All posts by George

Action, Union, UPS

Consumers Can Pick Up UPS Packages from Some Local Liquor Stores

Eyewitness News Investigates a new service offered by UPS, delivering packages at local liquor stores.  They’re called direct access points. UPS officials say it’s all about convenience, but some customers say they’ve experienced the exact opposite.
As Christmas approaches, the packages pile up.  This season, UPS is making daily deliveries to some unlikely places.
Consumer LaShawna Williams says, “I never knew that liquor stores could get ups packages for people.”
It’s a new service, rolled out in Fresno two months ago, called Access Point Locations.  Two convenient stores have so far signed on – the Two Way Fruit Stand at California and Thorne and Yosemite Market at Chestnut and Gettysburg.  Each store owner earns $0.50 for each package delivered.
Yosemite Market owner Pavittar Shergill says, “More convenience to the people so they come to pick up the box and they can buy something at the store, too.”
Consumer Jim Lacrosse says he’s more than pleased with the service.
“I was alerted right away and came and picked it up and now I’ve got my present for 14 year old brother-in-law.”
Plus, peace of mind during a time when holiday thefts skyrocket.  Now, instead of dropping packages off on unmanned porches in high theft areas, UPS will send them to your neighborhood store.
UPS spokesperson Natalie Norrington says, “They’re within a mile or usually a ten minute walk or drive from your home.”
Close by, open late and on weekends, UPS says the new service brings convenience and protection to nearby customers.  But, not for Samantha Edmonds.
Edmonds says, “Maybe they accidentally gave the wrong package to somebody.”
Edmonds says she designated Yosemite Market as her permanent delivery location, but when she went to pick up a Christmas present for her kids, it was gone.
“I have no idea where it is.  I hope somebody enjoys it,” says Edmonds.
Store owners say the problem was with UPS, saying it thoroughly checks ID’s and addresses and has never had a package misplaced or stolen.  All small businesses are recruited by a UPS team, and each one must have video surveillance and adequate room to safely and securely store packages.  Overall, the company says access points have served customers well.
Eyewitness News did reach out to UPS about the misplaced package, but did not hear back in time for air.  In addition to the two new access locations, people can still pick up and drop off packages at ups stores throughout the city.

Copyright 2015 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc

Union, UPS

UPS Struggles To Keep Up With Order Surge

United Parcel Service is straining to handle a surge in online sales that has resulted in more holiday volume than it had expected, causing a wave of disruptions that could spell trouble for the holiday season. On-time delivery rates for UPS ground packages based on their normal shipping transit times last week fell to 91%, according to an analysis of millions of packages by software developer ShipMatrix Inc. During the same week last year, the on-time rate was 97%, which is UPS’s usual average during nonpeak months.

Action, Corporate Greed, Union

Ideas that hurt workers

Yesterday, the new Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, summed up his House Republican agenda — vowing to pursue legislation that would frame a stark choice for voters in 2016.

“Our No. 1 goal for the next year is to put together a complete alternative to the left’s agenda,” he said.

Despite the speech’s sweeping oratory and careful stagecraft, Ryan clings to seven dumb ideas that are also cropping up among Republican presidential candidates.

Here they are, and here’s why they’re dumb:

1. Reduce the top income-tax rate to 25% from the current 39%. A terrible idea. It’s a huge windfall to the rich at a time when the rich already take home a larger share of total income that at any time since the 1920s.

2. Cut corporate taxes to 25% from the current 35%. Another bad idea. A giant sop to corporations, the largest of which are already socking away $2.1 trillion in foreign tax shelters.

3. Slash spending on domestic programs like food stamps and education for poor districts. What?! Already 22% of the nation’s children are in poverty; these cuts would only make things worse.

4. Turn Medicaid and other federal programs for the poor into block grants for the states, and let the states decide how to allocate them. In other words, give Republican state legislatures and governors slush funds to do with as they wish.

5. Turn Medicare into vouchers that don’t keep up with increases in healthcare costs. In effect cutting Medicare for the elderly. Another awful idea.

6. Deal with rising Social Security costs by raising the retirement age for Social Security. Bad! This would make Social Security even more regressive, since the poor don’t live nearly as long as the rich.

7. Finally, let the minimum wage continue to decline as inflation eats it away. Wrong again. Low wage workers need a higher minimum wage.

These 7 ideas will harm most Americans. Ryan is wrong.