How Important is Your Union to You Now?

     How important is the Teamsters Union to the average UPS driver today? Well, let’s look at the wonderful world we live in at Big Brown. With the implementation of PAS the company has tighter control of your dispatch, and your load. They feel you can do more in less time. Of course we know how they love to push production to the N’th degree.
      The Teamsters, fortunately for us all, has maintained limitations on overtime hours. The vast majority of drivers give 100% everyday to the company. Yet the company continues to demand those drivers give up their family lives for the bottom line. Fortunately for those drivers, the Teamsters Union has given them a voice in spending time with their families.
     The Teamsters negotiated the Nine-Five restriction on hours. The company continues to fight and push to work drivers ten and eleven hours a day, but you will notice that the drivers that turn to the Teamsters are usually in by 6, while the wimpy guys, afraid to say anything, are in at 8 or 9 even on a daily basis.
      The check in area has two busy times. The first busy time is when the Teamsters get in at 6, the next is 8:30 when the guys, without lives, get in.
     The implementation of Telematics will bring a huge need to the drivers for representation by the Teamsters. A key note is that the Who's got your back?Teamsters negotiated language that prevents the company from taking discipline based solely on technological information. The company must “directly” observe a behaviour in order to write discipline. Thanks for that!
     Telematics is a highly technical system that provides a great deal of information to the company about a drivers day. The problem is all of the information is subject to management’s interpretation. Many of you know that when you get along with a manager, life is good. With Telematics, when a manager hates you, Telematics arms them with a great deal of subjective information they can use to harass you. I have called it Harassamatics in the past. Again the Teamsters have built protections into the contract which give you power through the grievance process to stop unfounded harassment.
     So where would you be without the Teamsters to get your back? Working twelve hour days, or more. No family life, or any family at all. Relentless, brow beating management, and you with no voice. Of course none of this even addresses the fact that you are the highest paid employees in the small package trades. You have become the rare employee with good healthcare that is paid for, and you still have a pension waiting for you at the end of the line.
     Many people continue to bash the union as if it’s a horrible entity.
      My question to you is, “Where would you be, without the Teamsters?”