How about a 40.0 list instead of a 9.5 list...

noril

Well-Known Member
Damn this younger generation is LAZY. If you were looking for a 40 hour week WHY in hell did you decide UPS was the place for you?
Based on your reply, I sense you didn't read all the posting on this thread, which is understandable, since there is a lot here, and I tend to write long, but I find that life is complicated and one simply can't get by with short bumper sticker slogans...

To (re)answer your question. I am actually a part-time air driver, and (oversimplifying here) one of the major reasons I have stayed in that classification is to avoid the tons of overtime that I have seen like all full-timers getting in the past... In that sense, this issue doesn't not really affect me directly right now. That said, the future of the air driver classification seems somewhat uncertain, so I would consider going full-time if the job offered a better work-life balance.

Most of what is written below is taken from post #33 and 27:

I remind everyone that 8 hours per day, 40 hours per week has been considered "standard" for a full-time job, in large part thanks to the hard work of labor unions over time, so I really don't understand how or when has asking to have ones work week be basically around 40 hours most of the time become a sign of laziness or weakness?

This is contract negotiation time and the union has sought the input of the rank and file. Many other people have complained about excessive, unwanted overtime and I have tried to present a workable solution here with the hope that an idea will work its way up...

I believe we are all basically the top experts on our own situations, so I have absolutely no desire here to try and hold back people who want some amount of overtime, whatever that amount is. I am just saying that it should be those people who want the overtime that should be the ones filling out a special request form. The "default" setting should be that we are "working to live, not living to work."

I get that you have to accept certain challenges or discomforts which simply come with some particular job. I understand that long haul truck drivers need to accept that they will spend days away from home at a time. Also, driving for UPS will always be a different, grittier experience than say working the front desk at a doctor's office, and there is absolutely no language that can be written into our UPS-Teamster contract to make that unchangeable reality otherwise, but I do believe that at least most drivers SHOULD be able to have 40 hour a week jobs at UPS, IF THEY SO WANTED, at least for most of the year. If someone's ideal is working 8-9 hours per day, I am fine with that too. I have no desire to impose a fix on something which someone doesn't view as broken. Ditto for the person who has concluded that 11-12 hours is what ultimately works best for him.

I want to say again what I said in my OP: As best I remember from recently looking at the package car driver rosters at the hub out of which I work, approximately 10% of the people on the lists are out longer term due to some injury. I strongly suspect that this level of driver injury occurs as a result of all the overtime full time package car drivers have typically had to put in all throughout the year and that we would all be better off - rank and file workers and the corporation - if full-time drivers at least had an easy option of working right around the standard 40-hour work week and getting the off time to rest and recover properly in order to stay safe and in good health.

On a more personal level, after spending close to four years as a preloader, I went on to become a part-time air driver nearly 20 years ago where I have chosen to stay and it has worked out for me so far. One reason among others I have not wanted to go full time is because of all the overtime I know I would be required to put in whether I wanted to or not. I can list in my mind plenty of people who went full time package from part time air driving only to then find themselves getting injured after say 1 to 4 years. Some of those drivers eventually took some settlement and left UPS altogether. It is my thinking that if their hours hadn't been quite so long, they would have managed as full-time drivers just fine...


Additionally, for people who are married in family life, to get home earlier and have dinner at an appropriate hour with one's wife and children, I believe would be a fine, worthwhile, and REALISTIC goal as well. Again, we are not long haul drivers who HAVE to expect being out for days at a time.

The response to this thread I started has been interesting... Some people definitely seem to be in agreement with me while other people disagree strongly. And that is despite the fact that I see this 40.0 list I am suggesting being COMPLETELY OPTIONAL.
 

noril

Well-Known Member
This post goes hand in hand with what I've been saying about PVD's the last couple days.

How will we ever achieve a 40-hour work week without putting more drivers on the road? (which has never happened)?

The only other solution I can think of is to turn to all those teamsters who are only getting about 25 hours a week for help.

Let them sum' beeches get 30-hours a week, c'mon baby! Woo!

Oh Get there! Get there! Get there!
I am very open to some variation of your idea if it was structured in such a way as to create a mild DISincentive for the company to get packages delivered this way... Basically, somehow make using part-timers somewhat more costly so that this is something the company falls back on in a temporary pinch and not the way they want to keep doing things all the time, as much as possible...

Package volume fluctuates. That is not taking taking the company's side or the union's side...it's just a fact.

There should be enough full-timers times to cover some baseline level of work and full-timers shouldn't have work taken from them if they want to do it, but yes, when we find ourselves shorthanded due to some temporary spike in volume that may have even been unexpected, I think it is better for everyone to give some delivery work to part-timers who will welcome it rather than overwork some full-timer who doesn't even want that extra work.
 

Thebrownblob

Well-Known Member
I am very open to some variation of your idea if it was structured in such a way as to create a mild DISincentive for the company to get packages delivered this way... Basically, somehow make using part-timers somewhat more costly so that this is something the company falls back on in a temporary pinch and not the way they want to keep doing things all the time, as much as possible...

Package volume fluctuates. That is not taking taking the company's side or the union's side...it's just a fact.

There should be enough full-timers times to cover some baseline level of work and full-timers shouldn't have work taken from them if they want to do it, but yes, when we find ourselves shorthanded due to some temporary spike in volume that may have even been unexpected, I think it is better for everyone to give some delivery work to part-timers who will welcome it rather than overwork some full-timer who doesn't even want that extra work.
Your posts are nonsense, stay part time if it makes you happy. Your long winded posts and your agreement with using part-timers prove you have no idea what you’re talking about with regard to the way the company operates. It’s a very immature logic you’re using you give these people an inch and they will take a mile, using language that is arbitrary in a contract against you,and tell you too bad and drag you through arbitration or another contractual season.
 
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Your posts are nonsense, stay part time if it makes you happy. Your long winded posts and your agreement with using part-timers prove you have no idea what you’re talking about with regard to the way the company operates. It’s a very immature logic you’re using you give these people an inch and they will take a mile using language that is arbitrary in a contract against you and tell you too bad and drag you through arbitration or another contractual season.
Just like the company did during peak season.

Give away the work to PVD drivers, then try to screw the union employees out of their 8 hour guarantee
 

Thebrownblob

Well-Known Member
Just like the company did during peak season.

Give away the work to PVD drivers, then try to screw the union employees out of their 8 hour guarantee
Some people are too thick headed to understand the enemy they’re operating against. You can even throw the 22.4 in there as they were really never even used the way they were intended because the company said they didn’t have to.
 

Thebrownblob

Well-Known Member
Now they don't want them working on the inside.

Combo flex job my ass
After every contract is signed, the company is purposely going over the language for Ways to manipulate it to their advantage. And even when they know they’re wrong, they will purposely go out of their way to miss use language that we have allowed knowing it will take months if not years to correct the issue.
 
After every contract is signed, the company is purposely going over the language for Ways to manipulate it to their advantage. And even when they know they’re wrong, they will purposely go out of their way to miss use language that we have allowed knowing it will take months if not years to correct the issue.
Now is the time to get the language fixed
 

ThePackageDeli

Well-Known Member
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100%

Well-Known Member
As I understand things, one of the big issues in these current contract negotiations is excessive overtime, and that is something many drivers have had as a big complaint about for at least the past 23 years which have been my time at UPS. I like the slogan "work to live, not live to work." I don't sense the 9.5 list has been effective enough in reducing this unwanted overtime. People keep filing grievances and UPS keeps paying out, but I figure that getting some extra cash is really not what a person who is seeking a better work-life balance truly wants...

A solution that I am informally proposing here is to create a new 40.0 list which is something you would sign on to as a full time driver if you want to work right around 40 hours per week, but instead of being paid extra money the way one is when winning a 9.5 grievance, filing a grievance for over 40.0 would instead earn one an extra, unpaid day off once the amount of overtime you have worked adds up to over 8 hours. A certain reasonable amount of time would be given to the company to schedule the extra day off, so as to not mess up the operation for UPS. Just like the 9.5 list is suspended for peak season, it would be the same with this 40.0 list...and maybe a few additional times as well, such as the days leading up to Valentines Day and Mothers' Day where there is some spike in volume that we need "all hands on deck" and shouldn't blame UPS for the momentary worker shortage.

To address right away some objections people may have to my idea, I have heard it argued that it is less costly for UPS to pay overtime and even overtime grievances than it is to hire additional drivers because of the value of the benefits that are given over and above the wages. However, one reason this thinking never made much sense to me is because UPS has a huge number of part-timers who are receiving a benefits package beyond their wages that is not much less than that of full-timers. If a big goal should be keeping the number of people who are getting benefits as low as possible, then why isn't UPS trying to minimize the number of part-timers by encouraging people to voluntarily work 2 split shifts and reduce the overall head count and thereby benefits paid?

Additionally and more importantly, I strongly suspect that driver injury, which is also costly as well as dreadful for the injured, occurs at the level it does as a result of all the overtime full time package car drivers have typically had to put in all throughout the year. I believe that when people are fatigued and stretched beyond their healthy limits is when injuries are far more likely to occur despite all the best training on safety and proper work methods. As best I remember from recently looking at the package car driver rosters at the hub out of which I work, approximately 10% of the people on the lists are out longer term due to some injury. So even if hiring more drivers means there will be significant extra costs with the additional benefits that have to be paid, in addition to doing the right thing ethically, if I was a gambling man, I would wager that UPS management would be pleasantly surprised by a net financial savings that would come about through reduced employee injury and fewer disability payments as a result of getting full-timers working right around the standard 40-hour work week made possible through the hiring of the additional drivers, and giving everyone the off time to rest and recover properly in order to stay safe and in good health.

I recognize that in some cases there are significant advantages to having someone work more than 8 hours on the typical day. Perhaps the best solution in such cases might be having someone work four, ten hour, not necessarily all consecutive days or some other schedule where one still works right around a 40-hour week.

As a disclaimer, with what I have proposed above, I speak for no one other than myself, but I do hope to win other people over like I tried to do with another thread I started not too long ago. That thread generated what I thought was some good discussion. I hope the same happens here, and ideally reaches some people who are involved in making the big decisions...
I agree. It’s force OT.
 
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