UPS laying off Technical hourly employees

[olebrownie]

trick,
a) The wind didn't change directions. Technology changed the rules. There is not a need for as many people to do the work. UPS either pays people to be unproductive or lays them off. Nothing has been farmed out to another country - that argument is weak.
b) Why would any company worry about appeasing the unemployment commision? You pay your taxes and fees and our government does the rest. UPS does not have the authority to grant or deny unemployment.
c) Isn't the service UPS provides subject to public whims? If it wasn't, how would non-union FedEx and foreign owned DHL be undercutting UPS?

The company has reviewed management staffing and offered packages to reduce management ranks in the past. I am sure you are a fine employee, but why must you attack all management as worthless? Without the management team you wouldn't have a scheduled run, volume to move or a paycheck each week.

[tieguy]

A) these 400 jobs that you speak of......I guess the wind changed directions one morning and the Gods decided that the TSG people would be the next sacrifical lamb. Who will perform this work when the TSG are gone?......oops, I forgot....there are plenty of reliable people in Malaysia, Sri Lanka and India who are more than qualified. Think of the money the company will save. So much for loyalty.

See here's the point I give you actual information on what is going on in the real world that I see and you make something up about our using Sri Lanka. Factually your information is closer to make believe lollipops then mine.

B) If the company is making an effort to move TSG into other jobs then it is a token effort designed to appease the public and the unemployment commission because the previous TSG apparently affected by this said the company is not moving any TSG anywhere. I based my opinion upon their statement, just like you base your opinion upon info you receive.

I base my opinion on actual TSG employees that have already been moved into real jobs. You are basing your information on an anonymous poster who so far has posted highly inaccurate information that makes me wonder if he actually paid attention. Again my information is based on real things I am seeing while yours is based on lollipops.

C) the ibm's, ford's and gm's that you speak of all produce a product subject to the public whims. The majority of the aforementioned have all farmed out their production jobs to the fine people overseas as well as foreign manufacturers (automakers) undercutting their American rivals. Our company provides a service. The TSG was/is indirectly a part of that service......they just don't wear a brown uniform, drive a shiny brown vehicle and smile alot.

You're kidding right? This country has gone through numerous recessions. When the whim of the public is to not buy big things its usually not buying smaller things, both affect the business you and I are in and it ain't public relations. Do your really work for UPS?

At what point will the Gods decide that the company has too many managerial people? Think of the money the company could save by getting rid of some of the worthless managers that are nothing more than figureheads or tokens for the Gods to sacrifice when something really big goes wrong.

I would imagine your boss is on the list if he does not get rid of your cancer soon.

Before you critique my feeder driving skill, loyalty, production etc. please be aware that I am a darned good feeder driver and have never been talked to about my production. The company wishes they had 80 more just like me.

Your attitude sucks. You live off of anonymous posted fantasy because it suits your hate fantasy. I don't believe you can be a good feeder driver with such a crappy attitude.

[tieguy]

Originally Posted by Anonymous Coward

The Las vegas center is actually a UPS facility with UPSers doing the job.

Trick pony another point to enhance my point about highly innacurate information being posted on this issue. Las vegas is ups and the last time I checked they do speak english in Las Vegas. Don't let yourself be a sucker to this type of misinformation just because you want to hate ups so much.

[trickpony1]

I don't hate the company and, in fact, the feeder management team we have now is the best it's ever been. I'm afraid it won't last as the higher up people will decide that we can't be happy and productive also.

Sometime ago a poster mentioned that the company doesn't hire angry, hateful and bitter people....they become that way after having been here a while. What a thought!

For your better understanding try this:
go to the local animal shelter and find a cute, lovable, energetic puppy. Develop a completely random schedule in which you beat, kick or otherwise abuse the puppy for no reason and, sometimes, for reason. You are in complete control of that puppy. The puppy is captive, it can't leave or it will lose it's retirement. Never reward the puppy because you know the puppy can always do better.
As the puppy matures you may see that it shys away from not only you but others that resemble you (I believe it's called "association"). Occasionally take the puppy out and leave it by the side of the highway, almost as if it was being laid-off or it's job was eliminated, if not for real but just to teach it a lesson. Perhaps this simple analogy will help you understand the situation that you will never find yourself in as you are protected by the system that perpetuates itself.

I don't know if the name Winston Churchill rings a bell with you but he supposedly said, to the effect, "those who forget the past are destined to repeat it". So apparently it's not just my twisted mind.

Your turn........

[tieguy]

Not true the company does hire people some who are more likely to believe the company is out to screw them over every chance they get.Some who want to believe all the negativity they can to feed their own insecurities or their own negative outlook on life.

Over

[UPSBOI]

Originally Posted by trickpony1

For your better understanding try this:
go to the local animal shelter and find a cute, lovable, energetic puppy. Develop a completely random schedule in which you beat, kick or otherwise abuse the puppy for no reason and, sometimes, for reason. You are in complete control of that puppy. The puppy is captive, it can't leave or it will lose it's retirement. Never reward the puppy because you know the puppy can always do better.
As the puppy matures you may see that it shys away from not only you but others that resemble you (I believe it's called "association"). Occasionally take the puppy out and leave it by the side of the highway, almost as if it was being laid-off or it's job was eliminated, if not for real but just to teach it a lesson. Perhaps this simple analogy will help you understand the situation that you will never find yourself in as you are protected by the system that perpetuates itself.

Well said Trick!

[speeddemon]

Tie, "read what I said, not what you think I said." LOL

[greyghost88]

I have been a TSG supervisor for 13 years now and I am totally shocked at what we are doing. I supervise 14 Technicians that cover 15 centers, a gateway, and a hub, and each Technician had plenty of work to do everyday during normal operating conditions and in my area I will be forced to reduce my staff by either 1 full time or 2 part time Techs. We were told to reduce our workforce by 7 in my district.

I will have 3 centers that will go live on PAS this year and even if I just lose 1 tech it will be difficult to implement and support in an efficient manner. Of course I have no idea what will happen when the next hurricane comes rolling in. I rely on the Technicians to help with securing the computers before evacuating.

I do not agree with the rationale given from the corporate memo..we are becoming more automated so therefore we need to reduce our technical workforce... Who is responsible for supporting and implementing all of the automated systems? Every time we implement PAS we are adding no less than 15 computers that someone will be required to support.

I think that this is a bad decision, but it just goes to show our current mindset.

I have always told my techs that we are just like pilots, you don't realize how important they are until something goes wrong.

Of course, when PMT hit we all new something was about to happen.

[tieguy]

I don't hate the company and, in fact, the feeder management team we have now is the best it's ever been. I'm afraid it won't last as the higher up people will decide that we can't be happy and productive also.

Trick you really need to reevaluate. Your posts drip with hate.

Sometime ago a poster mentioned that the company doesn't hire angry, hateful and bitter people....they become that way after having been here a while. What a thought!
For your better understanding try this:
go to the local animal shelter and find a cute, lovable, energetic puppy. Develop a completely random schedule in which you beat, kick or otherwise abuse the puppy for no reason and, sometimes, for reason. You are in complete control of that puppy. The puppy is captive, it can't leave or it will lose it's retirement. Never reward the puppy because you know the puppy can always do better.
As the puppy matures you may see that it shys away from not only you but others that resemble you (I believe it's called "association"). Occasionally take the puppy out and leave it by the side of the highway, almost as if it was being laid-off or it's job was eliminated, if not for real but just to teach it a lesson. Perhaps this simple analogy will help you understand the situation that you will never find yourself in as you are protected by the system that perpetuates itself.

I don't know if the name Winston Churchill rings a bell with you but he supposedly said, to the effect, "those who forget the past are destined to repeat it". So apparently it's not just my twisted mind.

Really? You are comparing abusing an animal to a job where you make 27 bucks an hour probably get six or more weeks of time paid off each year? Excellent benefits , excellent retirement? Trick k buddy I don't know any other way to tell you this but you are screwed up mentally. Go out and do some charity work. You are part of the privileged few that has a job as good as yours. To somehow try to compare this job to abusing an animal shows me you have some type of predisposition for hating the company. Your company didn't abuse you they put you up in a penthouse and fed you steak your whole life.

[UPSBOI]

Originally Posted by tieguy

Really? You are comparing abusing an animal to a job where you make 27 bucks an hour probably get six or more weeks of time paid off each year? Excellent benefits , excellent retirement? Trick k buddy I don't know any other way to tell you this but you are screwed up mentally. Go out and do some charity work. You are part of the privileged few that has a job as good as yours. To somehow try to compare this job to abusing an animal shows me you have some type of predisposition for hating the company. Your company didn't abuse you they put you up in a penthouse and fed you steak your whole life.

Tie why aren't you still driving?

[Hangingon]

That slanted view of reality does you a disservice Tie. Living in the Penthouse? You really want to try to defend that argument?

[tieguy]

Originally Posted by Hangingon

That slanted view of reality does you a disservice Tie. Living in the Penthouse? You really want to try to defend that argument?

Its easy to defend. Go out in the real world and see how the other 90 percent lives. In his analogy of the puppy in the dog pound the other 90 percent of the dogs in that dog pound have had it a hell of a lot worse then this dog. So yes the puppy ups pulls out of the pound live in a penthouse and eat steak.

I really dont have much to say about the layed off employees, if ups will let them relocate within the company which some of you are saying on here then thats a start. If this company wants to start saving money, they need to start looking in other directions. As most of you know, ups has never lived "high on the hog" when it comes to hourly employees. They hired just what is needed. Some ofyou may say that they hire more supervisors than what is needed...well, thats ups's decision. It seems that the company could save MILLIONS a year on the following, retention of part-time employees, and injuries and auto accidents. Also the retention of small ups customers. Many of the injuries that happen in our center are because of rushing, and poor work methods....much of which is based on PRODUCTION. I will be the first to tell anyone of you that production is an importantpart of this job, no doubt about it but some within thids company go overboard. I had a ride along with a on road sup who told me that he wonders how the "higher-ups" expect drivers to get done with the heavy kinds of workloads drivers are getting and to follow all of the methods at the same time. He said its almost impossible and injuries are a big part of this....this was managenent talking. I have a small home based shipper who ships flat rate boxes with the postal service 30-40 a day. I go there to pick up 3-5 ups packages. He WANTS to ship everything by us. He even told the customer rep that he knows ups cant beat the usps flat rate box rate but could ups get Reletively close. It was a matter of him shipping almost all of his packages to residential addresses. It would take my almost no time at all to load everything. ups says that they need to grow the residential side of the business, but do nothing about it. I wonder how much of this pressure thats directed to drivers and "local "managenent is because of the stock situation??I knopw we spend lots on retention of part timers....why isnt this a priority. They try to keep an eye out for safety, especially when they have a heavy injury month, why cant they focus year around on it. WHY CANT MANAGEMENT COME TO HOURLY EMPLOYEES AND GET THEIR INPUT INTO HOW TO GROW THE BUSINESS. Some may say thats what the eri survey is for, but that doesnt mean jack. Any other suggestions on cost cutting, or to continue on what I just stated.

Technician is not limited to TSG. Technician is a grade 10 position. All grade 10s are "technicians". There are technicians in other departments like security, accounting, oerations, IE.... Am I right???? The memo I saw did'nt mention TSG specifically.

[olebrownie]

No technicians other than TSG. Administrative assistants or specialists in other departments - no grade 10s except in TSG

[ncrtscisme]

Hello, fellow UPSers!
Unfortunately, i will not be able to say that for long because i am directly affected by this "layoff". Here is what I know so far. Nothing has been put in writing yet, but I'm hearing it all first-hand:

- All 8 TSC departments will be closed down this year (these are the call center technicians, all of them in the U.S...the guys you talk to when you dial 1-888-UPS-TECH)
- They will not all be closing at the same time...Portland, OR and Orlando, FL will be closed in Feb...Addison, IL will be closed in May...it goes all the way to Nashville, TN as the last one to close in Nov.
- TSG (the "field technicians"...you probably know them as the computer guys in the hubs, centers and out in the field that come and fix your stuff) will have their positions reduced by at least a few in each building. my district has not yet informed us of how much...however, another district very close to us was told all of that information, including where they each individually stand, which really caused an uproar amongst those of us who were (and still are) told nothing at all.
- there will be a "LIST" created containing every technician's name by order of seniority (this includes TSC, TSG and external TSG)...in my case, that list will contain all techs in district 46, 47, Region 02 offices, and CACH.
- there will be a "LINE" drawn at a yet-to-be-announced place in that list (rumor puts this line somewhere between 6 and 10 years of service as the cutoff)
- if you happen to currently work in a position that will NOT be eliminated AND you are above that line, then your job is supposed to be safe.
- if you are currently working in a position that WILL be eliminated and you are above that line, you will have the choice of A:leaving and taking a severance package, or B:bumping another tech out of his/her position if they are below that line and currently have a position that has not been eliminated.
- if you are below that line, you have but ONE CHOICE: to leave and take a severance package. You can NOT move to an open job in another department. However, if enough people who were above the line leave and as a result there are open positions left over (this would be HIGHLY UNLIKELY), then the people just below that line will be able to stay (with the last pick of job choices, of course).
- many more positions will become part-time, which most full-time workers will be forced to have to pass up due to the fact that they probably have a mortgage to pay and family to feed and life to live.

[DS]

Thats terrible news ncrt...I hope you end up on the still have a job side.
Surely this will affect us all in some way.What do you,as a technician,think will happen as a result?

[ncrtscisme]

that's hard to say...first of all, phone support will suffer greatly, especially in the beginning when the only support you have is people who have never even SEEN a UPS program or server or PC ("PAS, DCS, PTE, CRS, OCS, ORS, UDC, ETT, PCIS, IVIS, HFCS, DPS....What??").
Secondly, the field technician support will be reduced which means greater downtimes for our critical systems and also longer delays for less-critical problems. Just wait until the next crazy virus hits and the few techs in your building are too busy getting the server back up and running to be able to take care of the virus on your PC.
And don't forget about all the unfortuate employees, some with many years of service and loyalty to UPS, who will be suddenly forced to look for another job in a field that is already shrinking at a fast pace. Most of the people I work with have families to support, but they won't even be given the choice of taking a job in a different department. I know "business is business" and all that, but UPS is not by any means hurting financially (as we are sure to see this thursday when the earnings are announced). This could also have been handled in a better way, because from what I see the employees are getting no answers and the communication is very "uneven" throughout the different districts.
I can definitely say that I have never experienced such a dreary mood at the workplace before. And to make matters worse, management is watching everybody very closely and giving us the impression that they are ready to fire anyone who tries to speak up or step out of line. It really is becoming a scary situation for a lot of people.

[spidey]

None of the 5 or 6 people I know who are being laid off are being offered jobs inside the company. That may be just the sampleing I know, but I think the point was to cut the payroll, period, not to move the expense to another area.

[tieguy]

the payroll gets cut when they are moved. They will only be moved to open positions that have not been filled. The HR managers must have known for a while since they did not let anyone fill any positions for a while thus our people had jobs to move into.

[spidey]

I sure hope so, Tie. I know that they've done that in the past, but they've trimmed down a lot of departments the last few years, and it seems there just isn't enough open this time around. As someone stated before a lot of full time jobs have become part time, and many people can't take the cut.

I am not soap-boxing about this in any way, I haven't seen the books, people paid far more than me decided it needed done. It's just sad watching people who are already streched too thin try to cover more centers while others are back in the workforce again. I remind myself regularly that it could be me next month or next year or in five years. It's my job, I work very hard and take a lot of pride in it, but it is just a job. Love your family, love your doggies and your pot roast. The job is just the means to the end.

[brown_blood]

What would it take for the unionization of TSG? It sounds like that will be the only possible hope.

[ncrtscisme]

"unionization of TSG"...hmmmm...well that's interesting that you say that, because there has been some talk of it over the past few weeks. But as soon as management got wind of it, they completely "freaked out", stating that if we were to unionize there would be jobs lost and they would (and i quote) "use all available resources to stop it from happening". I found it to be a strange coincidence that the "layoff" announcement happened very shortly after they found this out. I'm sure it's been in the works for quite some time now, but the union talk probably sparked it to happen as fast as possible. Too bad we didn't pursue a union sooner. check out www.uatups.com.

Originally Posted by ncrtscisme

"unionization of TSG"...hmmmm...well that's interesting that you say that, because there has been some talk of it over the past few weeks. But as soon as management got wind of it, they completely "freaked out", stating that if we were to unionize there would be jobs lost and they would (and i quote) "use all available resources to stop it from happening". I found it to be a strange coincidence that the "layoff" announcement happened very shortly after they found this out. I'm sure it's been in the works for quite some time now, but the union talk probably sparked it to happen as fast as possible. Too bad we didn't pursue a union sooner. check out www.uatups.com.

I'm sure if we got this out to all of the techs, they would all be on board at this point. I know my entire district team would band together as team once again for this.

[trickpony1]

Tie,
It appears the sugar coating is wearing off or do you not remember telling me how it was just my ravaged mind?
It seems this board is receiving input from a number of sources regarding this topic, one of which comments on threats and oppression by management.
Gosh.......what a thought.