I can see it coming. The end of the gravy train is approaching. The 2013 contract negotiations will tell the tale on the Teamsters that work for Brown. My prediction is that the company is prepared to stomp the living daylights out of the drivers. They are after all the highest paid and compensated drivers in the small package trades division.
The company has all ready set up the, “we need you to give back for us to remain competitive”, mentality. Given the layoffs, and production pushes currently going on, the only end result can be give backs by the employees.
We have talked long and hard on these pages about supporting your union, supporting your negotiators, and voting “Labor friendly” politicians. Many drivers just continue to ignore the need for the support of the rank and file.
Many drivers think the union isn’t necessary, and are in for a rude awakening when the wrecking ball comes to town in 2013. It will be interesting to hear them whine when they reduce wages by 5 bucks an hour. It’ll be interesting to hear them whine when they have to pay 3 grand a year for their healthcare per person. It’ll be interesting when their pension benefits are reduced, or better yet, dropped entirely.
What a waste of a good thing. What a waste of many good Teamster’s efforts.
What a waste of a good life!
All posts by George
More on Chinese Labor
Video
Are You Getting Enough Exercise?
Are you keeping in shape by working at UPS? I always used to think that the job provided me with enough exercise that I didn’t have to worry about staying fit. Afterall, no one out there physically works as hard as a UPS driver. And if the exercise doesn’t get you, the suana effect will.
But not everyone agrees that a UPS driving job provides an adequate amount of exercise. In this article, The Top 5 Fittest Professions , some experts don’t call what a UPS driver does “exercise”. They call it “movement”.
“According to Dan McMackin at United Parcel Service, the average UPS driver walks about 4.5 miles and moves thousands of pounds worth of packages each day.
Our experts disagree on whether or not this counts as exercise. Michael says yes: “If you’re lifting correctly, which these guys are instructed to do, then you’re using your glutes, you’re targeting the biggest muscles in your lower half, and also forcing the rest of the body to work in order to help balance you out.”
But fitness instructor Matt Probst of Akron’s RP Fitness counters, “I wouldn’t consider it exercise. I would consider it movement. In order to fully stimulate a muscle to grow, it must be pushed to the point of failure. You’d have to carry the packages until you physically can’t take another step.”
Obviously the fitness instructor from Akron never worked for UPS. If his definition of exercise is being “pushed to the point of failure” and “physically can’t take another step”, then working for UPS certainly qualifies as exercise.
It’s the holy grail of exercise.
Corporate Supported Hypocrisy
Let’s start this thought with a look at the past. Most of us started out with the company looking for decent work. Maybe we were in college trying to get by, or maybe we had been laid off from some other menial job. We saw an ad about working for Brown that offered decent wages, and benefits, and paid vacation, and even retirement. Wow, we thought, “too good to be true!”
We jumped at the opportunity and soon we were wearing the Brown zoot suit, pushing the big brown truck, and living the good life. No where in all of this did anyone ever explain that all of this was also courtesy of the Teamsters Union. We thought the company just gave us these benefits out of the goodness of their hearts, and because we are such fabulously valuable, self important, heros of the working world.
We wondered why the Union would ask for “dues” when they had done nothing to earn them. We asked why the Unions supported “Labor friendly candidates” when these candidates did not necessarily support the issues we had with the world. We could not understand why the Unions would not support social issues outside of what was important to them. We began to listen to the “right-wing”, “anti-union”, talking heads that told us our money was being sent to crooked hoodlums bent on destroying the earth.
We believed their flapping gums, (no one lies on the radio) and started to protest having to pay those dues to an organization that has done nothing for us. We understand that the company will continue to give us the highest pay in the small package industry, and the best benefit package available, out of the goodness of their hearts. We know we are worth more than the ‘bottom line” of the company.
We actually are fools. We continue to vote against ourselves, yet believe that what we have, will be there forever. Of course we tend to be very self-focused, and worry only about ourselves when it comes to the world around us. We can stand there and spew the hate filled rhetoric of the union haters, yet continue to pocket our solid paycheck, and use our healthcare, that was negotiated for us by the Teamsters. Of course we are special somehow, and did not need the Teamsters to fight for us.
OK, actually I shouldn’t call us fools. Many of us are just hypocrites. Corporate hypocrites. We support corporate hypocrites. We vote for the “Society of the Bottom Line”. We are being sold out in the name of the corporation, and loving it. All because some lunatic says we should. All because we can’t see past our own nose.
Keep it up and we will lose it all! Wake up! You are a peon when it comes to the bottom line!
You will be the first to go!
The New Chinese Labor Threat
Check out this article. It’s about how the Chinese are dealing with abuse on the job.
Denver Post Article
Teamsters ask feds for UPS strike countdown
DALLAS — United Parcel Service Inc. says federal officials have rejected a request by the Teamsters union to begin a 30-day countdown to a potential strike by aircraft mechanics.
UPS spokesman Mike Mangeot said the National Mediation Board told the company of its decision Tuesday. The union’s airline division had asked the board Friday to declare the talks stalemated.
Teamsters officials did not immediately return messages for comment.
The union says it has bargained with UPS for more than four years without reaching a deal.
If the board’s mediators had agreed that the talks were at a stalemate, they could have asked both sides to agree to binding arbitration.
If either side were to reject arbitration, it would start a 30-day countdown until the union could legally strike.
Robert Combine, president of Teamsters Local 2727 in Louisville, Ky., said the company has made large profits since 2006 but hasn’t met union demands for job security against foreign outsourcing and protection of health benefits.
Combine said the aircraft mechanics voted overwhelmingly for a strike if the company failed to make a reasonable contract offer.
“We do not wish to go out on strike, but UPS will leave us no choice if it insists on its unreasonable position,” he said.
Mangeot, the UPS spokesman, called the union’s request to have the talks declared stalemated “a tactic to put pressure on negotiations.”
The union workers earn $43 an hour and don’t contribute to their health benefits, Mangeot said.
UPS shares fell $1.59, or 2.5 percent, to $61.17 on Tuesday.
The Associated Press
Sneaky Company Supporting Websites
Many drivers turn to the web for help and relief from the pressures this company can put them. Unfortunately there are sites out there that come off as if they are for all employees, when in fact they are just another avenue to keep the rank and file driver in a harassed state of mind. These sites open the doors, offering drivers a place to vent, then suddenly the drivers are attacked by obvious supervisors, calling the drivers names, and ridiculing them for expressing their concerns within the company.
The main method of management is to maintain the “abusive daddy” mentality amongst the employees. A driver hoping to find some relief will often turn to these type of discussion sites, only to find they are being harassed, and ridiculed again. Of course the idea being drivers will think that is just the normal way.
These sites hold themselves up to be something they are not. They are not for the average employee. They are not for the rank and file. They are for pushing company abuse and their moderators do nothing about it. Don’t waste your time with another outlet for the “abusive daddy”. Find your information independently. Find the sites you can trust.
FedEx Spends Money on Lobbyists instead of Workers
FedEx Spent $21.1 Million In 15 Months To Preserve Its Ability To Prevent Drivers From Unionizing
Currently, House and Senate negotiators are trying to work out the differences between each chamber’s respective bill reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration. One key difference between the bills is that the House version corrects an inequity in labor law that allows Federal Express to operate under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), which poses higher barriers to union organizing than the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). FedEx’s competitors, such as the United Parcel Service, are governed by the NLRA. The Senate bill does not contain the change.
FedEx has been waging an intense campaign in order to preserve its special treatment, led by CEO Fred Smith, who was George W. Bush’s fraternity brother and has said that “I don’t intend to recognize any unions at Federal Express.” And according to Roll Call, in 15 months the company spent $21.1 million lobbying Congress:
Last year, it ranked 14th among all groups and companies in lobbying budgets, spending more than oil giant BP and defense contractor Lockheed Martin. The Memphis-based company also has tapped politically connected assistance, contracting with 14 outside lobbying firms that employ a number of former Senators. Not only is the Breaux Lott Leadership Group working for FedEx, but its founders, former Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) and former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), are listed on the lobbying disclosure forms as personally working on the account. FedEx hired the international public relations firm Burson-Marsteller to work specifically on this issue.
FedEx has successfully lobbied multiple times to remain classified as an airline (and thus under the RLA), rather than having its ground operation qualified as such, pulling it under the NLRA. This time around, it has threatened to blunt its own growth and scaremongered about medical supply deliveries being delayed if the change in labor law is made.
Tennessee’s two Republican senators, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, have also pledged to defeat the change. But there’s simply no reason for this inequity to remain law. FedEx’s pilots have already unionized, without the dire consequences that Smith warned about. And in the meantime, FedEx’s drivers are subject to a law that makes it all but impossible to organize and collectively bargain, as they would have to unionize literally the entire company (across the entire country), instead of being allowed to organize at the local level.
Last week, the National Mediation Board — which oversees labor-management relations under the RLA — did away with one inequitable aspect of the antiquated RLA, ensuring that uncast votes in union elections no longer count as votes against the union. Congress would do well to keep the ball rolling, enacting the change taking away the unjustified competitive advantage that FedEx now enjoys.
The Wonk Rooom
What is Honesty?
Every person on earth has a general idea of what they think is honest. To some people, honesty is a hard and fast set of rules a person lives by without ever stretching or straining the rules. The rules of honesty are absolute, and are never a line that can be crossed.
To other people, honesty is just sort of a guideline to follow. How closely that person follows the rules of honesty is directly related to how dangerous it is that they will be caught, and what the cost to them would be if they are caught.
For most people there are levels of honesty, and dishonesty. Something slightly dishonest to one person, may be a cardinal sin to another.
The interesting discussion comes when we talk about what is cardinal dishonesty within the company. Each of us first must understand the goal of this company is the “bottom line”. If something makes the company more profitable, it is good. Anything that costs the company money, such as return trips, extra handling, lost revenue, public perception, is bad.
From within the company comes another decision of the “Lord and Master” about what “honesty” is. Most drivers are under the misconception that the Teamsters/UPS contract in some way dictates all of these issues. The reality is, it only dictates the discipline the company can take if an act is deemed dishonest. There is no hard and fast language to say what would be considered a dishonest act.
Usually the decision over a driver committing a dishonest act comes after an evaluation in the mind of the company about the past history of the driver. Many times dishonest acts go unpunished because a driver runs under allowed, or is a swing driver, or has buttered up management somewhere along the line. Let the staunch union driver get caught in anything considered dishonest and out comes the righteous indignation from them about how any person could be so dishonest, and so dirty and cheap, that they could perform such a hideous act. Right away, they will leap to the language in the contract that allows them to terminate a driver for dishonesty. They will fly the flag of righteousness, about how every driver is expected to be held to a higher standard, and that no one is above reproach for committing a dishonest act.
As we all understand, that flag only comes out when the “Lord and Master” says it needs to be waved. Usually an act has been committed millions of times prior to a termination, and very often has been encouraged before a termination occurs.
We saw that occasion recently with the terminations over late air. Most of the drivers involved were taught to sheet potential late air as a delivery discrepancy, then make what looks like a second attempt after the air commit times. It was a practice that went on for many years.
Suddenly, with the advent of Telematics, the act of cheating on air commit times became obvious. People were terminated for dishonesty on a number of occasions. Several were unable to get their jobs back because the company said their dishonesty was “so blatant”. The fact is, until recent time, the act was promoted by the company because it saved money, and prevented the company from having to reimburse the customers for air delivered after the commit times. Something they promoted and guaranteed in their advertising.
The occasion above is just one example. I would call it “Corporate Honesty”. Again our lives are dictated by the “bottom line”.
Real honesty is really only a function of money according to them. Real morals are decided by their profitability, not their effect on society. The decisions that are made, regarding honesty and morals, have little to do with people in our corporate society. They are made according to the ability of a corporation to make money.
If cheating is profitable, it is good. If cheating costs money, it is bad.
Isn’t it still cheating? I guess only God, and the “Lord and Master” know!
