What changes are you looking for in the 2013 contract?

[PiedmontSteward]

A person just needs to look at what is happening at Caterpillar to see what might be coming our way.

Completely different industry. Caterpillar can pull the "we'll ship your jobs to China" card. UPS can't. The Caterpillar concessions will definitely be on UPS' radar, but we've got to be willing to vote against a crappy contract. Also, it's easy to bring scabs in to work on an assembly line. Quite a bit tougher to bring them in to make deliveries on blown-out routes/have them sort without 100's of mispicks/have them pick-off on an outbound PD getting beltwide flow without knowing where anything goes.

 

[Island]

At our meeting we didn't seem to get to all the proposals I wanted to hear about, but we did cover a bunch. Mechanics are so screwed, we all proposed for them to get basically feeder payrates. Raising their tool allowance another hundred dollars or something just wouldn't be right given all the stuff they have to buy with their own money and store on UPS property.
Instant doublepay for 9.5 violations. Maybe that will get my hub to actually make calls to cover drivers from time to time.
Stronger supervisor working penalties, that stack up. One of the ideas going around seems to be that we should penalize them for repeat offenses in a short period - doublepay the first time, triple the second, etc. I like this idea but my center already fights and lies and throws away all of these grievances already. If they have more to lose, they'll just lie more and I'll still not win. Anyhow, when I finally do see checks, the stacking penalties would make all of this stress a little less terrible. Personally I think if you can prove that a higher ranking member of management was in the vicinity of the other management folks working and it still continued, the penalty should be huge. Nip the problem at the bud - with the managers. Even if they tell the others, "Keep working, just not around me," that's still something.
Another idea that came around, from TDU I think, is this idea for starting wage to be jacked up to 12.15 or so, matching what it should have been had it kept pace with inflation. I love this idea, however I think the whole scale would need some adjustments and if the result was slower raises, I'm not sure I'd be 100% happy. The nearby rival FedEx hub offers a much higher starting rate than UPS but the raises offered are much slower, and if I were applying for a new career, I'd be thinking about looking elsewhere.

 

[brown_trousers]

At our meeting we didn't seem to get to all the proposals I wanted to hear about, but we did cover a bunch. Mechanics are so screwed, we all proposed for them to get basically feeder payrates. Raising their tool allowance another hundred dollars or something just wouldn't be right given all the stuff they have to buy with their own money and store on UPS property.
Instant doublepay for 9.5 violations. Maybe that will get my hub to actually make calls to cover drivers from time to time.
Stronger supervisor working penalties, that stack up. One of the ideas going around seems to be that we should penalize them for repeat offenses in a short period - doublepay the first time, triple the second, etc. I like this idea but my center already fights and lies and throws away all of these grievances already. If they have more to lose, they'll just lie more and I'll still not win. Anyhow, when I finally do see checks, the stacking penalties would make all of this stress a little less terrible. Personally I think if you can prove that a higher ranking member of management was in the vicinity of the other management folks working and it still continued, the penalty should be huge. Nip the problem at the bud - with the managers. Even if they tell the others, "Keep working, just not around me," that's still something.
Another idea that came around, from TDU I think, is this idea for starting wage to be jacked up to 12.15 or so, matching what it should have been had it kept pace with inflation. I love this idea, however I think the whole scale would need some adjustments and if the result was slower raises, I'm not sure I'd be 100% happy. The nearby rival FedEx hub offers a much higher starting rate than UPS but the raises offered are much slower, and if I were applying for a new career, I'd be thinking about looking elsewhere.

I think ANY and all solutions to the excessive overtime problem should be considered. The one I thought was the best, that a lot of police agencies now use, is the option of recieving your overtime hours as extra vacation hours instead of overtime pay.

 

[anonymous4]

These contracts are useless without stiff penalties for supervisors working and more importantly, having the grievance procedure actually work. Why is it that everything is deadlocked or thrown out and our leaders seem to be going along with it? We need to fix ourselves before anything.

 

[PiedmontSteward]

These contracts are useless without stiff penalties for supervisors working and more importantly, having the grievance procedure actually work. Why is it that everything is deadlocked or thrown out and our leaders seem to be going along with it? We need to fix ourselves before anything.

I have to agree. It doesn't matter if Art. 3, Sec. 7 is changed to make supervisors working include quintuple time.. management can adapt their violations if a single person is enforcing the contract (in my case, that involves getting yanked all over my area and getting put in a far away corner where I can't see anything) and work around them.

 

[brown_trousers]

These contracts are useless without stiff penalties for supervisors working and more importantly, having the grievance procedure actually work. Why is it that everything is deadlocked or thrown out and our leaders seem to be going along with it? We need to fix ourselves before anything.

agree 100%, what point is there in negotiating anything, if its not going to be enforced.

 

[Inthegame]

agree 100%, what point is there in negotiating anything, if its not going to be enforced.

Enforcement is up to members actions. We file (and get paid regularly) for sup working grievances, but we have aggressive stewards. So aggressive they stop pt's (when possible) from leaving early which is what the sups use as the excuse to work.
That's our bigger issue, bargaining unit members not caring if they get their guarantees and bailing out. Hard to win those cases when our own people walk away from work.

 

[iruhnman630]

Proper compensation for time and mileage for drivers forced into covering satellite routes.

If a driver were ordered to pay for 90 miles worth of gas to put into a package car, not punch in until arriving on area, and punching out when leaving the area, the union would laugh the supervisor right out of the office. Yet force a driver to put 90 miles worth of gas into their personal vehicle and drive unpaid to and from the work area, and the union strangely approves.

I wouldn't expect much to change here since it affects such a small number of people.

 

[DJA]

Okay. Our CEO made 9.5 million last year, a 72% increase since around 2009 !!! Our union president gave himself a $150,000.00 raise.
Now maybe it's just me, but I think we should have a bigger slice of the pie than we have received over the life of our last contract.
Record profits that we upsers have delivered should get at least a 15% wage increase per year, more money into our retirement and more into our health and welfare !!!
I have been with UPS for almost 28 years, and we deserve to be componated for being the face of UPS.
Many of the drivers at our center were not here in 1997, so they have no clue about the strike.
Please tell me what you think ?

 

[bigblu 2 you]

Completely different industry. Caterpillar can pull the "we'll ship your jobs to China" card. UPS can't. The Caterpillar concessions will definitely be on UPS' radar, but we've got to be willing to vote against a crappy contract. Also, it's easy to bring scabs in to work on an assembly line. Quite a bit tougher to bring them in to make deliveries on blown-out routes/have them sort without 100's of mispicks/have them pick-off on an outbound PD getting beltwide flow without knowing where anything goes.

also they have to send all 'scabs"thru integrad training and they must learn,recite and have working knowledge of all safety jargon before allowed on the road,right?i mean if i see a scab on route without a mirror pulled in or using three points of contact,or cant recite the safe work methods,im getting their name and calling ups {all levels}and osha and kettler auditors,and the safety chairman and,,well you get the picture.

 

[anonymous6]

from what i see, the company pretty much laughs at our current contract. the only way to make them have the "integrity" to follow it in the future is to implement initial triple penalties for 1st offense and then 10 time penalties after that.

only thing that will make them stand up and listen......MONEY!

 

[brown_trousers]

Also, it's easy to bring scabs in to work on an assembly line. Quite a bit tougher to bring them in to make deliveries on blown-out routes/have them sort without 100's of mispicks/have them pick-off on an outbound PD getting beltwide flow without knowing where anything goes.

Good point. The harder UPS pushes us for production, the more efficient and irreplaceable we become. I doubt an off-the-street scab could keep up with even half of my stop count for my route. Every push for production from UPS only makes our threat of a strike an even more valuable tool for negotiating

 

[Brownslave688]

Proper compensation for time and mileage for drivers forced into covering satellite routes.

If a driver were ordered to pay for 90 miles worth of gas to put into a package car, not punch in until arriving on area, and punching out when leaving the area, the union would laugh the supervisor right out of the office. Yet force a driver to put 90 miles worth of gas into their personal vehicle and drive unpaid to and from the work area, and the union strangely approves.

I wouldn't expect much to change here since it affects such a small number of people.

If you are FORCED to run a sat route then you should get paid mileage. We do here. However you should also look at your POSTED start time. If your start time is 8:50 but the sat route doesn't start until 9:25 you should be paid starting at 8:50 they can't change your posted start time.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

If you are FORCED to run a sat route then you should get paid mileage. We do here. However you should also look at your POSTED start time. If your start time is 8:50 but the sat route doesn't start until 9:25 you should be paid starting at 8:50 they can't change your posted start time.

This may vary but in my center they only have to give us 24 hours notice on start time changes of less than an hour and 3 days notice on changes an hour or longer. If the cover driver who normally starts at 0850 is told he is running a sat route which starts at 0925 tomorrow his start time would be 0925.

He should also be paid mileage if forced to drive his personal vehicle to and from.

 

[kingOFchester]

I doubt an off-the-street scab could keep up with even half of my stop count for my route.

Heck, the sups can't do what we do. For the most part anyway....

 

[stink219]

If you are FORCED to run a sat route then you should get paid mileage. We do here. However you should also look at your POSTED start time. If your start time is 8:50 but the sat route doesn't start until 9:25 you should be paid starting at 8:50 they can't change your posted start time.

This may vary but in my center they only have to give us 24 hours notice on start time changes of less than an hour and 3 days notice on changes an hour or longer. If the cover driver who normally starts at 0850 is told he is running a sat route which starts at 0925 tomorrow his start time would be 0925.

He should also be paid mileage if forced to drive his personal vehicle to and from.

Here in RI it is five working days notice to change a start time. If the new start time lasts longer than a week, you can rebid.