This company is not losing money. It is still very profitable. It is still well positioned within the marketplace. It's the marketplace that is suffering. UPS is more interested in satisfying stock holders than its employees. Opening the stock to the general public is the worse thing this company has ever done. It is no longer good enough to be profitable. A company has to ever improve upon its previous year or the stock suffers. Had our stock not gone public we would have been better equipped to weather this storm. I am fortunate to be 20 plus years vested in this company. Luck has nothing to do with my continued employement with UPS. When the economy turns around UPS will follow suit. Till then both sides of workforce will be affected, both white and blue collar. The pecking order will be the only difference.
First, again I am NOT a fan of UPS being public. I think it has shown to be a bad long term decision. First, it was bad for the culture, then it was bad for our younger people, now it is bad for the stock price.
That being said, its not true that we would not care about growth if we were private.
The need to grow has been part of our culture from the beginning. From expansion beyond Seattle, to common carriage, to 48 state expansion, to International, to Supply Chain Solutions. All that happened as a private company.
Casey said:
"An expanding business is the only way to provide opportunities for our people. "
"Our company has grown because our people have grown, and our people have grown because our company has grown. And so it will be in the future..."
So, the need to grow profits is not the issue because we are public. I think if we were private we would still know we needed to grow, but the target would a couple of years from not instead of next quarter.
P-Man