Life at Brown has been interesting over the last couple of years. Given the economic downturn, a number of things have happened due to the financial stresses the company has been under.
     Management promotions have essentially been stopped. The usual movement of management has also been stopped. Everyone basically has been told they will be successful where they are or they will be gone. The question would be, what has happened to the drivers? The most noticeable would be the lack of new hires, but everyone continues to work, and through attrition, no one has suffered an extended layoff.
     Management has had to pay more for their benefit package. Their “out of pocket” cost has increased in order for the company to offset some of their costs of providing benefits. What have the drivers faced? No change in the benefit package and it’s cost to the drivers. It’s a very good thing at a bad time. Of course it raised the eyebrows of management.
     Management has taken a decrease in wage levels. No raises were given, and rumor was that most management actually took a pay cut. The drivers on the other hand not only kept their wage levels intact, but were awarded all contractual wage increases provided for under the contract. It wasn’t for the lack of the company asking.
     Given these changes that have occurred in the last couple of years, what would you think will come next?
     Let me again remind you of a very special year. 2013. That is the year of the expiration of the Teamster/UPS contract. July 31st to be exact. Would any self respecting driver expect that management will take all of these cuts, then turn around and give the hourlys wage and benefit increases? Also with the competitive climate the way it is, would any driver expect the company to maintain wage levels when the nearest competition is taking wage cuts, and benefit cuts across the board?
     There is such a thing as pricing one’s self out of the market. While you would never hear the Teamsters make such a forecast, (it would be political suicide), the worries have been expressed behind closed doors.
     So back to that “self respecting driver”. Without involvement both politically, and within the Union, the s.r. driver is going to take a hit in those contract negotiations. The support can’t suddenly come on the 30th of July, 2013, it has to happen in the years preceding the expiration of the contract. The more formidable front the Teamsters present, the less demanding the company will be upon negotiation time.
     That includes an increase in Union membership outside the company. One of the biggest fears of large corporation is the “boots on the ground” mentality of the Unions. If the corporations are successful in reducing the membership of the Unions to a meaningless number of people, they will win. Your wages go down, your benefits disappear, and you get to do the job of being a driver with the same amount of hassle, for less, and less benefit.
     We all need to wake up to the “Ogre in the den”. The corporations want you to believe the “Ogre” is the government. 
                             The “Ogres” are the Corporations. Wake up!

     I love to look into my mind’s eye. As long as I hide out inside my head, I am whatever I want to be. When I’m in there it’s easy for everyone else to see what a wonderful, thoughtful, all knowing, tough, individualist I am. 
     I am never influenced from the outside because I know what’s right and wrong in my mind’s eye. I am terribly intelligent also in my mind’s eye. I get to treat other people the way I think they should be treated in my mind’s eye.
     I am the toughest person on earth in my mind’s eye. Since I know best, I get to spout whatever I want. I know I am right to be a racist in my mind’s eye. Since I know everything, I get to tell everyone how screwed up the government is, and what the solution to everything the government does, would be. My mind’s eye tells me who is right, (they’re right if they agree with my vast intellect), so I know what and who to listen to, and who is a truth distorting jerk. I know all of that in my mind’s eye.
     In my mind’s eye I believe the Unions are all crooked. I believe what I have heard about them because I once had that thought, and they take my money every month, and of course I know everything in my mind’s eye. When I heard some talking head radio guy say it also, I knew he was right because my “all knowing” mind’s eye had already had that thought.
     I am so worth the money I get for what I do, I don’t need the unions to negotiate on my behalf. It is how I see myself in my mind’s eye. I am the best driver ever, and no one can compare to how expert I am at whatever I do, in my mind’s eye. The company would pay me double what I get, if they only knew my value the way my mind’s eye knows my value.
     Listening and learning are not necessary for me, because I am the smartest person on earth. Nobody that disagrees with me should ever question what I think. Don’t they know I am the smartest person in the universe in my mind’s eye? I know how stupid everyone else is, and by damned if they try to question what I think and say, I have the obligation to shout them down, and call them stupid. I know I’m just a driver, but I should be king of the universe, and control all thought with my incredible powers in my mind’s eye.
     I hear people say that I am easily influenced by what I hear, and that I wouldn’t help my own mother cross the road. What they don’t know is that I would let them all starve to death, but my mother would never have to worry in my mind’s eye.
     I want my mommy, in my mind’s eye.

     We all know people with this type of mentality. They usually hide in the background, but leap to the front when they feel empowered. They will never come forth for the people that fight on their behalf because their ego is such that they think they are owed what they have. After all, they are the most important people in the world “in their mind’s eye”.
                We all know where they keep their “mind’s eye”.

     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!

    
     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.

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.