I can understand the reasoning for the Union to create more full time jobs, like they stated it would provide much needed funding into their Pension and Health and Welfare plans. The trouble I see with these proposed 22.4 positions is that their hourly rate will be always 6 dollars less than the established route driver, does anybody seriously thinks that UPS will not take advantage of any loop hole in the contract to start replacing vacated driving positions into the less paying 22.4 classifications. This is the company that after the "97" strike that tried to eliminate the contract language for creating all those 22.3 inside positions stating that they were losing business and were not required to fulfill their agreement. It took a year in arbitration to finally force them to live up their word.
I have yet to see the entire package, this is not a one issue contract. Look at the whole contract and then decide, still a lot of unknowns to be answered. Can they get a vote out before 1 August, I can not see it happening. First of all you cannot vote on something you know nothing about, can they inform the total membership with that short of a time frame..not. I have no issue with extending the contract till the supplements are settled, we did it with the 2013 one even with the Master being passed by only 4,100 votes nationwide. I have a hope that the Committee is finally going to settle some of the injustice with these Supplements.
I am worried about the voting percentages with this upcoming contract. Sure 93 percent voted for the strike authorization but nobody apparently knows the percentage of those who were eligible to vote. It generally runs under 50 percent, that figure should cause some concern because of International Bylaw that requires a certain percentage to vote down a national contract. It has been posted on this site before but if less than 50 percent of the members vote on a particular contract, it would require two/thirds of those voted to reject it, over 50 percent it is a straight vote. Also do not make the mistake to claim it is all about these hybrid driving positions, really look seriously at our raises, are they that much more than the last contract. The biggest jump in my pay was from Trump passing a tax reform bill, the general wage increase is substandard plain and simple. The part time positions will still be at poverty level, the constant turn over will not change. That leaves what kind of increases will be happening to EVERYBODY's Pension and better Health and Welfare packages. As of now we have no concrete information, except the committee claims that they made major improvements with both.
