browniehound
Well-Known Member
We have shop stewards who check delivery records of drivers who get in early to see if they have lunch recorded while they were delivering. So we can't just lets say put 12 to 1 and just come in when we're done. I think one got a warning letter for not recording a full hour lunch to get to a kids function.We do have to take and record a full hour even on 8 hour requests.
Understood. However, when I need to get out early and don't get an approved code 05 I record an hour lunch and get paid for it. I don't record it in the middle of the day so it shows me delivering stops during lunch. I simply run the route, do my turn and and then record the lunch for the minute I punch out to an hour later. This way, I'm not falsifying delivery records.
When you do it this way, your time card kicks out because your lunch is recorded after your punch out time. The OMS who does the time cards must now go in and move your punch-out time to an hour later (the right thing to do by the way) and you get paid for the hour.
I only do this when I NEED to get out. I ask 3 times a year and get denied 3 times a year. I don't abuse this method and only do it when ABSOLUTELY necessary. I don't like putting the OMS in the predicament of altering time cards, but I'm owed the hour. It really gets to me that they just can't pay us for the hour worked? They have all the technology to bust a driver who is cheating them, so why not let us run it and go home? Its not like we have 40 hour/week jobs. When we work 8, its really 9 which is fine, but when we work 9 or 10 turning it into 10 or eleven, the extra hour hurts.
It comes down to two things. The hour lunch comes in handy to UPS for straight business routes. It allows an hour of "buffer" time to plan the route between deliveries and pick-ups and also allows them the luxuary of delaying OT by an hour so they are not paying OT until 1730 instead of 1630 when the driver has pick-ups until 1830.
The second thing is they want drivers to run their lunch. Why make a strictly house-call run with zero pick-ups take a lunch? I can think of only 1 reason and that is they know some (or most) days some drivers will burn it and skip lunch to get in early. Thus, UPS gains an hour of free labor for the day. Multiply that by the thousands of drivers who do it every day and we are talking serious money here!
They talk about idle time and .4 gallons (at$2.70/gallon) wasted for every hour of idling. How $44/hour for every driver who skips his lunch? The idle time now becomes insignificant. Looks like they solve the excessive idle time problem pretty good, LOL???