Ron Carey Speech

[705red]

LOL, Nice try . No DHL back then . Airborne or fdx or the post office.

I didnt want to confuse (lol) by bringing up old companies airborne, emery were both good union jobs if we needed to work. I think fedex is still trying to get those deliveries from 97 delivered today, their time in transit is pretty slow!

 

[tieguy]

BUT THEY'LL BE AROUND IN '08..... WHEN U TRADE YOUR SUIT & TIE FOR THOSE DUSTY BROWNS..

I'm sorry you have me confused with someone that believes rhetoric like you do. Do you think with that brain? I'm starting to think you are another troll here to agitate this board. No one can possibly be as stupid as you try to sound.

 

[Iconoclast]

Tieguy - everyone (including snot nosed kids hired from the outside) is an expert when looking at the situation in the rear view mirror. Fact is our contractual history is one where the teamsters and ups posture for position. No one actually thought anyone would actually be stupid enough to push the button for a strike. Till then. Shoulda, coulda , woulda is easy afterwards.

You hit the nail on the head Tie, of course this whole thread is monday morning quarterbacking, but there are some important lessons here as well. You just said it yourself, nobody thought anyone would actually pull the trigger-why the hell not? Look at the teamsters history in organized labor, violence, egregious graft and corruption, especially in their leadership positions, abuse of their membership, I mean why on earth would UPS not think it could happen is beyond me. All of the ingredients were clearly there.

If you look at the two examples I used before, Tylenol and Quantas, you can certainly apply the same theories about shoulda coulda, woulda, but compared to the UPS labor situation, both of those are much, much less predictable situations with far graver cirumstances. Of course there is no telling what would happen in an airline disaster, but look at how Johnson and Johnson handled a crisis. The point is, they were prepared for a crisis, any crisis, and they went into action.

UPS is the one scenario of the three where the management should have at least read the tea leaves and understood that there was a chance for a work stoppgage, and there always will be as long as there is a contract.

I mean - the history of the teamsters started long before UPS was in bed with them, It is beyond me that UPS was not prepared to act in a unified way when the strike happened, they should have been acutely aware of what the teamsters were capable of - there was no excuse for it. They should have been planning for a strike for years, even if it didn't happen.

It reminds me of the air business that Fedex started. It was 8 years before UPS decided that they too would get into the NDA business, by then, Fedex was established and UPS could not unseat them. Look at them today, and we had the opportunity to drive them from the market and put them out of business before they really even got started - but we didn't think that customers would want a NDA product so we sat around on our hands. Just like the strike-we didn't think it would happen, that just doesn't cut it.

When you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

 

[dave_socal]

Interesting guy. He also did more to help UPS's competitors then any other teamster president. Before 97 approximately 85 percent of all shippers were single carrier. Not any more. Fdx's largest shipper is a medical shipper based out of Chicago. We promised them we would not go on strike and they have never forgotten it and never returned.

.

Well next time "T" don't go make promises your non-union non-voting ass can't keep okay.Tell your buddys in those other airconditioned ivory towers also to keep their heads on when they have to take out a route lol. When contract time gets close and tempers are getting heated maybe you should share your vast knowledge in those important meetings your privy to , don't go on vacation again and come back after with your simpleton hindsight rants about what could of been. You couldn't hold Ron Carey's dirty shorts okay and your an "interesting tieguy"

 

[UPS Lifer]

What was his vendetta? Please be specific, because blank statements mean nothing!

Ron Carey was fired by UPS and got his job back. He never let it go....that is where the vedetta comes in. The more power he attained, the more he used it against UPS.

It is my opinion that he would have done anything to hurt UPS. As we know, there are some that will stand by him for similar reasons. Again, he won! We all lost. Where is Ron Carey now?

It is not in our best interest to bite the hand that feeds us!
We all need to work together to increase communication, trust and reduce the gap between mgmt and non-mgmt.

 

[Cole]

What was Carey fired for? Why did he get his job back? Perhaps he was active with the union, and was targeted on trumped up charges.

 

[Dfigtree]

I have put the strike behind me and have been planning for my future. But I also know what this company is capable of. I am just arguing with Tieguy on what UPS says vs what UPS does. I really believe that we will have a contract where UPS and the Union will profit.

How is that possible when UPS pays union pensions and the IBT fritters it away? If UPS paid a pension exlusively for each UPS employee, the IBT would be out in the cold. FLAT BROKE, as if they aren't now. Think about it.

 

[Channahon]

What was Carey fired for? Why did he get his job back? Perhaps he was active with the union, and was targeted on trumped up charges.

Look up Teamsters on wikipedia. A lot of history. Ron Carey is mentioned, along with others. Very interesting

 

[tieguy]

Well next time "T" don't go make promises your non-union non-voting ass can't keep okay.Tell your buddys in those other airconditioned ivory towers also to keep their heads on when they have to take out a route lol. When contract time gets close and tempers are getting heated maybe you should share your vast knowledge in those important meetings your privy to , don't go on vacation again and come back after with your simpleton hindsight rants about what could of been. You couldn't hold Ron Carey's dirty shorts okay and your an "interesting tieguy"

Hi Dave.

 

[Dfigtree]

There is a book which was recently released to commemorate the 10 year anniversary of the public relations victory scored by the IBT for the '97 strike:
http://www.amazon.com/Outside-Box-C...2830244?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179582362&sr=8-3
Personally, I can't see myself shelling out $35 to read it.

Assistant Professor? ... of Journalism and Media studies? (I'll bet a lot of the Scarlet Knight football players take her courses.) Sounds like she has the qualities to write a book about UPS. $35 book price will be reselling for $0.35 in a month.

Deepa Kumar

Assistant ProfessorJournalism and Media Studies
SDW-106
Office Hours: By Appointment
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~dkumar/​

 

[mittam]

I have no problem with you feeling that way. I personally thought we should have left you folks out there. The only consolation prize we could have gotten at that point was assuring the customers it would never happen again because we broke the union. Instead we allowed you guys the opportunity to take a two week vacation with no consequence.

Two week vacation with no consequence? You still got paid right! If we would have came into work and not agreed on a contract UPS would have locked us out. My kids were 7 and 4 then, daddy isn't working don't know when we will go back, sorry kids can't take you there. Oh it's our fault for striking when the company came to us (I was Pt then) before our Friday morning shift and said here vote on this it's your new contract. As I remember voted down by bargaining agents but pushed anyway by the company and management to force us to vote on it. Maybe it was better maybe not but that is not good faith bargaining. Tie have you ever been hourly or only tie?

 

[705red]

Two week vacation with no consequence? You still got paid right! If we would have came into work and not agreed on a contract UPS would have locked us out. My kids were 7 and 4 then, daddy isn't working don't know when we will go back, sorry kids can't take you there. Oh it's our fault for striking when the company came to us (I was Pt then) before our Friday morning shift and said here vote on this it's your new contract. As I remember voted down by bargaining agents but pushed anyway by the company and management to force us to vote on it. Maybe it was better maybe not but that is not good faith bargaining. Tie have you ever been hourly or only tie?

They pushed the vote on the ptimers knowing they might have had a shot, because no ftimer would have voted for it, I still havent meet a ftimer that says he voted for the 02 contract. I voted no for the 02 contract!

 

[tieguy]

Two week vacation with no consequence? You still got paid right! If we would have came into work and not agreed on a contract UPS would have locked us out.

The facts are that your union walked. UPS has no reason to lock anyone out because they don't make money locking anyone out. They make it and maintain their competitive advantage by not locking anyone out. UPS has never locked anyone out therefore that threat rings hollow. Clearly the fight back then was a wasted effort or you would not be fighting to put a different union in charge now.

10 years later you see the affects of 97 as what was then one carrier shippers diversify. You will continue to see the affects as our competition grows stronger. This in my opinion will force us to tighten our belts more and will force us to demand more and more productivity out of the system year in and year out to continue remaining competitive. I'm not happy about it by any means because I am not immune to those demands. I will be expected to squeeze more blood out of that rock both personally and from whatever operation i run.

As you complain about the PAS and the increased workload you have to give a share of that to the 97 strike which gave our competitors the foot in the door they were looking for. The times of running fat , dumb, simple and happy are gone. Some of the blame goes to 97.

 

[tieguy]

They pushed the vote on the ptimers knowing they might have had a shot, because no ftimer would have voted for it, I still havent meet a ftimer that says he voted for the 02 contract. I voted no for the 02 contract!

I don't know . You chicagoans are known for being rebels but I don't believe your full timers are being truthfull. Most fulltimers know they have it good and are not going to bite the hand that feeds them. Mosts full timers voting on the contract at home have the misses looking over their shoulder asking them how they will pay the bills if they walk. Thats why your ballots to the house tend to generate more positive votes then your "strike authorization votes" in the parking lots. Part timers have less to lose and part timers don't participate in the process like your full timers do. I would be shocked if more then 20 percent of all partimers voted in 02.

 

[Cole]

Tie,

Sure we lost some bus in 97, but I have seen the company lose major accounts, like Washington Mutual, because they got "out bid". Even when we had it, we did not put our money where our mouths were, and the competition did. They gave their people the tools to do it effectivley, we did not. We for quite awhile had to use hand trucks to take in hundreds of nda fils boxes and letters, while the comp had big carts specifically designed to haul in large loads, sometimes we would wait until they finished so we could us their equiptment.

That had nothing to do with 1997! We finally got a bigger cart, only after I had to embarrass a sales person there while I delivered, and the WM people jumped in too, because they like myself had talked to the company repeatedly about getting better equiptment to haul their stuff in and out with.

So you can blame the strike all day if you want, but there is plenty of blame to round, and management has it's fair share.

 

[Cole]

All the talk about having a polished image etc...shiny shoes, etc...but there's only so many times you can paint the trucks, and leave the inside a mess. Our image gets tainted imho because of the things I stated above and customer after customer, has seen us do just the basics, and chose to leave for someone that does what they say, and puts up, so we don't have to shutup. I imagine some mngrs start bonus crunching to decide if that extra cart etc...would be worth putting out there.

Customers know when you go the extra mile to take care of them (drivers etc...), and they also know when we cut them short and leave the message that they don't matter that much to us(managers), as was the case with WM, and many others.

In other words if you commit to customer X that you will have a driver there at 17:45 dailey then you do not keep putting more stops on that run, so that driver can be there, and maintain the commitment. It's called credibility.

Heck we lost an account that wasn't a major account, but it was over a whopping $35.00 that UPS claimed they owed, and they dropped us and went to Fed Ex, and it ended up we were wrong and they didn't owe that massive bill.

 

[705red]

I don't know . You chicagoans are known for being rebels but I don't believe your full timers are being truthfull. Most fulltimers know they have it good and are not going to bite the hand that feeds them. Mosts full timers voting on the contract at home have the misses looking over their shoulder asking them how they will pay the bills if they walk. Thats why your ballots to the house tend to generate more positive votes then your "strike authorization votes" in the parking lots. Part timers have less to lose and part timers don't participate in the process like your full timers do. I would be shocked if more then 20 percent of all partimers voted in 02.

Were rebels but when we hald the strike vote you had to go to the hall to vote. What do you mean we have it good? We make a good buck but we earn every penny of that and maybe even a little more. No other package comany drivers could keep up with us. I would say maybe 5% of ptimers vote for anything, and can you blame them $8.50 an hour i wouldnt do it all over again now, why? Mcdonalds pays you the same and you get a discount on your big mac!

 

[dave_socal]

The facts are that your union walked. UPS has no reason to lock anyone out because they don't make money locking anyone out. They make it and maintain their competitive advantage by not locking anyone out. UPS has never locked anyone out therefore that threat rings hollow. Clearly the fight back then was a wasted effort or you would not be fighting to put a different union in charge now.

10 years later you see the affects of 97 as what was then one carrier shippers diversify. You will continue to see the affects as our competition grows stronger. This in my opinion will force us to tighten our belts more and will force us to demand more and more productivity out of the system year in and year out to continue remaining competitive. I'm not happy about it by any means because I am not immune to those demands. I will be expected to squeeze more blood out of that rock both personally and from whatever operation i run.

As you complain about the PAS and the increased workload you have to give a share of that to the 97 strike which gave our competitors the foot in the door they were looking for. The times of running fat , dumb, simple and happy are gone. Some of the blame goes to 97.

Listen UPS management THOUGHT they knew what they were asking for when they went after control of the pension, so don't try to rewrite history with your b.s. , YOU got it totally wrong ,you were and still are as much to blame as our own union leadership. You may try to distance yourself from "97" but it hangs around your neck like the incompetance you're covered in now. You are right that our customers got exposed to other carriers because of the strike but most came back. It's holding on to them that has been the challenge over the past 10 years. Let me tell you what I just witnessed this week at UPS. First I was told by two different feeder drivers of recent lost accounts. Why? Because the account reps are fat, dumb, and lazy like most of management. These 4 accounts that I'm directly aware of went to FEDEX ground with their pallets of merchandise because they(fedex) did something extraordinary, something exceptional they visited the customer. That's all they actually showed up and sat down and said hello. Our reps don't even call our customers back the same week. Then I was in my old package center for a meeting. We were treated to a bunch of useless management that came in with a presentation about loss of package volume in our building. We're about 2% below previous years. Then they asked very nicely for business leads, lol. Upon exiting that meeting I spoke with a few drivers that said they had turn in leads on many occasions only to have UPS never get in touch with these contacts or directing the driver to tell them about our online shipping. So "T" as you b.s. your koolaide drinking fellow UPS mgrs remember to take a big sip yourself and hope for early retirement for all our sake.

 

[tieguy]

Listen UPS management THOUGHT they knew what they were asking for when they went after control of the pension, so don't try to rewrite history with your b.s. , YOU got it totally wrong ,you were and still are as much to blame as our own union leadership.

Lets see. Ron Carey says walk to save you pension. You walked. Why? So you could collect 10 cents on every dollar ups puts into the pension fund? Uh huh. Maybe you should take a peek at the incompetence of the guys administering these multi employer pension plans. Nah blame management for 97. Then go down to the hall and call the A-hole that screwed up your pension plans "brother"!!!!

You are right that our customers got exposed to other carriers because of the strike but most came back.

Oh ok most did? And the rest started using other carriers where they used to use UPS exclusively.

It's holding on to them that has been the challenge over the past 10 years. Let me tell you what I just witnessed this week at UPS. First I was told by two different feeder drivers of recent lost accounts.Why? Because the account reps are fat, dumb, and lazy like most of management.

Uh huh. Larry told bill who told Joe who told Jim Bob. There you go makes it fact. Larry also told you to walk the line and save those leaking pension plans in 97.

These 4 accounts that I'm directly aware of went to FEDEX ground with their pallets of merchandise because they(fedex) did something extraordinary, something exceptional they visited the customer. That's all they actually showed up and sat down and said hello. Our reps don't even call our customers back the same week.

uh-huh. Those 4 customers were on a deserted island somewhere and when fred dropped in out of the sky with his friend wilson they were all so gratefull they started shipping their coconuts with fred who built a raft and took the coconuts and his friend wilson and sailed back to america. There he stopped at 4 corners and delivered the coconuts which by now had started stinking to the high heavens.

Then I was in my old package center for a meeting. We were treated to a bunch of useless management that came in with a presentation about loss of package volume in our building. We're about 2% below previous years. Then they asked very nicely for business leads, lol.

Thats a good un huh. Why I won't ever submit sales leads because management is fat and lazy and won't talk to the customers. So I'm gonna go lol and let fdx steal all our union work. Uh huh , uh huh.

Upon exiting that meeting I spoke with a few drivers that said they had turn in leads on many occasions only to have UPS never get in touch with these contacts or directing the driver to tell them about our online shipping.

there you go now I gots me an excuse to sit on my rear end and do nothing. why managments fat and lazy but I'm not when I make excuses to avoid turning in sales leads. uh huh, uh huh , uh huh.

So "T" as you b.s. your koolaide drinking fellow UPS mgrs remember to take a big sip yourself and hope for early retirement for all our sake.

Dats a good un der DAve. Kool aid . Uh huh. yep why I reckon I wish I was as clever as you so I could find reasons to sit on my rear and not do nothing.
Now that you have told us you feel no loyalty to ups and you're willing to let the business go to fdx and you're willing to take money you did not earn you then have the gall to somehow try to judge me? uh huh, uh huh.

 

[DorkHead]

Boy Tie, this thread has really hit a nerve with you. It`s obvious you are still very bitter about the 97 strike. Just let go of it man.