UPS abusing a weakness in the grievance machinery

RKYMNTBROWN

New Member
Management is firing drivers, mostly for petty or trivial incidents, by applying the "proven dishonesty" sin to it. I would like to share with you the strategy management is using towards drivers out here in the west.

Once the driver is out of service management waits for the last minute to have a center level hearing. At the center level the company, knowing its case is weak, will offer reinstatement with "time served" (meaning no back pay). If the driver refuses to take the deal he/she is told UPS will dead lock at panel and be forced into arbitration- which can be months and months down the road without a paycheck. Needless to say most drivers cant afford this and take the deal.

I feel this is a weakness in our grievance machinery that needs to be addressed. UPS knows this and is abusing it

Thanks to everyone. Be safe and retire healthy!
 

UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)

Well-Known Member
Define "proven dishonesty" please. Does this mean you lied to someone and got called on it?


An example of proven dishonesty would be the driver who has a misload on his pkg car and decides to throw it in with his pickups rather than deliver it or at least send an ODS and the pkg is discovered during a check-in audit.
 

gandydancer

Well-Known Member
Plea bargaining rather than risk the grievance process is nothing new. Nothing much can be done about it other than demanding reliable support from the union and no tolerance for bad arbs. And I'm not convinced we're there yet or going to be there anytime soon.
 

redshift1

Well-Known Member
Management is firing drivers, mostly for petty or trivial incidents, by applying the "proven dishonesty" sin to it. I would like to share with you the strategy management is using towards drivers out here in the west.

Once the driver is out of service management waits for the last minute to have a center level hearing. At the center level the company, knowing its case is weak, will offer reinstatement with "time served" (meaning no back pay). If the driver refuses to take the deal he/she is told UPS will dead lock at panel and be forced into arbitration- which can be months and months down the road without a paycheck. Needless to say most drivers cant afford this and take the deal.

I feel this is a weakness in our grievance machinery that needs to be addressed. UPS knows this and is abusing it.

Thanks to everyone. Be safe and retire healthy!

Your post is vague provide specifics.
 

stevetheupsguy

sʇǝʌǝʇɥǝndsƃnʎ
An example of proven dishonesty would be the driver who has a misload on his pkg car and decides to throw it in with his pickups rather than deliver it or at least send an ODS and the pkg is discovered during a check-in audit.

I don't agree. I think proven dishonesty is more like sheeting a NDA and stop completing it, when you're still not near the delivery point. Misload in the pkg car cannot be "proven". Pkg was lost in the load, whereas the first scenario is absolute. jmho

Plea bargaining rather than risk the grievance process is nothing new. Nothing much can be done about it other than demanding reliable support from the union and no tolerance for bad arbs. And I'm not convinced we're there yet or going to be there anytime soon.

I bargained my termination to a 5 day in lieu of waiting to go to panel. Family first, ya know.
 

Bubblehead

My Senior Picture
Been that way for a long time.
Tactic not exclusive to the western region.
Hope you didn't find out the hard way.
The only way to curb this practice is to fight it to the limit every time.
Only when it becomes unprofitable will UPS cease this practice.
 

Bubblehead

My Senior Picture
An example of proven dishonesty would be the driver who has a misload on his pkg car and decides to throw it in with his pickups rather than deliver it or at least send an ODS and the pkg is discovered during a check-in audit.

An example of proven dishonesty would be: a driver who repeatedly and deliberately DR's a package to an unauthorized delivery location.
 

Braveheart

Well-Known Member
Management is firing drivers, mostly for petty or trivial incidents, by applying the "proven dishonesty" sin to it. I would like to share with you the strategy management is using towards drivers out here in the west.

Once the driver is out of service management waits for the last minute to have a center level hearing. At the center level the company, knowing its case is weak, will offer reinstatement with "time served" (meaning no back pay). If the driver refuses to take the deal he/she is told UPS will dead lock at panel and be forced into arbitration- which can be months and months down the road without a paycheck. Needless to say most drivers cant afford this and take the deal.

I feel this is a weakness in our grievance machinery that needs to be addressed. UPS knows this and is abusing it

Thanks to everyone. Be safe and retire healthy!
It has been happening down here in the south for a year or two now.

Union has no power to stop it. Our last two contracts have failed to add protections for the workers while making it easier to get us fired.

I tell everyone not to say anything. If you do not say anything you can not lie or have your words turned into a lie.

They have told our people just work with us and tell us the truth and we will not fire you. So the drivers break down and admit they forgot to sheet somehting up or re-attempt a stop/misload etc etc.

UPS then fires the very same person who they just promised not to fire.

We had a person who was not involved in a situation where a guy was stealing time but did not want to rat out a fellow driver. They knew they were friends so the driver played stupid at first but finally caved on the second driver.

The bastards then fired not only the guy who deserved it but the friend as well because he claimed he knew nothing at first and then told the truth so now you were dishonest and have to be fired!

The funny thing is they both ended up getting their jobs back, no back pay of course.

UPS had to bring back a driver who they can not trust and was a thorn in there sides in new ways.

UPS also brought back the good driver who stopped giving 110%. I wonder why?

It is UPS that creates most of the disgruntled workers.
 

chev

Nightcrawler
Plea bargaining rather than risk the grievance process is nothing new. Nothing much can be done about it other than demanding reliable support from the union and no tolerance for bad arbs. And I'm not convinced we're there yet or going to be there anytime soon.
I agree. This really has been going on for a long time.I've seen this happen to many drivers. :dissapointed:
 

brownman15

Well-Known Member
I don't agree. I think proven dishonesty is more like sheeting a NDA and stop completing it, when you're still not near the delivery point. Misload in the pkg car cannot be "proven". Pkg was lost in the load, whereas the first scenario is absolute. jmho

this is not dishonesty. dishonesty is stealing that's what the policy book says and thats what the cardinal sin dishonesty is supposed to be everything else should be progressive discipline
 

dilligaf

IN VINO VERITAS
...by scanning and signing for the pkg before you actually get to the stop so that you do not have late NDA.
This is true and has happend to a driver here. This driver transferred from our ctr (non-pas at the time) to another building (pas). Within 2 months he was terminated for doing just this thing.
 

dilligaf

IN VINO VERITAS
Another 'proven dishonesty' case:

Driver terminated for failing to provide medical records to a UPS doctor during a medical review to go back to work after a shoulder surgery. The records in question were never even asked for.


Don't ask me! I have know idea how they think they could prove this. In fact they didn't. Driver has job back but is still in arbitration on back pay. It's been a total of 3yrs, including the actual surgery recovery time.
 

RKYMNTBROWN

New Member
Been that way for a long time.
Tactic not exclusive to the western region.
Hope you didn't find out the hard way.
The only way to curb this practice is to fight it to the limit every time.
Only when it becomes unprofitable will UPS cease this practice.

I agree, but who can afford to last for months without pay? I even know of a driver who has been fighting for over a year now- UPS keep postponing the arbitrator so they can here several cases at once.

Even if you win in the long run chances are you will put in a financial bind, damaged credit score, etc.
 

stevetheupsguy

sʇǝʌǝʇɥǝndsƃnʎ
An example of proven dishonesty would be: a driver who repeatedly and deliberately DR's a package to an unauthorized delivery location.

I don't think this is dishonesty, maybe a little foolishness on the drivers part, but not dishonesty.

this is not dishonesty. dishonesty is stealing that's what the policy book says and thats what the cardinal sin dishonesty is supposed to be everything else should be progressive discipline

Oh it's dishonest alright. We had a guy fired for this, years ago. He never got his job back.

with EDD and GPS, how could you possibly complete an NDA stop without physically completing said stop........
...by scanning and signing for the pkg before you actually get to the stop so that you do not have late NDA.
Thanks for explaining that, upstate.
 
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