Major ground failure in San Francisco.

[burrheadd]

Peak is peak, on our 6th one. Its primarily the new contractors and with ISP and 5 PSA minimum (well not PSA now but you know what I mean), these newbies are ill prepared, not only that, the drivers will typically demand more pay with the new owners coming in. The crap and sizes of boxes we are being asked to deliver, for 17 cent, LOL, is ridiculous. I drive much more than I would like, driving tomorrow, friday and Monday of course so I feel the drivers pain.

Its not just Frisco, its any over priced congested area where rent is through the roof in Cali. My buddy is Fresno who is up helping in SF in hopes of getting some routes does not have this issue back home. He makes approx 10% less across the board then we but housing is around 700 a month. Almost all his drivers are over 5 years working. Fedex is a career, its a good job there They make 600 a week but again, do the math.

As our UPS guy said, its simple economics. When your total income is going to housing and gas and your on obozocare and you have no free cash flow, what incentive is there?

There has to be a COST OF LIVING adjustment for metropolitan areas with high rises. If I drove where I grew up, which happens to be in Northern Cali and I made 600 a week, I could probably own a house and rent currently is 800-900 a month for a house, NOT 3-4k


And this is 2014 data, add another 15% for 2015.

600 a week is a good job
You can't be serious

 

[fres431]

I'm asking you why don't they now?

They do and have been for last 6 months in my building

 

[MAKAVELI]

They do and have been for last 6 months in my building

I'm talking about working 6 days, not Tues- Sat route.

 

[OrioN]

I'm talking about working 6 days, not Tues- Sat route.

Ups runs on 60 HOS while FX runs with 70... so they will definitely have no DOT hours left on their 6th day for most of them.

I guess they'll have to use their PTers to cover that Saturday if theyll be running ground ops in addition to their NDA

 

[OrioN]

600 a week is a good job
You can't be serious

Not in that geographical area... didnt you saw the OPs first few examples? ??

He also made a valid point to have FX ground give higher allowances to maintain a decent driver and not have one of these in their HR dept:

I see various wage discrepancies for the same job, depending on the location . Doesnt Express opco do the same? Or they don't give a friend

 

[Operational needs]

Not in that geographical area... didnt you saw the OPs first few examples? ??

He also made a valid point to have FX ground give higher allowances to maintain a decent driver and not have one of these in their HR dept:

I see various wage discrepancies for the same job, depending on the location . Doesnt Express opco do the same? Or they don't give a friend

Yes. Express has many different pay levels around the country. NYC, San Francisco, Washington, DC, etc., are higher.

 

[TUT]

It's San Francisco. That's 95% of the problem right there.

Must be sarcasm, since SF like any place including Fedex is driven by the market. Lots of wealthy people live there and it is fully developed, prices go up. Deal with it. SF is a wonderful place.

 

[TUT]

Something that Frisco has trouble understanding.

What do you suggest? The city take over real-estate from owners and give it to people for $700/mo because it seems just? It has nothing to do with SF Politics, it is driven by demand. Strange, a person has a problem with a whole city, that is driven by market.

 

[fres431]

I'm talking about working 6 days, not Tues- Sat route.

Like I said we are running full timers on sat we making $52 hr. Drivers on a m-friend schedule. Some of us only have 3 to 5 hrs left they forcing us in

 

[AllOnTheHorses]

True, we don't have the efficiency that you boys have, ( nor the pay, hahah) LOL 1 loader per 3 trucks, as I recall, my local ups buddy said you have 1 loader per two trucks. If we don't get to terminal an hour before to organize and you find that small piss ant box hiding on the wrong shelf behind a big box on the opposite side of town you were on earlier than you SOL

Small clarification.. our UPS center runs 1 loader on 4 trucks. Sometimes 4 plus a small trailer to drop at rural satellite drops. Sorry, my years in "preload" needed to clarify that.. because it really sucked.

 

[MAKAVELI]

Like I said we are running full timers on sat we making $52 hr. Drivers on a m-friend schedule. Some of us only have 3 to 5 hrs left they forcing us in

I'm pretty sure that's the exception not the norm. At least in my area.

 

[fres431]

It's been happening all year ful timers get am work

 

[Code 82 Approved]

The solution to high density metropolis rents for drivers is remarkably simple.

In warm climates, issue them a each a tent and a port-a-potty shared by 8.
A simple and well administered communal shower building takes care of hygiene.

Put all of this in the FedEx trailer parking areas and coordinate the inbound/outbound trailers with the tents that all need to come down or go up as needed.

For cold climates, it is equally simple. Most of the terminals I have worked in have very high roofs.
A series of navy submarine sized bunks over each belt would keep drivers in warm air and shelter but also supply the terminal with an enormous pool of drivers ready at any instant.

 

[gixxer squid]

600 a week is a good job
You can't be serious

For a high school education with no skills living in an rural area where rent is less than a 1000 bucks a month and there is no job creating industry driving job production, YES, 600 a week is a good job. You can by a house in Houston Texas for 80k. If you have the down payment where interest are now you can pay less than 800 a month with an impound account.

For me, hell no.

 

[gixxer squid]

Small clarification.. our UPS center runs 1 loader on 4 trucks. Sometimes 4 plus a small trailer to drop at rural satellite drops. Sorry, my years in "preload" needed to clarify that.. because it really sucked.

Thanks. But do the drivers need to come in an hour early to pull boxes off truck that aren't theirs and put the proper box on the proper shelf??????? Or do they jump in the truck and go.

My buddy said two, could be wrong but wouldn't it also change with the amount of volume per truck? He's doing about 400 boxes a day....

 

[dvalleyjim]

All the boys from pittsburgh were up trying to find a out what the hell is going on with this terminal. Its mainly coming from the new contractors but some old as well. They started offering $8.00 a stop to make things happen last month, today, its now $10.00 a stop to get boxes delivered. A few of my buddies came up from Fresno to take advantage of this.

Bottom line dip z if your reading this, freaking pay us contractors more than 2.75 cents a stop and .17 cents a freaking box when a 2 bedroom apartment in the city starts at $2700 dollars a month for a shack. Do the math, 120 stops and 300 boxes and 850.00 month salary. Workers comp that starts around 14-16 per hundred of payroll. We can't keep the employees because if we paid them anymore we would have to borrow to run the business. I can't wait to get out of this company. Independent contractors my arse. More like SLAVES

I am sure they are still making money paying 10 bucks a stop as well.

That was always my point. FedEx doesn't pay enough to properly pay drivers. It's peak and we already have ISP's failing because drivers are quitting left and right. Everyone of them is going to another job.

 

[dvalleyjim]

My question to you is. Why are you a contractor for Fedex? Why aren't you negotiating for higher rates? If they don't negotiate that seems more like an employee-employer relationship

Negotiate? HaHaHaHa? You must think this is a real business.

 

[AllOnTheHorses]

Thanks. But do the drivers need to come in an hour early to pull boxes off truck that aren't theirs and put the proper box on the proper shelf??????? Or do they jump in the truck and go.

My buddy said two, could be wrong but wouldn't it also change with the amount of volume per truck? He's doing about 400 boxes a day....

Yeah it's all dependent on volume at ups.. an outlying center may have fewer trucks per loader.. and trucks vary in size depending on mileage between stops.. ours is quite busy.
Ups drivers are not supposed to get on their trucks to repair the load before their start time.. some do. I ry to get in early enough to make sure my next day air is where it should be and bulk stops are where I expect them to be. Jumping in a truck without at least that is asking for delays later. My stop count is usually somewhere in the 200 range.. with a few businesses that might get 20 or 30 packages, hopefully loaded to the back of the truck.

 

[dvalleyjim]

It's not as easy as just leaving. You need to find a buyer, that can take a long time depending how much debt your carrying and what profit you want to get from the sale. Most contractors won't just walk out as it would leave all their drivers in limbo unsure of if they have a job or not with whoever takes over.

Your are exactly right! This is harder than many think. I had a buyer come to me with cash and it still took me a year to get out.

 

[dvalleyjim]

See this is part of the scam. You invest 10's of thousands of dollars to grow your business always thinking "If I get this area, add more trucks maybe I can make a profit. Then you just get deeper and deeper in. It's hard to extract yourself.

Maybe, if you had a lot of cash upfront and bought an existing ISP that was running smoothly and willing to lose your investment you may be able to make 10% on your money. But it's a big maybe and a lot can go wrong.