I'm not one to brag...

[STL Cards]

Can you please break up your paragraphs with the enter button this just gives me a

ing headache

No way am I reading that mess, they clearly have too much time on their hands

 

[Boxslinger11]

No way am I reading that mess, they clearly have too much time on their hands

Probably mgmt of course they do

 

[Wally]

However, ol' Fitty is on vacation and since one of UPS paid holidays(New Years,Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years Eve) falls on my vacation. I have TWO options. I can just bank the extra 8-hours for the 4th of July or I can also add an extra day to my vacation and take Monday the 9th of July off in addition.

I'll be taking Monday off. I like to schedule my 8-weeks paid vacation around my 7-paid holidays to take an extra day off and in between I use my 40-hours of sick basically as floaters. Also I get approx. 5 R/O's (Request Off) days a year that are unpaid. I just call my Supe and say; "Hey ol Buddy, (don't tell anyone I call him buddy) how about letting me off for the day." He runs down stairs and looks at schedule and says... ok, looks good. Call back 1-hour before start to see if anyone called in sick... I then call 59-minutes before start. He tells me... you got it! You are off! I hang up... do a little dance. Race upstairs and use momma like a Hoppity Hop!

Have a great 4th everyone!

 

[Staycalm]

To answer your question about why anyone would post information about our pay and benefits I will try to explain. The fact that this thread, as you say, made its way onto google news, supports my hypothesis that the OP is a bot (or just a paid operative, but I prefer the bot theory because its posts sound like they were created by a bot) that was set in place by UPS and/or teamsters to disrupt the conversation among workers, and now we can add "sway public opinion" to the list of motives. So you are asking the wrong people.

I didn't miss your point, I'm pointing out the fact that you are ignoring (and continue to ignore) our actual concerns. For sake of argument, we'll say that the OP is legit, his purpose for posting the information he did is in line with your motives, to tell us how great we have it and convince us not to strike. His point is not to say that we deserve more money. From the many posts I've read the only concern anyone has expressed over driver pay is that it keep up with inflation. The ones we want to see make more money are the part timers. You are rebutting an argument we are not making, it's called a strawman fallacy.

I agree we have something to worry about from competition, that's nothing new. A strike could be devastating (nobody wants one), and public opinion may be against us, but you can't put all the responsibility for those facts on the union members, we can't do all the giving and what we are asking is not unrealistic. We want to keep browning up and doing the job, but we have a responsibility to ourselves and those who come after us to fight against the degradation of working conditions and the devaluation of our labor. It is management's lack of recognition of those two simple responsibilities that creates the threat of a strike, not the fact that we take those responsibilities seriously.

As for tech, it's coming, and nothing short of the collapse of civilization can stop it. Ironically, the tech itself may ultimately cause the collapse of civilization if we fail to adjust our economic model appropriately. If we succeed at making the needed adjustments, then technology need not be feared. There is no indication that technology poses any significant threat to package handling/delivering jobs within the next five years, so it need not require any serious consideration in these negotiations.

My advice to you is that you should not take one out of context post written by management, supplied to the media by management for their purposes and come here, guns blazing, telling us all to straighten up and fly right. Take some time, look around, and find the real story. Once you arm yourself with some real information, and you still have a problem with what you see, then feel free to start making some informed arguments. You are not the only management member on the forum (heck, we got plenty of the competition on here as well), so stick around and get to know us better.

Very good point, thank you.

 

[Wally]

Man, you gotta lift more because you’re coming in weak with these new threads.

At least pose a question like “Should I get my supervisor a gift for being so nice, letting me have the day off?”

Guys like that don't lift.

 

[Wally]

View attachment 199763

Be nice to Limbit App @burrheadd!

 

[The Driver]

Ahh, good point. The use of existential in this argument was to illustrate that the threat was not far off but at our doorstep, not a philosophical debate but a real one. Whatever your understanding of the word, here is the reality. Robots that deliver packages are real and in production. An engineering company actually had the audacity to place employees disguised as 'vendors' in the jump seats of drivers a few years back, taking pictures, measurements, recording weights of packages etc as research for delivery robots (fact). Current numbers for UPS employees stand just under 300k, with about 30% being package and feeder drivers (give or take a few percentage points, but again facts). There are roughly 300million US citizens likely 50% of voting age, and roughly 110m who voted in the last election (facts). 110m is more than 300k. If you want to include all union members you can add that too. Keep in mind union numbers are on the decline for decades now(fact), there is a negative narrative being played about unions in this country, and a strong argument saying that the whole system is outdated (unions were created to improve labor conditions during the manufactoring boom in the early 1900s, give or take a few decades, again facts) . You got so caught up in formulating a rebuttal that you missed the point (very cool caption it the top of your post, guess on not that smart with 3 degrees being a lower management person). Here's an imaginary scenerio that I believe is real seeing as though Amazon went public with this franchise thing after talks of an agreement was reached. UPS strikes, stock price plummets, and Amazon makes a move to buy UPS package, setting the conditions that there will be no union and they set the wage prices, assume whatever prior agreements best case buy drivers out or have you work at the 15 or 20 dollar wage their current drivers make. Yes I likely would be out of a job, but remember I have those 3 degrees and a trove of other experience so it's not the end of the world. I'm not here to argue with you, I happened onto this thread which was the reason for the post. The vast majority of voters don't give a crap about your grievances, what do you think the narrative will be when they do the math and figure out that 110k+ UPS drivers are keeping them from getting their packages because they want more money? Good luck trying to explain that. There is a common narrative for the average upser (likely not you seeing judging from your reply). Hub kid who finished high school and stumbled into a job, worked his/her way up fill in the blank, no disrespect. You deserve everything you have. I consider myself an outsider coming to ups late in life. I tell anyone who will listen upsers are a hard working bunch. But that doesn't play in a place where income inequality and the wealth gap are miles apart. You don't walk into a store waving your pay stub, so why bring it up in a place where people will see it? And it's not you it's the stooge who started this thread. Some media troll found this thread and was compelled to post it. Why? Because they knew it would stir up conversation, and not the type you want. There is an assault on unions look at the teachers across this country and they have it much worse than you. Let's just brown up and keep doing our jobs is my point. I've know about this place for years and have never posted because this is your space. But like most things its a public space so let's be careful about what we say because you don't always know who your audience is.

A) Do you understand what a paragraph is? Holy , dude.

B) Management will be replaced by AI before drivers will.

 

[Tony Q]

However, ol' Fitty is on vacation and since one of UPS paid holidays(New Years,Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years Eve) falls on my vacation. I have TWO options. I can just bank the extra 8-hours for the 4th of July or I can also add an extra day to my vacation and take Monday the 9th of July off in addition.

I'll be taking Monday off. I like to schedule my 8-weeks paid vacation around my 7-paid holidays to take an extra day off and in between I use my 40-hours of sick basically as floaters. Also I get approx. 5 R/O's (Request Off) days a year that are unpaid. I just call my Supe and say; "Hey ol Buddy, (don't tell anyone I call him buddy) how about letting me off for the day." He runs down stairs and looks at schedule and says... ok, looks good. Call back 1-hour before start to see if anyone called in sick... I then call 59-minutes before start. He tells me... you got it! You are off! I hang up... do a little dance. Race upstairs and use momma like a Hoppity Hop!

Have a great 4th everyone!

You aren't helping anything here. I know other might say the same thing about me, but your stories are really weird, respectfully.

 

[The Driver]

You aren't helping anything here. I know other might say the same thing about me, but your stories are really weird, respectfully.

Dave is a sad, lonely man.

 

[Tony Q]

Dave is a sad, lonely man.

I don't know Dave, but that's his problem.

 

[crow27]

Freeze its much closer than you think. Get the big picture, electric vehicles are part of every major car producers inventory. These companies are driven by bottom line. Do you think they would spend all this money testing these cars if there wasn't a need? People are lazy, which is why our peak numbers go up every year. If they couldn't be bother with going to a store to shop what makes you think they wouldn't buy a car to drive them around while they play on their cell phones? Also watch the action in DC, these companies have k street lobbyists getting their hands in the pockets of those who legislate. Watch for studies to come out along the lines of automated cars safer than fill in the blank. You think it can't happen because of a few crashes, but with every crash they go back and tweak a few bugs in the program. If it wasn't going to happen they already wouldn't be allowed to be on the roads. Didn't a mayor just catch a ride in a self driving car to an event last week? And Uber drivers are contractors not union employees and they need their phones to work and for Uber to get paid another benefit negotiated by the company. Look I'm not your enemy I love my job and the people I work with. I just know we can get much more done and be better versions of what we already do if we focus on the most important things, doing the job that allows us to take care of our families.

Spoken like someone who has never done the job...where are these prototype robots that are going to deliver the mini fridges, tires, bedroom furniture, window blinds that take up the length of the car, mattresses, bricks, BBQ pits and still bring in 400-600 pickups in day? UPS is going to deploy them? We are still driving around in p12's from the 90s, one blew up on the highway. I can see small robots taking residential stops from UPS, but those aren't very profitable stops for UPS to begin with if I understand correctly.

Amazon would be pretty foolish to inherit the clusterfk that is UPS (even if stock tanked and they bought us for half-off at 50bn), I've worked for both companies and their process is much more streamlined and modern, it'd be cheaper to start from scratch like they're doing. This thing couldn't out deliver an average 22.3 air driver btw: Amazon Just Sparked A Race To Bring Robots To Our Doors

Also, the thread starter is an obvious troll that is bringing our compensation to the forefront of the argument for the media to pick up just as you stated, all of his posts are the same. I'm not begging for a raise but I'd vote no to full-time drivers doing the same work as I do and never reaching the same pay.

Congrats on your three degrees...hopefully one is in robotics/engineering

 

[zubenelgenubi]

Spoken like someone who has never done the job...where are these prototype robots that are going to deliver the mini fridges, tires, bedroom furniture, window blinds that take up the length of the car, mattresses, bricks, BBQ pits and still bring in 400-600 pickups in day? UPS is going to deploy them? We are still driving around in p12's from the 90s, one blew up on the highway. I can see small robots taking residential stops from UPS, but those aren't very profitable stops for UPS to begin with if I understand correctly.

Amazon would be pretty foolish to inherit the clusterfk that is UPS (even if stock tanked and they bought us for half-off at 50bn), I've worked for both companies and their process is much more streamlined and modern, it'd be cheaper to start from scratch like they're doing. This thing couldn't out deliver an average 22.3 air driver btw: Amazon Just Sparked A Race To Bring Robots To Our Doors

Also, the thread starter is an obvious troll that is bringing our compensation to the forefront of the argument for the media to pick up just as you stated, all of his posts are the same. I'm not begging for a raise but I'd vote no to full-time drivers doing the same work as I do and never reaching the same pay.

Congrats on your three degrees...hopefully one is in robotics/engineering

There's a company in Albany, OR that sprung up out of the Robotics department at Oregon State University that is developing a bipedal robot, and in one article they specifically say that one objective is using it for package delivery. It is still a long way from that goal, it's just legs now..

 

[Frankie's Friend]

My question is; If I sit out and quit UPS with all you great people here. Will I get a check similar to that amount each week out from the Teamsters?

Asking as I wait for my three kids here in the waiting room as they're all getting their teeth cleaned.

Wife is over at the cell phone store getting us a new contract with the huge discount we get by providing a UPS stub.

Any solid #'s on strike fund checks would be greatly appreciated.

Happy Saturday & Sunday fellas. 4-day work week coming up for ya.

$675 / week plus workers comp.

 

[crow27]

There's a company in Albany, OR that sprung up out of the Robotics department at Oregon State University that is developing a bipedal robot, and in one article they specifically say that one objective is using it for package delivery. It is still a long way from that goal, it's just legs now..

Oregon state, Darpa, Boston Dynamics...I've seen all the robot videos, still don't picture them doing anything other than knocking resi's out quicker. The price of expensive robots, the maintenance/repairs, heavy industrial or business routes, handling irregs, gate codes/ security guards, elevators, different suites, customer and area knowledge...The guys who gave us Orion are going to program all of that.

 

[zubenelgenubi]

Oregon state, Darpa, Boston Dynamics...I've seen all the robot videos, still don't picture them doing anything other than knocking resi's out quicker. The price of expensive robots, the maintenance/repairs, heavy industrial or business routes, handling irregs, gate codes/ security guards, elevators, different suites, customer and area knowledge...The guys who gave us Orion are going to program all of that.

It's all still a long way off. Not to say that we shouldn't start thinking about it, but the sky sure ain't fallin' yet.

 

[retired2000]

I did the samething but added two extra weeks for my reserve training when I left I was getting 10 weeks off a year

 

[Ancient Alien]

I did the samething but added two extra weeks for my reserve training when I left I was getting 10 weeks off a year

I'm sure enjoying my 3rd week out of 8-paid weeks a year.

That pretty normal then, for the boys that work at say Lowe's, Amazon or Coca~Cola? 8 paid weeks + 1 paid sick week + a couple more pair of weeks for the reserves? Thank you for your service btw.

Is that pretty normal? 11-paid weeks a year in the business world outside UPS because I'm with these 'Gang of 45' fellers!