The speculation has begun that Telematics is being used to eliminate many of the highest paid driver jobs within UPS. With a large pool of unemployed people out there the company may have launched into a plan to eliminate the highest paid, and replace them with lower paid new hires.
     With a contract in the near future, the expectation would be a negotiated wage tier within the full time ranks much like the two tiered system implemented in the last decade for the part timers. Telematics allows management to harass everyone over anything. They just keep reducing the search time until they find a driver they can make look like a dirt-bag. They are able to fine tune the system down to “seconds wasted”. They have management people doing nothing but searching the system for someone they can harass.
      With the excessive pressure being brought to bear on the drivers, many will quit, many will retire before they are ready, and many will be fired for performing the job as they were trained by the fireball management types that trained them. Many of the management people would have been terminated themselves had they stayed as drivers.
     Of course Telematics is also designed to eliminate management as well. Upper level managers have the goal of reducing costs by eliminating people. They don’t care about performance, they don’t care about safety. They simply want to get rid of your ass to improve their bottom line, and protect their own asses. The company has become a system of cutthroat hoodlums willing to do anything to protect themselves. God forbid you happen to get in the way of that.
     So my question to the Teamsters is “Where are you?” We, (the rank and file), understand the interest in keeping the company, that employs more Teamster members, healthy. It just seems unusual that the Teamsters would remain so silent in the face of the treatment the rank and file is receiving under Telematics. Has it just not affected enough people yet? Some of the language negotiated in the last contract becomes very suspect in light of the implementation of Telematics.
     Article 6 Section 4 Article 8 says, “No employee shall be discharged on a first offense if such discharge is based solely upon information received from GPS or any successor system unless he/she engages in dishonesty (defined for the purposes of this paragraph as any act or omission by an employee where he/she intends to defraud the Company). The degree of discipline dealing with off-area offenses shall not be changed because of GPS.”
     We all know they company feels we are all theives and cheaters. The above contract language opens the door to a great deal of abuse. Every infraction will be considered as an intent to defraud the company. Every RJF is trying to cheat the system of production according to management.
     I can tell you from firsthand knowledge that every Teamster Steward is watched every day for any discrepancy. Everyday on the managers desk is a copy of every possible second the steward may have “stolen” from the company. The company surely has a plan to eliminate the workhorses of the Teamster’s. Yet the Teamsters remain quiet. The system proceeds as usual as if nothing has changed. Suddenly we lose a RJF and their job is taken away. No comment from the Teamsters. Two more people are fired for similar actions. Again no comment.
     Telematics will weaken the union simply by allowing management to target the Teamster members. Anyone vocal or outspoken can be taken out for any reason. With the panel system, a weak Teamster panel will lose rank and file members time after time. As an outspoken Steward I am sure my time is coming. Once our Union has been sufficiently weakened the rest of you top scale people will be next.
Contact the Teamsters and Ask Them to Rise to the Occasion Against Telematics!