Overpaid

Are full-time drivers overpaid?


  • Total voters
    72

Griff

Well-Known Member
In preparation for a possible contract renewal, it's time to hear this old song and dance again. Are full-time package car drivers being paid too much?

Most of the general public, due to the PR smoke UPS farts out in major newspapers, thinks we are glorified pizza boys that are severely overpaid. In all seriousness, most people think we are out for a Sunday drive doing our paper/letter routes. Nobody really has any clue how much daily volume each driver is responsible for, the real weight limit at UPS, the way we are pushed to make fabricated numbers look real and how we have to compensate for other UPSers not doing their job.

Here is a recent conversation I had with a pregnant housewife.

Her: Is it my pottery barn stuff?
Me: Yep.
Her: Great!! I thought they said two guys were coming to deliver this?
Me: Nope.
Her: Why is this on your truck? Shouldn't this be on a bigger truck, it barely fits?
Me: Call 1-800-PICK-UPS and ask them.
Her: Do you need help?
Me: Nope.
Her: But they are 147lbs??????? Please don't hurt yourself!
Me: I do this everyday....

When people hear that we make $50K-70K a year, they drop a load of crap in their pants usually. When I was a part-time employee I used to think drivers were overpaid, now that I've been one for some years, I think our salary has room to grow. Especially for those of us who don't live in the mid-west, the current COLA is essentially a sick joke. We earn a decent living at UPS, but we earn every last fraction of every cent.
 

maybrown

is not a woman
Griff ! I totally agree with you. We deserve every cent from UPS. Just imagine every morning We come out with a full truck and every evening we come back our trucks are full. We must keep our faces look happy not tired . This is very stressful job!
 

krash

Go big orange
No one but another driver understand the workload yall perform. I'm in feeder now so the hardest part of my day is finding a shady spot to nap in:lol::w00t::thumbup1:
 

aspenleaf

Well-Known Member
It may seem like you are overpaid but I don't think you are at all. You do more than just deliever packages. You are the face of UPS and I think you are worth what you earn.
 

local804

Well-Known Member
Some could say overworked but overpaid? lol
If they pay FT suits to run around offroutes all day and everytime you ask them a question they tell you "I will look into it" or "let me get back to you" 80k+ a year, I think they have a bargain with us.
 
If we weren't pushed to the brink everyday I would say we are overpaid. But UPS gets their money's worth out of us. I remember having a somewhat heated conversation with a dispatch sup one day. He said UPS would pay us more than we make now and the working conditions would be better if the union wasn't involved. And I believe he was 100% serious.
 
W

westsideworma

Guest
If we weren't pushed to the brink everyday I would say we are overpaid. But UPS gets their money's worth out of us. I remember having a somewhat heated conversation with a dispatch sup one day. He said UPS would pay us more than we make now and the working conditions would be better if the union wasn't involved. And I believe he was 100% serious.

UPS blamed the Union for out PT wages around here as well, but it even states in the contract "all wages shall be a minimum" simply meaning they could pay us more should they deem it necessary. The longer I am with this company the more I see the need for the union. Without the union FT drivers would be put out to pasture when they got to a certain age. They want runners, not veterans who effectively handle all aspects of the job to the best of their abilities.

But back on topic, I don't believe drivers are overpaid, UPS uses every last bit of you that they can. This is how UPS seems to work with you guys (and its applicable to other areas as well) UPS will give you 160 stops with the time to do 130 and hope you'll end up doing 145 and dispatching help (MAYBE) for what you likely won't get to. You are the face of this company and its only saving grace. You reach the people BD abandons, You make up for the farce known as PAS, you deal with "never being fast enough (that applies to us all really) and you do it everyday. Put simply, you guys represent all the good things about this company and there is no one more qualified to do it. NO ONE.
 

BLACKBOX

Life is a Highway...
Its funny whenever someone brings this subject up. No one is truly happy whatever they make. When I was growing up my Dad was ALWAYS grumbling about the lack of money. He was senior forklift driver as a Longshoreman in Hawaii. My Mom told me he made well over $30.00 an hour just picking stuff up with a forklift and taking it to a location, no loading or unloading just driving.

Because of his gravy job he died being close to 380 lbs, I'm glad we get a good workout, its probably saving our lives!
 

swing_drv

Well-Known Member
I was covering for a guy on vacation one day. And at one stop, ( it was like a repair shop) I walked into the office, they were all in there eating lunch. They guy I asked to sign looked kinda pissed cause I interrupted his lunch. I told him sorry and the other guy said ..... Man that's a guy who's got it made. I said excuse me. He said the driver at his house told him it was the easiest job he has every had. He gets to take his lunch whenever he wants and no one bothers him. I looked at them and said you never seen a fat UPS driver huh? He said hey you calling me fat? I just laughed and walked out. Thank you have a nice day :thumbup1:
 

DS

Fenderbender
Up here in Americas hat,(Harrys avatar)we may have it a little easier that our southern bretheren.Dont get me wrong here we do occasionally leave the bldg CUBED .There is no PAS or EDD as far as I know so far, and our pay reflects it.Right now we make 23.04
an hour and get 60 cents a year for 3 more years.You may think
thats fair but believe me,we are taxed to death here,and even with my wife working,the future is looking like we may have move
in with the trailer park boys when we retire.
 

stealth8

Well-Known Member
No one but another driver understand the workload yall perform. I'm in feeder now so the hardest part of my day is finding a shady spot to nap in:lol::w00t::thumbup1:

Feeder drivers are the one's that are overpaid!!! Thanks for backing that up KRASH!
 

raceanoncr

Well-Known Member
Feeder drivers are the one's that are overpaid!!! Thanks for backing that up KRASH!


I hope you had your tongue in your cheek when you made that comment.

Yeah, I think about overpaid everytime I gotta drive thru Chicago rush hour, St Louis, Dallas, etc with a set of doubles.

I think about overpaid everytime I am trying to keep doubles straight when it's snowing 6 inches an hour.

I think about overpaid when temp is hovering around 32-30 and it's raining and you can't tell if it's freezing or not.

I think about overpaid when I'm hauling a few million dollars worth of equipment and cargo to it's destination.

I think about overpaid when I haven't crashed anything here in 29 yrs, saving the company claims.

I think about overpaid when a tire blows and the company has an epiphany and says, "Well, it's only 200 more miles, can't you take it in?"

I ain't paid enough. I take their $5.00 turkey. I take their wallets. I take all their little cheap cookouts. I take all their little handouts.
 

blue efficacy

Well-Known Member
I don't think any of you guys would admit to being overpaid even if you really thought you were! It's simply not human nature to admit to oneself that they are overcompensated.

You make ~$70,000 a year to drive a truck and pick up/deliver packages. Sure, there is a lot of pressure put on you guys by management, but that's how it goes. It isn't management's job to let an uneducated blue collar workforce skate by without driving them for results.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think you guys are overpaid by much. It's not an easy job, but in the end it is still a job you could train a chimp to do. Not as well as you guys, to be sure, but a chimp could do it nonetheless.

In summary: Drivers are more than adequately paid, and it is their high wage that takes the sole blame for all the ridiculous demands management places on them. Next contract I don't think raises in the dollar range are necessary for full time employees.

I don't see the point of this poll, as a large chunk of people here are UPS drivers, are any of them really going to say, "yeah, i'm overpaid!"? But I am sure Hoffa wants to make sure you guys are well paid now so you pay less attention to the REAMSTERS and CS letting your pension fund disappear :thumbup1:
 

ja4079

ja4079
Blue- are you calling us uneducated? I for one have a degree but I chose to work for UPS and a very proud of it. And you think a chimp could do this job?Sounds like you were you turned down by UPS and are very jealous. You have no idea what I and the other 1000's of drivers do everyday. Driving a truck is the easy part of the many things that I do in a typical day. I think maybe you need a few classes in anger management. This has been of the most disrespectful post I have read.
 

hoser

Industrial Slob
Overpaid? Arguably so.
Underlaid? Possibly.
Grossly overpaid? No.

Yes, our drivers work hard, but I've learned over the years that pay is based on accountability, not hard work. In the big picture, accountability wise, UPS drivers aren't very accountable (but they are still accountable, the reason why they make more than hub employees). There are people who work just as hard as UPS drivers (if not harder) who make minimum wage, but they're not accountable.

I also see this as supply and demand; people that can do the jobs UPS want are in short supply, so there is heightened demand, articulated by a high wage. So really, there is no such thing as "overpaid" or "unfair". The wage offered and the people that take the wage is obviously the right rate of pay. If the wage was too much and a lifer can do that job for peanuts, UPS would cut the existing jobs and the pay. UPS is out to make a profit, after all. So obviously it's fair. If UPS pays that much and they plan on paying that much, then there's nothing wrong.

However, I see something wrong when a person who got a degree in Kinesiology (one of the hardest degrees in my opinion) would get more pay and career satisfaction driving a UPS truck than pursuing a KINES-oriented career.

Blue- are you calling us uneducated? I for one have a degree but I chose to work for UPS and a very proud of it. And you think a chimp could do this job?Sounds like you were you turned down by UPS and are very jealous. You have no idea what I and the other 1000's of drivers do everyday. Driving a truck is the easy part of the many things that I do in a typical day. I think maybe you need a few classes in anger management. This has been of the most disrespectful post I have read.
I think he meant "uneducated" with reference to the minimum education requirements. Although the drivers I run into at work are smart, cultured, and well balanced, in the big picture, the job they perform does not have education requirements beyond high school/GED. This isn't an insult, it's just the reality.

Managing a blue collar work force of high school graduates is different and requires a different style of management than managing a blue collar work force of trade school or university graduates.
 

SmithBarney

Well-Known Member
Wow, blue... speechless.
75-90% of UPS drivers have a post secondary degree.. IIRC

Everyone at UPS works together as a team, and together
we should earn a salary/income that is relative to the amount of
profits the company makes.

I currently work for FedEx Express and am paid substantially less than
what I was paid at UPS... and you want to know what?
I'm making exactly what I'm worth, because I work 25% as hard as I did
at UPS.. actually this job is boring and un-challenging, I finished all my work
at noon today.. But I would feel bad taking UPS pay for what I did today... at UPS I
never felt bad picking up my paycheck at the end of the week... it was well worth
it and I earned every penny.
 
Last edited:
Top