What do you think? The Utmost Importance of Safety at UPS.

[Jackburton]

Safety is important to me, no matter what the company says. I try to be as safe as I can at UPS and out of it. I wouldn't risk doing something stupid out of work anymore than I would while on the clock. Most of this stuff is common sense, it's UPS themselves that have the limit set in place as to the degree of running a business and being as safe as possible doing so.

An example would be requiring every package car driver not to deliver in rain because, statistically, more accidents happen in the rain. That's going to the extreme but I hope you understand the point I'm making. At some point the risk to a persons safety is acknowledged as acceptable.

 

[728ups]

Memorizing crap and sending Diad messages is an active safety committee? Have they done anything to change the way things are done in the name of safety?

If you follow the 'crap' you dismiss so out of hand I'd wager you'll be a safer employee.
The actions they have taken is to increase the DOK knowledge and give safety tips in the PCM. The suggestions from the committee have resulted in improved safer break areas for PTers,improved lighting at the gas pumps,Mirror adjustment stations and a station for cleaning the windshield.
The increased awareness of safety from the committee is an intangible but very real change the committee has achieved as well

 

[Dracula]

If you follow the 'crap' you dismiss so out of hand I'd wager you'll be a safer employee.
The actions they have taken is to increase the DOK knowledge and give safety tips in the PCM. The suggestions from the committee have resulted in improved safer break areas for PTers,improved lighting at the gas pumps,Mirror adjustment stations and a station for cleaning the windshield.
The increased awareness of safety from the committee is an intangible but very real change the committee has achieved as well

The safety committee is a flawed concept. It is safety by drip down. I;m not saying it can't help, but it is not a substitute for every employee being involved at the same depth the committee is. Maybe next time the Keter audit and they're asking us safety questions, perhaps we should just tell them, "I don't know, ask someone on the safety committee."

 

[Catatonic]

I'm going to steer clear of this thread. Integrity asks a lot of questions. I am not annoyed, as some people are or have seemed to be (at least in the past). But I don't know, seems like a waste of time to be writing thousands of words over things (big and small) that'll never change.

Why do you think they do not change?

Have you tried to change them?

Have you reported this to your management?

Have you reported this to the UPS Hotline?

Don't you love your co-workers?

Just saying! LOL

 

[I Am Jacks Damaged Box]

There is Gatorade, and there is Brown Kool-aid. I'm certain that I know what Integrity stays hydrated with.

 

[UnconTROLLed]

Just saying! LOL

LOL

 

[LongTimeComing]

What a tread to walk into 9 pages deep.....

I could go on for hours about this. I would piss off some management. I would piss off some hourlies. I'll keep away from criticizing people directly and just throw my 2 cents in on a few points. Rhetorical questions included.


1. CHSP committee's are intended to be led and run by the employees themselves. Yes, there are management co-chairs, but we cannot force people to show up to these meetings. It's your choice. If you have a lackluster CHSP committee, it has more to do with the employees not caring about the safety culture....not the Company. Don't you think if 50 out of 50 people showed up to every meeting, that maybe the concerns may be treated more seriously than from the same group of 5 people? Think about it.

2. Only vast amounts of ignorance will deny the fact that quite often production has more weight in decision making than safety. We don't make a product....our service is all we have to give. If it fails, what do we have left? This is not an excuse for this type of culture, its a demonstration of human nature. It's the "sure it's unsafe, but it won't happen to me" mentality that people use day-in and day-out at work AND at home. We do it right when someone is watching...then do it 'our way' when they look away.

3. Do not ever think that safety doesn't matter to this Company...ever. I will make some connections to make understanding this easy. Even the most Company-hating, stick-it-to-the-man, us-vs-them, Union-thumping, disgruntled bargaining unit can agree that UPS's main goal, at the end of the day, is to make money. With this being said, do you realize how much money injuries and accidents cost this company? It's sickening. I can assure you that they care about safety, if for any other reason than to not spend the money. That $200-some million that we are paying TNT? A single region can pay more than that in accident and injuries in a year. EACH region. UPS caring about safety from the money standpoint, and not necessarily from a personal standpoint, may hurt your feelings. Aww. Doesn't mean they don't care about it.

4. I take personal responsibility for my own safety. I don't need people to tell me to do so. If I notice something that's a threat that's REASONABLY capable of being dealt with, you better be sure that I'm going to do what I can to rectify the issue. I expect nothing less than perfectly safe practices from my employees because, working around jumbo jets....with loads of heavy equipment moving around, there are ample opportunities for loss of life, not just a pinched finger or an achy back. This all happens at night time. Would it be safer during the day? Sure it would. But that's not a REASONABLY fixable problem...

5. Coming from a person in management, I think our Company's policy on blind memorization is the dumbest, most ineffective, obnoxious practice they could have possibly come up with. Why not test for UNDERSTANDING. Take them there keys, read them off to me, and I'll physically show you how to do it. Management has to memorize lists too....for those of you not within the Bubble of Goodness.

6. Integrity has trolled the crap out of everyone. I think...

 

[Bagels]

LongTimeComing,
Most of us are arguing that production, not safety, is of the "utmost importance" to UPS. Managerial evaluations, bonuses & promotional opportunities are weighted heavily on production. This is counter-intuitive to safety being the "utmost" goal, since such evaluations will always encourage shady behavior. He's my problem: UPS is a manual labor-intensive environment; therefore, some scratches & scrapes should be expected occasionally. But when I'm unloading a trailer, literally need a crowbar to break down a load and have to deal with boxes falling on me... that's preventable, and it @$!$ me off. No, it may not cause an injury serious enough for me to go to the clinc. But I shouldn't have to go home with unnecessary aches & pains. When my dock is littered with Forever Bags, there's no space to move and yet my PT sup insists I unload the trailer, ignoring the bags... the odds of an injury happening are very, very, very, very small -- but what happens if something unexpectedly catches fire, and I suffer significant injury (or death) because my exit paths were blocked? Completely preventable. These are the types of unsafe behaviors that I'm referring to, that don't always show up on a stat sheet. Of course, they could if I made a big fuss out of it... but then Management would find a way to get rid of me-or make me miserable.

I, too, could write volumes... but my point is that production - not safety - prevails at UPS.

 

[Dracula]

What a tread to walk into 9 pages deep.....

I could go on for hours about this. I would piss off some management. I would piss off some hourlies. I'll keep away from criticizing people directly and just throw my 2 cents in on a few points. Rhetorical questions included.


1. CHSP committee's are intended to be led and run by the employees themselves. Yes, there are management co-chairs, but we cannot force people to show up to these meetings. It's your choice. If you have a lackluster CHSP committee, it has more to do with the employees not caring about the safety culture....not the Company. Don't you think if 50 out of 50 people showed up to every meeting, that maybe the concerns may be treated more seriously than from the same group of 5 people? Think about it.

2. Only vast amounts of ignorance will deny the fact that quite often production has more weight in decision making than safety. We don't make a product....our service is all we have to give. If it fails, what do we have left? This is not an excuse for this type of culture, its a demonstration of human nature. It's the "sure it's unsafe, but it won't happen to me" mentality that people use day-in and day-out at work AND at home. We do it right when someone is watching...then do it 'our way' when they look away.

3. Do not ever think that safety doesn't matter to this Company...ever. I will make some connections to make understanding this easy. Even the most Company-hating, stick-it-to-the-man, us-vs-them, Union-thumping, disgruntled bargaining unit can agree that UPS's main goal, at the end of the day, is to make money. With this being said, do you realize how much money injuries and accidents cost this company? It's sickening. I can assure you that they care about safety, if for any other reason than to not spend the money. That $200-some million that we are paying TNT? A single region can pay more than that in accident and injuries in a year. EACH region. UPS caring about safety from the money standpoint, and not necessarily from a personal standpoint, may hurt your feelings. Aww. Doesn't mean they don't care about it.

4. I take personal responsibility for my own safety. I don't need people to tell me to do so. If I notice something that's a threat that's REASONABLY capable of being dealt with, you better be sure that I'm going to do what I can to rectify the issue. I expect nothing less than perfectly safe practices from my employees because, working around jumbo jets....with loads of heavy equipment moving around, there are ample opportunities for loss of life, not just a pinched finger or an achy back. This all happens at night time. Would it be safer during the day? Sure it would. But that's not a REASONABLY fixable problem...

5. Coming from a person in management, I think our Company's policy on blind memorization is the dumbest, most ineffective, obnoxious practice they could have possibly come up with. Why not test for UNDERSTANDING. Take them there keys, read them off to me, and I'll physically show you how to do it. Management has to memorize lists too....for those of you not within the Bubble of Goodness.

6. Integrity has trolled the crap out of everyone. I think...

The CHSP committees in my are not open for all employees. When I was in package car, occasionally (maybe 4 or five times a year) you were invited in before work (paid) to give your opinion or recite the safety mantras. The committee members themselves came in at least an hour before their start time two or three times a week. It's effectiveness was negligible. What it did was give a small amount of drivers a reason to make a $100 grand a year. In feeders, we have a safety committee of about 12 people. They spend more time with the drivers to stress the importance of safety, but it still is a hand me down approach, which keeps management responsibility at arms length. Yeah, they care insofar as they don't want to pay the cost of unsafe workers, but generally, so long as it doesn't hurt the daily plan.

 

[Bagels]

The CHSP committees in my are not open for all employees. When I was in package car, occasionally (maybe 4 or five times a year) you were invited in before work (paid) to give your opinion or recite the safety mantras. The committee members themselves came in at least an hour before their start time two or three times a week. It's effectiveness was negligible. What it did was give a small amount of drivers a reason to make a $100 grand a year. In feeders, we have a safety committee of about 12 people. They spend more time with the drivers to stress the importance of safety, but it still is a hand me down approach, which keeps management responsibility at arms length. Yeah, they care insofar as they don't want to pay the cost of unsafe workers, but generally, so long as it doesn't hurt the daily plan.

The Safety Committee is a contracted benefit. When our Preload manager attempted a de facto elimination of the safety committee meetings & activities, the Company wasn't pleased any more than the union.

The problem here is that the contract specifies the committee picks its co-chair. Our co-chair has been so for over 10 years, and she refuses to delegate any work or activities to other members, because the safety hours give her full time hours. Management backs her up, says the contract doesn't specify re-election & that they're not paying to train another person. So in a building housing over 400 PT during peak, we have a whopping 3-5 that show up to each meeting. (More during Dec, since everyone wants that 30 minutes OT).

 

[LongTimeComing]

LongTimeComing,
Most of us are arguing that production, not safety, is of the "utmost importance" to UPS. Managerial evaluations, bonuses & promotional opportunities are weighted heavily on production. This is counter-intuitive to safety being the "utmost" goal, since such evaluations will always encourage shady behavior. He's my problem: UPS is a manual labor-intensive environment; therefore, some scratches & scrapes should be expected occasionally. But when I'm unloading a trailer, literally need a crowbar to break down a load and have to deal with boxes falling on me... that's preventable, and it @$!$ me off. No, it may not cause an injury serious enough for me to go to the clinc. But I shouldn't have to go home with unnecessary aches & pains. When my dock is littered with Forever Bags, there's no space to move and yet my PT sup insists I unload the trailer, ignoring the bags... the odds of an injury happening are very, very, very, very small -- but what happens if something unexpectedly catches fire, and I suffer significant injury (or death) because my exit paths were blocked? Completely preventable. These are the types of unsafe behaviors that I'm referring to, that don't always show up on a stat sheet. Of course, they could if I made a big fuss out of it... but then Management would find a way to get rid of me-or make me miserable.

I, too, could write volumes... but my point is that production - not safety - prevails at UPS.

I'm not disagreeing with you at all. And yes, production values are heavy in the consideration for management promo's/bonuses....but so is safety. A bad safety record for a supervisors area looks just as bad if not worse than a misload problem. It will also garner much more attention.

The only thing I'm saying about the safety concerns that you brought up....those are reasonably fixable. If it's not something you can fix yourself, then say something about it. If your part-time sup ignores it, then go to your full-time sup. And continue up the ladder. That's our open-door policy, and at some point you will make it to someone who cares enough to fix something as easy as a messy dock. Poorly loaded trucks may be a bit tougher. The supervisor can call the center it was loaded....but there's no direct control of that. Control what you can control, and don't stress the stuff that you can't. I'm saying this stuff in leu of the fact that production tends to prevail over safety....

But yeah, if your management team would try to get rid of you because of a couple simple safety concerns, I feel for you, brah.

 

[LongTimeComing]

I'm at a loss as to how a CHSP committee meeting isn't open to whomever wants to show up....it may only be paid time for the actual members, but there's nothing that says other hourlies cannot attend, afaik......at least it's never been that way in the buildings I've worked in...Hell, we encouraged people to come when I was the management co-chair.

 

[Bagels]

I'm not disagreeing with you at all. And yes, production values are heavy in the consideration for management promo's/bonuses....but so is safety. A bad safety record for a supervisors area looks just as bad if not worse than a misload problem. It will also garner much more attention.

The only thing I'm saying about the safety concerns that you brought up....those are reasonably fixable. If it's not something you can fix yourself, then say something about it. If your part-time sup ignores it, then go to your full-time sup. And continue up the ladder. That's our open-door policy, and at some point you will make it to someone who cares enough to fix something as easy as a messy dock. Poorly loaded trucks may be a bit tougher. The supervisor can call the center it was loaded....but there's no direct control of that. Control what you can control, and don't stress the stuff that you can't. I'm saying this stuff in leu of the fact that production tends to prevail over safety....

But yeah, if your management team would try to get rid of you because of a couple simple safety concerns, I feel for you, brah.

I use load quality because it best exemplifies the direction this company has taken since I hired. It use to be that you'd build in T-formation, with heavy stuff below the waist, lighter stuff above, with bags topping out. Now IE demands that every bit of available space is taken up -- this usually entails placing bags on the floor and cramming (literally wedging everything in) packages into the trailer. People wind up with more cuts & bruises unloading trailers this way... but hey, it's worth it to save a few bucks, right?

And I appreciate your stance on the open door policy, but not every manager feels the same way. I've worked with numerous managers to take the stance "don't come to me if you don't like what my PT sup told you."

 

[LongTimeComing]

When were you hired?

When I was running my PD in 2002-2004, one of our load methods (that we had to memorize...ZING!) was to "Maximize space in trailers". While you are making it sound new, this has always been in place for me. But the load methods were how you described....heavy on bottom, lock-in packages, natural T's, back-fill, cornerstone packages....and bags ended up at the top or in the back-fill. If we could get the boxes to the top as well, then great. And I even think the dumbest loader would realize that putting bags on the bottom do not make for good walls. They clearly don't, and you won't ever find that on paper as an official method from the company.

Secondly, I'm an Operations cheerleader...so really, who gives a rats ass what IE says?? 90% of the time, in my experience, they don't come from operations....hired directly from the street with a college degree hot off the press. I take IE's opinions as 'spirited suggestions', and then continue to make my own calls in my own operations. IE guys get overruled all the time...

I could go into a rant about how I think IE people need to have been promoted from within, FROM the operations....and how the training department should be for veteran PT sups who actually know a thing or two, and not a spot for a newly promoted PT sup...but I digress...

 

[serenity now]

When were you hired?

When I was running my PD in 2002-2004, one of our load methods (that we had to memorize...ZING!) was to "Maximize space in trailers". While you are making it sound new, this has always been in place for me. But the load methods were how you described....heavy on bottom, lock-in packages, natural T's, back-fill, cornerstone packages....and bags ended up at the top or in the back-fill. If we could get the boxes to the top as well, then great. And I even think the dumbest loader would realize that putting bags on the bottom do not make for good walls. They clearly don't, and you won't ever find that on paper as an official method from the company.

Secondly, I'm an Operations cheerleader...so really, who gives a rats ass what IE says?? 90% of the time, in my experience, they don't come from operations....hired directly from the street with a college degree hot off the press. I take IE's opinions as 'spirited suggestions', and then continue to make my own calls in my own operations. IE guys get overruled all the time...

I could go into a rant about how I think IE people need to have been promoted from within, FROM the operations....and how the training department should be for veteran PT sups who actually know a thing or two, and not a spot for a newly promoted PT sup...but I digress...

.....a voice of reason crying out in the wilderness

 

[Bagels]

I hired in as a high school co-op student in 1999. I should clarify: maximizing space has always been the goal, but not in the same manner as it is now, where employees are instructed to load the bags on the bottom of the trailer (boxes touching the top of the ceiling take up the most space) and literally wedge packages in. During peak, we had a (very) late arriving trailer in which somebody's TV was wedged in so badly our Preload manager & district manager bashed it in with a crowbar so we could save that 2-3 minutes (when you have several hundred drivers, it's cheaper to pay out the claim, that I agree with, but it shouldn't have happened to begin with).

I've worked with a couple hundred PT sups (at least) and a whopping three -- yes, three -- have been promoted to FT (one was just an office person). The company's more intent on hiring every female & minority it can off the street/right out of college -- and telling the incument PT sups "...any day now." We've lost some good talent. One of my closest friends departed for FedEx and is now running one of their largest Preloads.

 

[InsideUPS]

For Discussion:

The safety of UPSers and the general public is of utmost importance to the management of UPS and the Leaders of the Teamsters.

Do you regard this as a true statement? NO


If not; what leads you to draw this conclusion? Personal observations

Sincerely,
I

 

[anonymous4]

What do I see off the top of my head? People passing along leaking packages, walking on moving belts; also crawling on moving belts under the delusion it is OK. Desecuring belts you didn't personally secure. Insiders passing along heavy rollers that will slide down chutes/slides, passing objects from inbound-sort-outbound with dangerous objects protruding, begging for a hand to "grasp wrong opposite corner" and get penetrated. How about egress stacked 4+ feet high because of packages being crammed way too fast down the belt system. Stacking in sort isles to try and keep the flow of packages going unabated, entombing them/creating hazards/blockades in said isle. These are just a few of the violations I see combinations of every day.

The kicker is all of them are done by supervisors just the same as hourlies. For constant micromanagement that goes on to be in the favor of UPS production, they would surely notice and crack down on these things. Quite the contrary.

I don't know if the supervisors work too much to supervise or perhaps silently offer encouragement by looking the other way to break rules in the name of speed (from an inside-the-building perspective here). However, they themselves "lead by" in all of those examples above as I witness LOTS of soup doing the wrong thing and teach it to hourlies in the name of sprouting productivity. Some of those examples obliterate entire fragments of the DOK and safety drivel so how can safety be first at UPS?

The DOK are so common sense based it stupidly becomes impossible to follow all of them, all the time and perhaps more importantly expect the knuckleheads around you to accomplish the same. However, a level of protection can be accomplished by using them for the foundation of safety. Although injuries are just a matter of time with the environment and insentient need to push for more or else. Management is not exactly leading a highly trained, highly conditioned, highly motivated workforce. The line is crossed when they expect the same performance from people not able/not willing to preform the way UPS expects them to at that given moment in time. Management blatantly violating/allowing dangerous situations to unfold has to stop at some point.

 

[UpsYours]

I fear nobody at UPS my friend..i do my job and i`m as safe as i can be and i know all my D.O.L. .how could u not they drill it into your head like you live in a communist country..I cannot be brainwashed.been here too long..All good kids like milk ..LOL..and p.s. have you seen these KETER ghosts yet???

 

[anonymous6]

safety is only important when it costs the company money.