..more stops an hr..longerdays..more more more, if it doesnt change I am sure it will be a big issue come contract time, howcome the goverment regulates of foreign worker from outside the US??? They are only allowed to work 45hrs a week per our goverment! Times are changing Tie guy and it will be soon