Does the union have the backbone to enforce the over 9five rule

After days and days of 14 hr workloads why does the union turn its head on the fact that we as hourly are being harrassed into crazy dispatches that cant be achieved.We were told by sup that our stop counts would increase one way or another.So they want you to feel stressed by the work and you will speed up to get it done,and when you reach 9.5 that day what you have delivered will be you daily dispatch from here on out.SLOW DOWN,SAFETY FIRST.You have to be able to work till you retire.

 

Every six months i notify management i dont want to work excessive overtime and am put on the '9.5 list' .During the six month time frame i file a grievance whenever i am forced to work over 9.5 three days in a week and have collected many times. I truly think they would rather pay the grievance than put another route on the road

 

The part that I don't like about the 9.5 rule is that it is based upon hours worked rather than on the dispatch.

 

There are no production standards in the contract so what would the dispatch matter?

 

we have had that fight many many times in our center. the center manager and on Road supes tell us we have no foundation becasue the dispatch didnt plan over 9.5 hours. We have had 3 go to the panel and all were decided in the hourlies favor

 

There numbers are all fantasy

 

They should be in our favor,because they are always changinh the numbers

 

We all know the number of stops are routes should have on a normal day. I don't worry about the stop count anymore I take my full lunch and breaks and work the methods if I don't finish my route before I have to be back for the air trailer tomorrow is another day. I'm not going run around like a idiot get hurt or killed trying to clean my route just to make some desk jockey look good. If they think I'm padding my numbers I would invite them to ride along with me.

The problem is that some drivers will put there lunch and breaks in there DIAD but not take them in order to clean there overdispatched routes.

Remember you are part the of the union if you have a problem with something ask your steward about the rules / read the contract and file grievance.

 

Care to explain that one?

 

If the 9.5 rule were based upon "planned" day rather than "paid" day then the company would simply get around it by generating two seperate WOR's.

There would be the real one (kept hidden from us of course), that they would use to actually dispatch the routes with. And there would be a fake one that they let us see, which would be rigged to show every route conveniently coming in with a "planned" day of 9.49 hours or less no matter how many stops it did.

The allowances were never intended to be fair or realistic in the first place. By recognizing them we would be validating them.

 

i did the 9.5 thing and it seemed like that they would keep you under it 3 days and really fu-k you over the other 2 days. that's my experience with it

kinda related- talked to a union stewart a couple weeks ago and i was complaining about the 10-11 hour days and he said that the union was pushing to get the DOT laws changed from 12 hours on road down to 10 hours. haven't heard or read anything that proves or disproves it???

 

A stewards meeting with our center and division manager confirms that.
Our division manager stated clearly that anyone on the 9.5 list would be kept under 9.5 for three days and over, way over dispatched the other 2.

And guess what those 2 days would be??? One would always be Friday.

 

Fair days work for a fair days pay. Who is your steward or BA in this meeting and why are they not enforcing the contract? Fair and equal rights? Harrassment?

 

I think they count on drivers skipping their lunch to get the work done. Even more so on Fridays.
How can you complain about excessive hours when you get it done before 9.5

 

We have a center that does not even fight the 9.5 list, once you go over for the week you are just paid the extra cash, its nice some guys have seen checks for 200 bucks from it, if your center is not doing the 9.5 list you are throwing money out the window.

 

My center paid out $54,000 in over 9.5 grievance settlements last year. $1200 of that went to me.

I had never filed a 9.5 grievance in over 23 years, until last summer when my building consolidated from 3 centers down to 2 and I was transferred to a new center that had been given an impossible stops-per-car metric to meet. At that point, the company no longer made any attempt at all to honor the 9.5 language or to grant 8 hr requests, and we had guys working 14 hour days and running out of DOT hours in August. Its pretty frustrating when you put in an 8 hr request and instead of having it honored you wind up bringing 50 missed stops back to the building at 10:30 at night.

 

UPS's entire business model for decades has been designed around screwing as many people as possible out of their lunches and breaks.

The math is very simple. 10 drivers who skip lunch=one full route eliminated, one less car on the road, one less FT employee on the payroll. The allowances and dispatch for each center have always been calculated around this very basic equation.

 

They are only screwing themselves, UPS is only taking advantage of it. The math goes the other way too, 10 drivers take their lunch and they add a trip.

 

Use your 8 hour requests as well... All you can do is keep filing grievances for 9.5 and 8hr requests. Eventually the massive paper trail of paid grievances and disrespect for the contract will be obvious. Remember the contract was agreed to by both parties so if they expect you to follow the rules they should do so as well. If they try to harass you for production in retaliation then you have proof. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

Plan days are a incentive program ( bonus plan ) based on company policy and not recognized by the Union. Know your methods, stay safe and retire happy. If you skip lunches and breaks you only hurting yourself.