Ten rules for working safe and smart at UPS

1. Carry a small notebook and document everything—weather, traffic conditions, management orders, or any other unusual circumstances that may throw off your SPORH.

2. Inform management of any unusual situations that may occur. Document and notify Loss Prevention of unusual circumstances with customers.

3. Contact the office between Noon and 3 PM if you’ll need your Air or Grounds picked up, or if you will have missed pieces. Call in even if you might make it, just in case.

4. Always sheet every package in your car.

5. Maintain your professionalism at all times. Shouting matches with supervisors do not bring results. Talk to your steward if your supervisor is out of line.

6. Help your fellow brother or sister when you can. Introduce yourself to new members. Build relationships with your preloader and drivers in your area. You may need help yourself one day.

7. Remember: obey now, grieve later. If your supervisor instructs you to do something, do it, unless it breaks the law or jeopardizes your safety. Insubordination can be grounds for termination.

8. If you’re injured on the job, notify your supervisor immediately. Do not let management sway you into not reporting the injury.

3 wishes

9. If you have an accident, notify management right away. If you don’t notify them, they can discipline and even terminate you.

10. Start preparing for telematics right now. Follow the methods every day.

By Lonnie Mishoe, Brush Ave
Local 804, Long Island

Peak Planning

     With the end of summer waning softly away, comes the cool evenings, the turning of the leaves, the thoughts of warm fires, andTime for Peak yes, the dreaded peak planning. Now is the time where a driver gets paid back for their success, on behalf of the company, throughout the rest of the year.
     The “ball of fire” driver will find out that “yes”, the company has no heart, and “yes”, the company can have unreal expectations during the peak season. Even the average performing driver will find out the craziness the company can expect during the Christmas season.
     With the implementation of Telematics, the company expects to make huge gains in performance, not only year round, but during the peak season. Routes will be planned down to the “Nth” degree, and volumes will be put in place, regardless of the reality of the area.
     After all of the plans are made, in comes the “Lord and Master” with his magic marker, ready to slash and burn what would otherwise appear to be reasonable expectations. The company spends a huge amount of money during peak season on helpers, and temporary drivers. You can expect to see huge cutbacks in the hiring levels for peak. They are still all about the “bottom line” these days. They have to keep the stock holders happy, even through Christmas.
     Lettuce not forget an annual “right-of-passage” for the late fall, into the winter. That right is the devastating termination of a very senior employee for some “trumped up” charge. The point of the termination is to set every other driver into “fear mode” for the upcoming peak season. Management is all about intimidation, and loves to keep the fear level up when maximum performance is needed. 
     Experience as a steward has shown, that most major terminations occur in late September, or October. With Telematics the head hunting will be easy, especially for the “Lord and Master”. They may have their target in their sights as we speak, so be sure you are doing the job as they require, and do not leave any doubt as to what you are doing, and why you are doing it.
                                                                     In other words, “Cover your ass“. 


    

Do You Like Your Job?

       People used to ask me what I liked most about my job and I would say I liked 4 things. I liked the money, I liked the challenge and I liked being on my own all day and I liked interacting with my customers. Today if someone asked me what I liked about my job, I say the money. PAS and Telematics have removed the challenge, I’m never really on my own anymore and I’m only supposed to talk if I’m making a sale.
       3 wishes I read an interview with a UPS IE person who said that PAS and Telematics will tell every driver the most efficient way to run the route everyday.  He said that drivers had always “customized their routes” on a daily basis to accomodate their customers or to get the bulk off first, and often these decisions were not good decisions. Allowing the drivers to customize their routes was driving the company into the poor house.
        So I was told not to think of my route as my route. It didn’t even bear my name anymore. It was 31A and I just happened to be the person who was running it. The personal reward that I got each day by taking the route out and getting it organized, satisfying my customers and getting back in safely and successfully is gone. I ran the route the way the computer told me to, I couldn’t customize it to satisfy a customer and I didn’t think about a better way to do it, even though years of accumulated area knowledge told me that there was a better way. I did as I was told. That’s how you survive now at UPS.
        And, you’re never alone. Management has the technology now to watch every move you make. They have reports on everything you do and what time you did it. They know the service class of every package you handle, what time you delivered it, where the truck was sitting, if it was turned off, if you backed in first, how many stops you have off and how many you have left. They might as well be sitting in the seat next to you all the time.
        I was on the same route for over 25 years and I knew all of my customers. I knew them because I took a moment here and there to show them that I cared about them as people and as customers. That kind of caring is what UPS built it’s reputation on. UPS’s own surveys show that what customers like best about the company is usually the driver. But with PAS and now Telematics, you are required to just grab and go, do more stops, no talking, hurry up, run and gun. But that’s not what made UPS special. It’s not our efficiency that the customer likes about UPS, it’s that the driver takes the time to address them by name and even learn their kids’ names. But IE puts no value on what has endeared the UPS man to his customers and that is; taking a moment to show you care.
        It’s not that I didn’t like my job, it’s that the things I liked about my job disappeared.  Now when people ask me what I liked about my job, I say “the money”. The challenge is gone once you surrender yourself to PAS and Telematics. You are never on your own and you’re not supposed to talk unless you can make a sale.
        That’s a shame. Thank God for the money or there wouldn’t be anything to like about the job.

Never Go First

A preloader, a driver and a manager in Denver were taping up damaged boxes when they found an antique oil lamp. They rubbed it and a Genie came out in a puff of smoke.
        The Genie said, “I usually grant three wishes, so I’ll give each of you one.” 3 wishes
        “Me first! Me first!” yelled the preloader. “I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.”
        Poof! ………He was gone.
        Astonished, the driver quickly stepped forward. “My turn,” she beamed. “I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach, an endless supply of pina coladas and the love of my life in a beach chair right beside me and not a package in sight,.”        
Poof! ………. gone.
        “OK, you’re up,” the Genie said to the manager. 
     The manager just grinned, “I want those two back to work RIGHT NOW.”

        Moral of the story:

        Never let your boss have the last word.

UPS Doesn’t Reimburse for Socks, Class Claims

LOS ANGELES (CN) – A United Parcel Service worker says in a new class action that she and her co-workers weren’t reimbursed for socks bearing UPS’ logo, which is a required part of their uniform.
     Laura Gallardo says in Los Angeles Superior Court that she regularly purchased the required socks during her five years as a driver at the delivery company’s Cerritos, Calif. location.
     But she says she and other workers were never reimbursed for the socks.
     She seeks class certification and unspecified damages for labor law violations, and is represented by Michael Nourmand.
Courthouse News Service

Wall Street Journal Compares Union vs NonUnion

                                Unions Can Be a Good Thing – or Not

On this long holiday weekend, we take a look at the issue it commemorates: labor.

In 1894, Congress passed a law making the first Monday in September “Labor Day.” According to the Department of Labor, which didn’t come into existence until 1913, Labor Day is meant to pay tribute to the “creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom and leadership — the American worker.”

With that in mind, let’s examine the role of labor unions from an investment perspective. At first blush, most folks would say unions aren’t good for investing. Expensive contract demands cut into profits and tough workplace rules reduce productivity.

Things are seldom so simple, however. Among industrialized countries, most would be surprised to learn that strike-loving France has one of the lowest union membership rates — 7.7% of the work force in 2008, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The U.S., widely considered light on unions, has a higher rate at 11.9%.

Here are four reasons labor unions can be good for investing — and one why they aren’t.

1 Heavily unionized countries are outperforming everyone else. This is true in the industrialized world, for the most part. The union-heavy countries, according to the OECD, are Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland. The Nordics have union membership rates of more than 50%. Sweden and Finland are nearly 70%.

And how are these countries doing? Sweden expects growth of nearly 5% this year, and its central bank is tightening monetary policy to tamp down inflation concerns. Norway is growing and its unemployment rate is below 4%. Its central bank is raising rates, too. The story is similar in Finland and Denmark.

Iceland is a completely different story, which shows that union-membership rates are hardly a perfect indicator. Its economy collapsed during the financial crisis as most of its banking system failed.

Union membership in most of these countries is somewhat different than in the U.S. Unions have more say in corporate direction, including board representation, and labor-management relations are more cooperative than confrontational. A minimum five weeks paid vacation doesn’t hurt.

2 The German economic miracle. West Germany’s postwar growth, especially in the 1950s, was phenomenal. The unemployment rate went from 10% to about 1%. Industrial production per capita tripled by 1958.

This rapid growth slowed and eventually choked a bit on the 1990 reunification with East Germany. But in the second quarter of this year, Germany recorded its best rate of growth since reunification — about 9% on a seasonally adjusted annualized rate.

West Germany’s postwar economic miracle coincided with the implementation of “co-determination,” a policy that gave workers substantial board representation and enabled trade unions to work with managers to craft corporate policy.

Labor reforms earlier this decade gave management greater flexibility. And many analysts cite those reforms as helping fuel the current turnaround. Germany’s unionization rate is 19.1%, according to the OECD.

3 UPS vs. FedEx. UPS is heavily unionized. FedEx is not. Which has done better in the stock market over the past 12 months? UPS stock is up 20%; FedEx shares are up 15%.

Over five years, FedEx’s stock is slightly ahead. But it shows that in a straight-up comparison, the unionized company isn’t an automatic loser. UPS has a sometimes-fractious relationship with union members, but that hasn’t stopped the company from doing well in the marketplace.

4 Southwest Airlines. Southwest is heavily unionized. It’s also the most successful airline company in the country, from a profit perspective. It has the largest market capitalization in the sector. It has labor peace — top management frequently seeks out union input when making big decisions. And it seems to make money even when its peers, also mostly unionized, don’t.

5 Detroit — the one reason unions may not be so good from an investment perspective. The unions that once helped build a solid middle class in large parts of Michigan and Ohio played a leading role, along with management, in the demise of Detroit as the car capital of the world.

Job banks where members got full pay to do no work. Overly rigid work rules. Overgenerous benefits. Hostile relations between workers and management. Just about everything to make a cash cow wither away.

One has to reckon with the bankruptcy and government rescue of General Motors and Chrysler and the white-knuckle fight for survival at Ford Motor.

But even GM is making a comeback of sorts. It has filed for an initial public offering, hoping to raise as much as $20 billion. The United Auto Workers union, which owns a chunk of GM through a benefits trust fund, has had to make concessions as part of GM’s bankruptcy and government rescue. Contract negotiations get under way next year and the UAW has already pledged not to strike during the talks.

Dave Kansas at dave.kansas@wsj.com

Union dues…a bad investment?

        I saw a film strip a while back that Walmart uses to fight union organizing. It showed a happy Walmart worker saying, “The Union would just take money out of my check.” Perhaps Walmart workers are not the brightest people in the world, or maybe Walmart just portrays them that way, but a simple mathematical computation would show them that union dues are not a bad investment. 
       
Union         If a Walmart worker makes $10 an hour and pays no union dues, than he makes $400 a week or $1600 a month. But let’s say he organizes and joins a Union and gets a $1 an hour raise. Now he makes $11 an hour, $440 a week or $1760 a month. His dues are 2 times his hourly rate or $22. So his net gain by joining the union is $160 minus $22 or $138 a month. 
       
        That’s a profit of $138 on an investment of $22.
 
        I’d take that any month. 

       Where else can you get that kind of a return?
 
       Only at the Union.

Modern Day Slavery

     Today we live with  modern day slavery. The employers of today think it’s OK to use cheap labor from across the border. They love to blast the current administration about their policies on immigration, but it’s the business bunch that love the cheap labor illegal immigrants provide. In the old days local farmers had to settle for the teenager down the street, (gives him or her experience), or they would have to function under the law to hire legal immigrants to do the agricultural work that needed to be done.
     It’s funny to listen to Faux news and others go on about how opposed to illegal immigration they are, and how it’s the Democrats that want those people as future constituents. Those same mouths then turn around and hire those same illegals. After all, the illegals can’t complain about their wages. The employer doesn’t have to pay for all the associated costs such as Social Security, and Medicare. They don’t have to deduct payroll taxes, and they don’t have to pay any unemployment tax. These employers also do not have to worry about injured workers, or complying with OSHA since they just fire the “slave” if he,or she, gets hurt. What will they do, complain to someone?
    The only real solution to the illegal immigration problem is to go after the slave owning employers. There must be fines levied at the “illegal employer” for hiring people living in our country illegally. Only then will there be a reduction in the number of people crossing the border.
     Our problem today is not with illegal immigration, it is with employers that hire and use illegal immigrants as slaves. Get rid of the illegal employers and the problem goes away.

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