In feeders, our biggest concern, was, and is, subcontracting.
Maybe package car drivers and part-timers don't understand that, but this may be UPS's biggest in to eliminate the vast majority of us. Nothing happens overnight, but it isn't hard to see their road map on how they can accomplish it.
A few years ago, UPS bought Coyote Logistics for $1.8 billion. That's with a B, people. Coyote wasn't a trucking company. They were a dispatch company that matched independent truckers with companies needing freight moved. And they did it and do it on the cheap.
Now UPS is in charge of Coyote, or what used to be called Coyote. And they didn't shell out $1.8B to pad the bottom line.
As soon as peak comes around, UPS gets on the line and starts filling our loads with the Coyote scabs. And UPS being UPS, they use these drivers to shuttle around our loads all year round when they think they can. And with the poor language in our last contract, it's tough to document when this happens.
You see, the language states that only the ORIGIN hub can file a grievance on contractors moving our loads. And since a lot of our loads are off-property--rail yards, satellite lots--it can be hard to know when gypos are taking our loads. It's much easier to see a gypo coming into a hub than leaving it, because they may not be actually leaving the yard proper.
But we are nothing, if not vigilant. Here, drivers are keyed to gypos, and spotters can use their computers to look up origin loads. Then we use the UPS Teamsters Facebook page to call out to the origin hub, so they can file the appropriate grievance. We don't care if we get paid, but we want SOMEONE to get paid. And others do the same.
And yes, Denis T thought he would throw us a plastic bone, by adding language in the proposed contract, to include DESTINATION hubs that can also file on gypos carrying our work. That might be okay, if the union fought to get the core problem addressed, but they haven't.
And that's not even the big problem with the new language. He made much about how UPS will now pull many loads off the rail to make 2000 new sleeper jobs. Sounds real groovy.
Ah, but the devil is in Taylor's work. And his contract words.
For example, Article 26, Sec. 6, states, the company commits that the number of new drivers to REMOVE loads from the rail shall be, at least, 2000, over the length of the contract. Notice the word REMOVE, and not RUN.
That same section says, that if UPS hires 200 drivers by year end 2019, and 450 drivers in each addition year, for the remainder of the contract, then, "it shall have the right to cover these RUNS with substitute means of transportation."
Well, you don't have to be real smart to see how big of
you could run through this language.
In other words, those 2000 jobs, that Taylor wants to tout, basically amount to local jobs pulling loads off the rail to give to low-cost contractors to run on the roads. Jobs that we USED to run.
You'd have to be stupid to not see how this is like water running under the foundation of your dream home. It's only a matter of time before it collapses.
And if it happens to feeders, do you really think it can't happen in package car?
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As far as this video of this Hoffa stooge goes, I can match, and raise you this video, for balance:
- And as a final word, this clown has cans of Hamm's beer on his table. Hamm's? Are you kidding me? Is Pabst's beer not cheap enough for this people? Can you even BUY Hamm's beer anymore? And WHY?