A former UPS delivery man from Clarkston says he was told to deliver a package “even if it contained illicit drugs” and was eventually fired after he opened the package and found marijuana.
A lawyer for Steven Mojica tells the Detroit News his client refused to deliver a suspicious 4-pound next-day package to a house on Murphy Street. As a result, his UPS supervisors then accused him of theft, reported him to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and fired him in early August.
Mojica is suing the delivery company for reinstatement of his job, lost wages and damages resulting from mental and emotional distress.
Mojica claims he was about to contact police when he received another message instructing him to call a supervisor, who allegedly told Mojica “he should have delivered the package, even if it contained illicit drugs.”
At that point, Mojica claimed he opened the package and found it contained large sealed bags of what appeared to be marijuana. He continued his route for another two hours before he turned it over to a Loss Prevention employee.
A UPS spokeswoman tells the News they haven’t seen the lawsuit, but said there are reporting procedures in place for suspicious packages.
“It’s nice to know UPS can guarantee delivery to drug dealers and fire employees that refuse to deliver their drugs,” said Mark Porter, Mojica’s attorney.
In an unrelated case, authorities last month arrested the manager of a UPS store in Atlanta for allegedly stealing a package that contained marijuana, selling it and lying to authorities.
But lest you think UPS is the delivery service of choice for dealers, an informal and unscientific poll on marijuana.com shows senders prefer the U.S. Postal Service.
They Just Don’t Get It
The current pile of politicians just don’t get it. It’s not about a Republican agenda, or a Democratic agenda.
It’s about the people stupid!
The current crop of politicians on all sides still don’t understand that the people are saying, “give us back our country”. “Take our country out of the big corporations hands. They are destroying the American way of life!”
Until that happens we are going to play politician ping-pong!
National Association of Undertakers Backs GOP Health Plan
WASHINGTON – Congressional Republicans received key backing today for their health care plan, picking up support from the National Association of Undertakers.
The funeral directors’ group, which represents undertakers, embalmers and hearse drivers across the country, gave the GOP plan a big thumbs up, saying in a press release, “Finally, a health care plan that works for us.”
The endorsement from the undertakers’ association was the second major endorsement in two days for the GOP plan, which yesterday picked up support from the National Association of Viruses and Bacteria.
The Borowitz Report
Just Take Their Word For It?
The company has offered a new health care “Package”, to all of the hourlies. I attended a meeting yesterday to discuss the 
Of course the company wants you to take their word on what the plan is all about, but when push comes to shove in a legal situation, the SPD is what the courts look at. The company, as usual, took the cheap easy way, and mailed everyone an old book for some other plan that was close to what the new plan looks like.
They want you to just take their word for what the new plan is about.
Will their word stand up in court?
I am making no representations as to whether any employee should make the change or not. My complaint is about the company wanting us to make decisions on what could be a lifelong change, without providing us with any accurate information.
Contact Human Resources and tell them you want an accurate SPD to make the decisions that matter for your family.
The “Summary Plan Description” is a legal document for your health insurance plan!
Their word is not!
Swallowed by Corporate America
The bottom line is why you have seen the destruction of the safe driving award system. The attitude has changed from upper management that safe driving is a condition of employment. Your reward is that they won’t fire you, if you have no accidents. The implementation of Telematics is about replacing costly management people with a machine capable of supervising the hourly workforce thus saving money in wages and benefits by eliminating people.
“Take people out of the equation and you improve the bottom line”.
The driver is still a necessary evil because the technology does not exist to replace them. You can bet that someone somewhere is working on the problem.
The legacy of James E. Casey died on the day of the IPO, (Intial Public Offering), of UPS stock. The thought behind that push was the desire of upper level management to drive the value of the stock up before they sold it off. One of the reasons the stock value has remained so flat is because the old time upper level management has put a glut of stock on the market keeping the value of that stock low. They of course sold their stock at the moment of high price and have walked away from the company leaving the world you live in today as a driver.
Remember, every time you ask for, or need, anything from the company, the background question is, “what does it mean to the bottom line”.
Cost of health care? Bottom line. Cost of pensions? Bottom line. Cost of wages? Bottom line. Cost of vehicles? Bottom line.
You have been swallowed by Corporate America. Welcome to the “bottom line”.
And You Think Unions Don’t Matter
An appeals court overturned a $1.5 million verdict awarded to a woman who was spanked in front of co-workers in what her employer called a camaraderie-building exercise. A jury in 2006 had ruled that Janet Orlando had suffered sexual harassment and sexual battery when she was paddled at home security company Alarm One Inc. The jury punished the company with a $1 million punitive damage award. 
But on Monday, a three-judge panel of the state Court of Appeal overturned that verdict, ruling that the jury had been given improper instructions. In particular, the jury wasn’t instructed that one vital element of proving that sexual harassment occurred is showing the action was directed at a woman because of her gender. Lawyers for Alarm One, an Anaheim-based, 300-employee company, said that the spankings were not discriminatory because they were given to both male and female workers and that Orlando and others willingly took part. Orlando’s attorney, Nicholas “Butch” Wagner, vowed to take the case to trial again. “We may get more this time,” Wagner said.
But K. Poncho Baker, the attorney who defended the company at trial in 2006, said that because the company has since gone into bankruptcy and its insurance was exhausted battling Orlando’s claim and settling with three other co-workers, there may be little left to recover. “Good luck retrying this one,” Baker said.
Orlando quit the company in 2004, less than a year after she was hired at the Fresno office, saying she was humiliated during the company’s team-building practices. Employees were paddled with rival companies’ yard signs as part of a contest that pitted sales teams against one another. The winners poked fun at the losers, throwing pies at them, feeding them baby food, making them wear diapers and swatting their buttocks. The company has since abandoned the practice.
Meeting At Local 455 — Health Insurance
There will be a meeting at Local 455 to discuss the new health insurance proposal that UPS is offering. If you have questions, this is the time to get answers. Don’t rely on second or third hand information. Plan to attend and bring your spouse.
Can You Finish Your Route???
You should be so lucky as to have this happen to you. You know what they’d say when you called in…
“Can you finish your route???”
An Accident Waiting to Happen
What causes injuries on the job, and how can they be prevented? Employers usually say that injuries are caused by “human error.” They say that workers wouldn’t get hurt if only they were more careful on the job.
But that employer argument misses the point.
Since we all are human and cannot avoid mistakes, it is the employer’s responsibility to provide safeguards so that mistakes don’t become injuries.
A simple example involves machine guarding. Years ago, employers were not required to put guards on moving machine parts. When workers lost their concentration and got caught in a machine, management said they were hurt because they were “careless.” Now, guards are required and workers get caught in moving machine parts much less often. They’re still careless from time to time–we all are–but the safety protection keeps them from getting hurt.
The following is a checklist for identifying possible changes needed to prevent injuries on your job. The same list can be used after an accident to show management how the real causes can be corrected.
- Are workers provided with too little time to do the job?
- Are tools or equipment inadequate or poorly maintained?
- Is there poor supervision?
- Is there enough help?
- Does the job involve an unsafe number of tasks?
- Does it require physical positions or a degree of effort that will contribute to accidents and injuries?
- Are stressful conditions that can contribute to accidents allowed to go unchecked? For example, too much noise? Vibration? Heat? Cold? Poor lighting? Exposure to chemicals that would cause headaches, dizziness, skin problems, or other irritation?
- Are staffing or procedures inadequate to prevent conditions in which workers will trip or slip on something, be hit by a falling object, get caught between two objects, come in contact with electricity, etc.?
- Do poorly designed or overly stressful work schedules make workers tired and less alert? Does management fail to provide all necessary protective clothing and equipment, and keep it in good working order?
- Is training inadequate or too infrequent?
Management works hard trying to make us beleive that every accident and injury is our own fault. Think about the list above and how it applies to your job conditions. Old trucks, extreme heat and cold, falling objects caused by bad loads, the list begins to build when you take a good look at it.
Always get the Union involved when you have an accident or injury before you buy into management’s line that everything is your fault. The Union can help you identify what is management’s repsonsibility and what is yours.
Thanks to IBEW Local 1613
Flexible Bosses Add Years To Workers’ Lives
Here is an interesting concept that I’m sure every UPS driver has already figured out. Upper management at UPS has not figured this out. Upper management thinks that stress makes people more productive. They spend millions of dollars on health and safety programs while ignoring the root cause of accidents, injuries and attendance problems. They wonder why workers call in sick every chance they get. Maybe the problem is not the workers, maybe it’s the slave drivers that run the company. Read on….
When it comes to keeping workers healthy and productive, a flexible boss may be the best medicine, at least according to a national study from the Work, Family and Health Network.
The 3-year study looked at wide range of jobs including retail, long-term elderly care, hotels and hospitality as well as several white collar firms.
“The study found a little give and take in the workplace can add years to a person’s life,” said CBS4 Medical Editor Dr. Dave Hnida. “Specifically people who worked in a supportive workplace had half the risk of heart disease than folks who worked places where they were treated poorly.”
The good workplace also had workers who slept better, averaging an extra 30 minutes every night.
“That extra sleep seemed to help those people — healthier overall with fewer infections,” Hnida said.
So what makes a workplace supportive?
“It’s flexibility in the workplace,” Hnida said. “Happier workers were given a lot of leeway to take care of sick children or to take time to attend school events and parent-teacher conferences.”
Many were given the chance to take vacation time in long chunks or lots of little ones, including an hour at a time.
Telecommuting and flex time also made a difference in how employees perceived their work environment.
CBS4