BrownCafe
Orlando Tractor-Trailer Driver Achieves Remarkable Safe Driving Milestone
On Friday, when UPS® (NYSE:UPS) tractor-trailer driver Ginny Odom completed her usual 650-mile route towing twin 28-foot trailers from Orlando to Unadilla, Georgia, and back, she achieved a remarkable safe driving milestone – becoming the first female UPS driver in history to drive 40 years and more than 4 million miles without so much as a fender bender.
Odom was 23 and working at a boat store in Orlando when she applied for a driver job at UPS in 1973. She was the first female employee at UPS’s Orlando hub, and drove the company’s brown delivery trucks for nine years before moving to tractor trailers.
According to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, a UPS semi-truck was parked on the shoulder of the turnpike, and the driver, 55-year-old Cary Neal Rogers, was standing outside, on the passenger side of the truck. A second semi-truck was going eastbound on the turnpike when for an unknown reason, it ran off the roadway to the right and rear-ended the UPS semi.
According to OHP troopers on the scene, the second semi-truck went through two of the three UPS trailers.
Both Rogers and the driver of the second semi, 43-year-old Scott Randall Sims, were pronounced dead at the scene.
FedEx loses again in battle over driver status
The Supreme Court of Kansas ruled late last week that FedEx had illegally classified truck drivers as independent contractors instead of as employees, notching a victory for the class of 479 workers who are seeking to recoup retroactive expenses and costs in addition to overtime pay they were prohibited from collecting under the contractor arrangement.
The decision in favor of the drivers is just the latest blow to the model long employed by the shipping company, which requires contracted workers to pay for uniforms and truck maintenance out of their own pockets. Last week, in assessing the status of FedEx drivers seeking to join a union in Connecticut, the National Labor Relations Board also found that the drivers are employees. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Portland, Ore. made the same determination in August, a ruling that ended FedEx’s long winning streak in cases challenging its independent contractor structure.
Shoppers and part-time workers received a boost recently on news that United Parcel Service plans to hire 90,000 to 95,000 seasonal workers for the holidays. The hiring is in line with its plans to better deal with the anticipated surge in holiday demand coming from e-commerce.
One thing’s for sure: The company can’t afford a repeat of last Christmas, when delayed deliveries from both UPS and FedEx disappointed shoppers who then focused their ire toward online retailers.
It’s imperative that UPS gets it right this Christmas, and signs suggest it will. UPS’ management has taken note of the lessons of unexpected peak demand, and has invested accordingly in a series of initiatives to manage peak demand and improve operational efficiencies.