You can all expect to see a Tiered wage system in the 2013 contract. With the success of the Multi-National Corporations, comes the demise of the next generation of workers. We always called it, “killing the unborn. Here are some of the contracts all ready tiering their wage systems.

       Are you worried about Peak? Are you stressing about the combination of bad weather, high stop counts, a worthless helper and running in the dark? 
       Well….. maybe it’s time to resign. I know it’s crossed your mind. It always does at this time of year. Go ahead, do it.
It’s time to resign yourself to doing it their way.
       It’s time to resign yourself to doing the job exactly the way UPS wants it done. It’s time to stop working off the clock and start taking your full lunch between the third and sixth hours.
       It’s time to resign yourself to cut out this crap of parking on the wrong side of the street and sheeting in the car and leaving your DIAD in the holder and running up to the house and back.
       It’s time to realize that by not using the methods you are risking your job. The company doesn’t feel they have an understaffing problem. They believe they have a lot of drivers who are doing their own thing and not using the methods and wasting a lot of time in the process. Then these drivers complain about over dispatching and long hours.
       It’s time to realize that the company is going to come after you to get you to run better numbers and they are going to attack your methods. If your methods are sloppy and they improve your stops per hour with a simple ride along, then you are going to have a lot more problems in the future than you have now. You are going to have the same dispatch but increased pressure to go faster because you demostrated that you could do more using the methods. 
        Use the methods.
The methods will set you free.

The July 1943 issue of Transportation Magazine offered these Tips on Getting More Efficiency Out of Women Employees:

       General experience indicates that “husky” girls – those who are just a little on the heavy side – are more even tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.
       Pick young married women. They usually have more of a sense of responsibility than their unmarried sisters, they’re less likely to be flirtatious.
       Get enough size variety in operator’s uniforms so that each girl can have a proper fit. This point can’t be stressed too much in keeping women happy.
       Be tactful when issuing instructions or in making criticisms. Women are often sensitive.
        Give the female employee a definite day-long schedule of duties so that they’ll keep busy without bothering the management for instructions every few minutes.
       Give every girl an adequate number of rest periods during the day. You have to make some allowances for feminine psychology.

       I’m sure that if a woman had written similar standards for dealing with men, she would have had some equally interesting points to make. Unions played a major role in trying to eliminate this kind of prejudice from the workplace.

     It’s almost Peak Punishment time. It’s time for the company to use and abuse the people that have been their “humper dumpers”, and “balls of fire” throughout the year.  The days are over for 8-hour requests, and option days. Beyond Thanksgiving the company can pretty much throw the Contract in the toilet, and let the drivers have it with both barrels.
     The sound of squealing “humpers” can be heard throughout the building, as the company heaps on the stops. Silliness like the “400 club”, and the “Production Club” rears it’s ugly head. Unfortunately many of the “lesser knowledgable” drivers get sucked into the lunacy. Many will be injured, and many will have accidents trying to produce up to the insane levels of expectation.
    Any driver that’s been through a few Peaks will tell you, “continue to work at a safe pace”. “Get done what you can get done, and let management worry about their insane expectations”.
     Accidents and injuries will still cost you your job, even at Peak. Even the greatest Producers have been fired during Peak for major accidents. Being injured at Peak is the cardinal “no-no”. Once you are injured, management will cop a, “you just couldn’t do it” attitude.  You will “forever after” have the reputation of being a wimp, and falling down on the job when the company needed you the most.
     It will just be another attack by the “abusive daddy”.
     Given the economic, and political climate, the push will be even greater, so prepare yourself. 
                                         Do not get sucked in!

     Most drivers go through their professional life expecting the Union to represent them. The obvious thought is that, “I pay my dues, the Union should be there for me”. Every one of these drivers is absolutely right in that assumption. The problem is, the Teamsters are not mind readers. Many drivers just talk under their breath, and when they have issues, they keep the issues to themselves, never communicating with the Steward or the Business Agent assigned by their Local to represent them.
     Most of the time a simple question, or statement, can trigger the system to work in the favor of the driver. The contract provides for the rights of the driver, and sets up a formal procedure to be followed to address the driver’s issues with the company. Many drivers simply do not avail themselves of their rights. OF course when the issues build to overflowing, the drivers will often attack the Teamsters for not being there to represent them when they have problems. They will often bad mouth the Union to their fellow drivers, sending the message that the Teamsters are useless, and they are paying dues for nothing.
     All they had to do was open their mouths and ask!
        Many of the drivers just think they can live a passive life, where anyone, and everyone, will simply jump forth and take care of them, without the driver having to put forth any effort at all. The driver sees everything vividly in their own mind, and they assume that the guy next to them, or the steward, or the Business Agent, sees things the same way. They project their laziness, and lack of effort onto everyone else, not taking responsibility for their actions, or lack thereof.
      When you hear another driver bad-mouthing the Union, ask them a simple question, “Who did you tell about your problems?”. Very often the answer will be management, not the Steward. Very often it will be the Supervisor that told the driver that no one could help him, and he was just out of luck. “Tough crap for having to pay his Union dues”.
     Of course they have all been listening to the pundits during the day, telling them how bad the Union is for them, and how the Union is just there to take their money. Another consequence of a lazy mind.
     The driver also knows that he or she is the most valuable person in the world, and even without the Union, they would be worth the pay and benefit package they receive. Yes, in fact, many of the drivers are just simply delusional. It goes on day after day. They are their own worst enemy.
     The Union is there for your benefit. Demand  the representation you deserve, and support the representation you get.
           Just remember, no one can read your mind, and you’re not the only person on earth!

     It’s always fun and interesting to see what other UPS employees think of the company. Are you the only one who thinks management is trying to kill the goose that laid the golden egg? Or is that driver next to you the only one who complains everyday about his load? Or is UPS really a great place to work for everyone except you?
     There is a website called glassdoor.com  that may be able to answer these questions. The site posts employee reviews of the company, both good and bad. The opinions fall into three catagories; pro, con and advice to senior management. What would you say if you were writing about UPS?
     Here are a few of the 477 entries they have posted so far.

Pros:
     “Steady company not likely to go under.”
     “Work security, suitable for those without motivation but need a safe place to work”
     “There are none, and if you found some let me know, who you paid off. The only thing I liked about the job is some of the friendships I gained.”
     “Pay, Benefits, time off, pension”
     “very easy to coast if you are not self-motivated”
     “Excited to start – more excited to leave”

Cons:
     “Hostile enviroment, No trust,long hours,heat no a/c in the summer,Mgmt does not care about you, too busy watching there backs.”
     “It’s tough. It’s really tough. I have back pains everyday, I get yelled at by drivers, I get yelled at by supervisors. If you don’t have seniority, it sucks. It really sucks. You have to have been working there for at least 6 or 7 years to actually get the better jobs and still stick to the union, and if you’re in management, well, you’re screwed.”
     “Many of your co-workers don’t understand the importance of the union. Managers are only interested in production. Very adversarial environment between union and management”
     “The work can be monotonous and lacks creativity. I think the company has a lot of potential to improve the workplace by encouraging a little more ingenuity.”
    
Advice to Senior Management:
     “Ups expects that your job comes before your family. It was and still is an old boys runned company”
     “Less focus on numbers because happy employees will bring you the results you keep on striving for. Use more open communication.”
     “Stop making it a us VS them situation. It’s as if they are pissed off knowing that they could be fired at any moment and it’s gonna take an act of god for the employees to lose their job because of the protection that the Union brings.”
     “Get back to People skills.”
     “Since Scott Davis took over its been a nose dive. UPS just finished a transformation which it changed the landscape of how the company is structured. 1800 people lost their jobs as a result. All because of caring about the bottom line not the employees.”
     “compassion, find some”

How would you rate UPS?

Every driver should carry a little sales lead packet in his package car. It could be something as simple as a sales lead card and a couple of shipping forms tucked into a overnight envelope. You never know when the opportunity to make a sale might arise.
        Stewards sometimes have a hard time selling this idea to drivers because the drivers chafe at the thought of setting up a new account, after all, who do you think is going to have to service it?  And what driver these days wants to increase the work load on a route that is probably already running nine and a half hours a day. But growing the business is what makes our jobs secure and that benefits all of us and our families. 
       But here is an even better reason to carry a sales lead packet.
       Be prepared for an unexpected production ride. One of the things everyone shoud do on a production ride is a sales lead. Take the time to grow the business when management is on car. They aren’t going to stop you from spending a little time selling. AND…it will reduce your demonstrated stops per on road hour.
        So, be prepared, carry a sales lead packet in your car at all times.
You never know when you might need it.

     Driver Joe Humperdumper just committed the cardinal sin. He left a package on a doorstep of an apartment. Of course the package disappeared and instead of making him pay for it, we’re going to fire him for making bad driver release deliveries. Just look at this picture. Who in their right mind would leave a package out in the open like this? Driver Joe Humperdumper is the worst at driver release of any driver in this center.
     That was the story the center manager greeted me with upon my arrival to work one Tuesday morning instead of hello. I can’t tell you how many times management has approached me, as the steward, when I got to work telling me of some horror story or another. Telling me how Jane Doe, or John Smith driver was absolutely the biggest criminal on earth for stealing everything from time, to toilet paper from the company, and how they were going to send them to the moon. I know this sounds like exaggeration, but that’s the way it seemed.
     Ironically I spent a short time as a part time supervisor prior to going driving. During that time as a supervisor, they sent me to a Management Labor relations class. Part of the class was a movie showing how a story changes depending on who’s telling it, and what perspective they are coming from. The final part of the training was teaching me not to make a decision till I hear the whole story. Man was that an important lesson when I became a steward.
    The good part about them being in a hurry to get me on their side, was that it gave me time to approach the offending driver, and get his side of the story going into the meeting. Of course the driver usually had an “I didn’t do anything” attitude, and it was usually tough to get the whole picture from them.
     We’d go into the meeting, and very often the company’s case was a whole lot less dramatic than they initially let on. Usually the picture didn’t show the surrounding area, or the tire tracks were not necessarily from our vehicle, or the item hit had been hit a hundred times before, and the driver just happened to be there that day, so he must have done it, and management continued with their usual, “all of our driver’s are cheats and liars” attitude.
     The steward, of course, is left to sort out the details. What is fact. What is assumed. What actually happened. We all know that on occasion the driver did something. Other times it could not be proven that the driver was anywhere near the incident. Most of the time the center manager was taking discipline because the “Lord and Master” above ordered them to.
     Usually the driver was ordered to continue “Covering their ass”, and to be sure to talk to the steward if anything else happened. If discipline was taken, of course the steward filed a grievance, and the process moved on to the grievance procedure. It was the rare, more severe cases that went much further than that. Rarely did anyone pay for a package, and rarely did the driver suffer more than a written warning in their Pittsburgh for a minor infraction.
     Of course all of the drivers were assumed to be liars and cheats from the beginning, and they were guilty of anything anybody ever said they did. Fortunately the union saw to it, that the drivers would have their day in court, and that the stewards were trained to see through the company’s attempts to influence the system.
     The most important part of this scenario is to be sure you do not talk to management about any issue without a steward present. Anything you say will be used against you! Be sure to be open and honest about any incident with your steward when they approach you ahead of the meeting with the company. That steward will be the difference in whether the case will be settled quickly or escalate up the grievance ladder. Finally, never assume that anything is a minor issue. Cover your ass, and call whenever something happens out of the ordinary. They may scoff, and huff, that it’s just a minor deal, but when push comes to shove, it shows you were acting in good faith for the company, not trying to lie, cheat, or steal, like they think you will do.

        The steward’s investigation can be the most important work a steward does. I once had a case where my investigation saved a man’s job.
         
The company came to me and announced that they had received a serious complaint on a driver and were considering termination. They showed me the written complaint. A lady was charging that the driver was hanging around her kids, asking the 10 year old boy to do stuff like play catch and tried to give the girl a hug. When the mom confronted him, he even had the audacity to make amorous advances toward her also. The company’s case looked pretty strong. I knew my investigation would have to be quick, yet thorough. So I set to work. 
        Here is how a good investigation is done.
 
The first thing you want to do is learn the facts. 
           Who is involved. 
           What was said or done? 
           When did it happen? 
           Where did it happen? 
           And Why did it happen — what ‘s the underlying cause?
 
        In conducting a thorough investigation, you should interview all witnesses, request all relevant information from management in regard to the case, review the contract to see what violations occurred, look to see if a past practice was violated, and examine to see if there are grievance settlements on similar situations. Additionally, it is crucial that you document your investigation (take notes), especially interviews with witnesses, because if a case goes to panels, the panel may make its decision based on the evidence that you are uncovering.
        After you’ve investigated a grievance that does not involve a termination, you would want to present the facts and circumstances that led to the grievance, listen to management’s response to see if there is any room to settle, and if not, end the meeting. We call this agreeing to disagree. You are under no obligation to agree with management at this meeting. If you cannot resolve the grievance at this step, take the necessary action to move the grievance to the next step.
        In my case where the woman was accusing the driver of inappropriate behavior, I knew my first goal was to save this driver’s job. I interviewed my driver and he was adamant that his actions were not out of line. He didn’t understand why the mother was so upset, he felt he hadn’t done anything wrong. As often happens in a situation like this, the company’s iron clad case began to unravel as the investigation revealed facts not in the original statement. In this case for instance, it turned out that while the driver was often in uniform, all of the interactions had occurred after work at the house of the mother and the two kids. Could the company terminate an employee for actions that occurred after work?
        I wanted to interview the mother and kids, but you have to be very careful when the other people involved do not work for UPS. Always ask your BA for advice before conducting offsite interviews. In this case, I was allowed to speak with the aggrieved party on the phone and this turned out to be the crucial interview.
        In this case the driver’s job was saved because a thorough investigation brought to light facts that the company case did not reveal. This driver was one of many drivers in our building this summer working unbelievable amounts of excessive overtime. He had not been home before dark on even the longest of summer days, he had violated 60 hours on several occasions. The family that had he was trying to ingratiate himself to turned out to be his own family. They didn’t recognize him anymore since he only ate and slept there when everyone else was in bed.
        Doing a thorough investigation is a important part of a steward’s job.