LarryBird
Well-Known Member
The thing is, is that in twenty years UPS will be at the beginning stage of, or approaching a radically different business model - driverless technology should be approved and implemented some time near this date, one would imagine. I'm not sure if UPS vehicle's will still have an "occupant", in lieu of a driver, who will only deliver the packages, much like a driver helper does currently, or whether they will have developed some type of technology that will also phase out the need for the human to actually get the packages to the delivery point/consignee.With or without the union whose current leadership will be dust by then.
Follow the money.
Twenty years from now this company will be vastly different and the new drivers who were never mentored in what real customer service is will be the norm...and it will further dilute our customer base due to higher labor costs.
Will the current union survive? Will hard earned pensions survive?
Most of them have no clue or interest in what the customer wants. They just don't want to lose their multiple pensions and trips to the fancy venues where hearings are heard on the dime of UPSers "who aren't real Teamsters" but lead the industry in galley slave labor and deal with more harassment (from any like shipping company) via lame useless supervisors that came out of a trailer unload after 60 days and are now the "boss".
This thing will be hard to keep together when the competition ramps up at half the cost (or less) unless we find a better way forward with input from the people who truly write our checks...the small to medium sized businesses who pay the highest shipping costs.
Are starting to look like we don't care?
Just my honest opinion.
If I had to bet, I'd wager that there's no need for the human occupant. If not twenty years down the road, the human component to this service will definitely be gone in thirty - there's no way UPS still employs a driver in 2050.
This is inevitable, unless legislature prohibits this tech, in the interest of job preservation. But the way the tide is going, there won't be any fight from Congress against Silicon Valley, for little-old regular citizens. The money always wins.