Again, I am on the 9.5 list. Or I should say, that so far I'm not on it this year, because they have kept me under 9.5 hours each day to keep me from going on it again. However, they put enough work on me to keep me out til 7pm. If they dropped the work load down so I could be off by 5:30pm (with a 1 hour lunch) then this would not be an issue.
My point is, they are not going to add work if I choose to work thru my lunch meal, because they still need to keep me under 9.5 hours with or without a lunch. The only difference is that I reach 9.5 hours by 6pm instead of 7pm. Same amount of work, same amount of paid hours. Nothing different. Is this so difficult to understand? None of this applies to peak season. I will take my 1 hour lunch meal, and my second 30 min meal period after 10 hours.
If the union really wants to put drivers back to work they would be pushing the 9.5 list on to everyone. They would come into every building and demonstrate the benefits of as many people as possible getting on the list. In my center, out of roughly 90+ drivers, there are less than 5 of us interested in the 9.5 list. This is a whole other topic, but I've come to realize that UPS drivers aren't really interested in supporting their union, or helping out other union drivers. Therefore, I'm to a point where I'm done looking out for the other guys, and it's time to start worrying about me. This mean putting in fewer hours and having some sort of life outside of work.