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[paidover]

I'm a Union man through and through but a UPS employee has absolutley no right to sell any part of there UPS issued Uniform on EBAY. If an employee is caught doing so he or she should be fired on the spot. I worked long and hard to earn the right to wear my Browns and have no desire to see some snot nose kid or anyone else wearing the uniform at there leisure.

 

[my2cents]

<FONT SIZE="+1">National Right to Work News Release</FONT>

Oklahoma Workers Join Court Battle to Defend Right to Work Law

Employees and Governor Keating to stand side by side against union legal attack

URL: http://www.nrtw.org/b/nr.php3?id=73

Muskogee, Okla. (January 22, 2002) -- Enjoying free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, workers from three different Oklahoma companies have filed formally in federal court to join Governor Frank Keating in defending Oklahoma's new Right to Work constitutional amendment against multi-union attack.

The employees argue that if the unions prevail in voiding the statewide ban on forced unionism they will suffer direct financial harm as well as damage to their interests of free speech and free association.

The Oklahoma AFL-CIO, six local unions, and a heavily unionized company filed the suit last November in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma to overturn the will of Oklahoma voters in enacting State Question 695 on September 25, 2001. The Right to Work constitutional amendment bans the widespread union practice of forcing workers to join an unwanted union or pay any union dues as a condition of employment. Oklahoma is the newest of America's 22 Right to Work states.

"Despite the personal risks they face in publicly opposing the state's most powerful union officials, these employees feel so strongly that they have decided to stand beside Governor Keating in federal court to face down this multi-union lawsuit," said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. "The Right to Work law is not just about economic growth and creation of high-paying jobs, it's about protecting individual rights and reducing union corruption and abuse."

The employees are filing with the court as "defendant intervenors" which will ensure that they can file briefs and make arguments in court to defend their direct financial and liberty interests at stake in the preservation of the Right to Work amendment. Meanwhile, Governor Keating's primary legal responsibility is to protect the interest of the public at large in a law passed by electoral referendum.

The three employees are Kent Duvall, an employee of United Parcel Service, Michelle McKenzie, an employee of Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, and Stephen Weese, an employee of Oklahoma Fixture Company.

Motions for summary judgment will be filed by the parties on or before January 31, 2002.

 

[upsadvisor]

I was pleased to see that our friends in the European community are finally getting around to actually allowing fair competition in the delivery business.

There is a news article out today that details how the German Postal Service which thru its monopoly of postal delivery was able to expand into the courier delivery service
( they control DHL )by paying for and subsidizing their expansion with the funds generated by the postal delivery business.

To make a long story short they were able to enter the business and undercut the fee's which is akin to the Japanese dumping steel at a loss in the US to gain entry to the business.

The article goes on to say that the fine for this could be as high as 2bilion euros, in non monopoly money thats about 1.7 billon.

I will try and post a copy.

John

 

[cheryl]

I missed the jokes

We had the transition issue at our house too but managed to stay connected to the Internet. One of our neighbors spent hours on the phone waiting for tech support... My recommendation to everyone that had to convert to cox.net is to stop all the extra software that was installed on your hard drive by their conversion cd from loading everytime you start your computer. Only a browser is required to connect to the Internet and all those other programs slow down your online connection as well as eating up system resources. I found that our computer was much faster after making these changes.

If your os is windows 98 then click the start button, click on run and type in msconfig and click ok, choose the startup tab at the top of the next window and look through the list for tgcmd and bjcfd and take the checkmarks out of their boxes.

Restart your computer and make sure that everything is working, if something is goofy then you can go back in and put the checkmarks back into the boxes and restart again. It worked much better for me without the checkmarks, hopefully it will help you too.

 

[upsadvisor]

On the subject of fair play :

The market seems to be ignoring a couple of facts in my opinion.

1. UPS earnings were very good considering the environment

2. Why is the market valuing Federal Express equal to UPS when clearly the earnings and return on equity is twice that of Fed Ex.

Sooner or later the market will come to the same conclusions as it gets harder and harder to find solid places to invest.


Oh yes one last thing UPS belives in giving something back to its shareholders its called a dividend.

I realize I am preaching to the choir just venting a little frustration.

John

 

[dannyboy]

John

One mistake, UPS does not GIVE you a dividend, we all EARN it. Without the profit that we all strive for, UPS would not be able to pay dividends. So when you get your dividend check, know that it is your hard work that made it what it was.

Just my humble opinion.

Regards

Daniel

 

[upsadvisor]

Dannyboy,

You will get no argument from me.
I would like to pass on my gratitude to all at UPS
who's efforts allow shareholders like myself
to recive that dividend check.

Thank you all for your commitment and effort and excellence !!

John

 

[bottomline]

FYI-Fellow UPSer's!!
I just received a Merrill Lynch HYPO Loan interest rate update. They are offering interest rates tied to 1 month, 3 month, 6 month or 1 year LIBOR rates. As of 1/25/2002 the interest rates for a 1 year LIBOR rate were as follows:
Loans over $1 million: 3.13%
Loans between $500,000 and $1 million: 3.38%
Loans between $100,000 and $500,000: 3.63%
If anyone is interested, they can contact Rob at Merrill Lynch at 614-225-3050.
Good Luck!!!

 

[upsadvisor]

Just a quick update on the Merrill Lynch
UPS Lending Program and how it is priced.

Loans from 100MM - 499MM LIBOR plus 1.25%
Loans from 500MM - 999MM LIBOR plus 1.00%
Loan of 1Million or more LIBOR plus .75%

There is a one time fee of $1000
Merrill will lend 40% of the value

Todays LIBOR rates are

1.86 1 month
1.89 1 month
1.92 3 month
2.08 6 month
2.57 1 year

John D
Merrill Lynch
516 877 8200

 

[upsadvisor]

Updated Libor Rates for 2/1/02


1 month 1.86%
2 month 1.89%
3 month 1.92%
6 month 2.08%
1 year 2.57%

John

 

[tranham]

Some of you may remember the UPS Thrift Plan back before the 97 strike. It was a great retirement plan that let you put up to $6 a week in and got great returns. Those who were in it were told the plan was being eliminated. They were told to pick how thier money would be allocated back to them.


Move ahead 6 or so years. I have a co-worker who is still in the Thrift Plan! He never picked how he wanted his money allocated. They never kicked him out or eliminated the plan. UPS no longer takes money out of his paycheck every week but he gets quarterly statements and it makes a lot of money. The year of the IPO the Thrift Plan made, as I was told, 120% interest. I feel cheated. Why was I told I had to take my money out if they never eliminated the plan??? Should I complain to the Securities and Exchange commission? I don't know if the Union would be able to help in this matter. I'd just like to have my money put back into the plan. Does anyone have any information on this?? His statements don't have a contact number for the Thrift Plan. My boss looks at me like I'm making the whole thing up. Help!

 

[kjones514]

If you took your money and invested in an IRA that had been converted to UPS stock, you would have almost made the same, unfortunatly THE COMPANY LIED ON THE THRIFT PLAN, dont worry someday this type of "doing business" will catch up to our company (just look at the opl mess, the a300 purchases)

 

[retired]

What exactly do you mean by "THE COMPANY LIED ON THE THRIFT PLAN"? My understanding was that the plan was being eliminated to accomodate both modifications in tax laws and retirement plan regulations and was closed to new contributions. Everyone was asked to choose an alternate plan, was there some part of the process that I missed? Naturally there were some people that resisted the change becuase they don't ever trust corporate motives or they simply procrastinated.

It is not helpful to anyone to make accusations of fraud or misrepresentation and not include supporting information that backs up your claim. If there is any validity to your claim the UPS lied then you are undermining your own credibility by not adding what they lied about.

By the way, UPS was vindicated by the courts in the OPL situation.

 

[dannyboy]

Hey Retired
What he means by lied is that they came to us and told us that you HAD to select a retirement vehicle to put your money into. If you did not, the company would send you the money and you would be liable for the tax and a 10% penalty to boot. They lied to us. Pure and simple. What part of that is hard to understand. And we found out 2 years later that they still havent shut it down and those that stayed (many of them managers) have really made a bundle. Further more, I was told that if I bought UPS stock with it, that the OPL stock would be included. But somehow in all the dumping, UPS stock was all we got.

Its like when I was part time, I was allways told that every year part time counts as 1/2 year to retirement. So after 6 years PT and 23 full time, you find out that the company AND the union were blowing smoke. What is so hard to understand? UPS DOES LIE!

So you live and learn. But you don't trust. (can you say Enron?)

d

 

[retired]

Yeah, it was all a big conspiracy to get all the hourly employees out of the Thrift plan so that all the managers could get rich by keeping the high returns all to themselves. Are you aware that the federally mandated regulations forced UPS to retire the thrift plan program?

What did not happen is that there was a big meeting and all the managers decided to lie to you. Grow up.

 

[tranham]

I'm confused. If UPS had to close down the Thrift Plan due to federally mandated regulations then why is the plan still running today??? I have seen the statements. It does still exist today. If there is a valid reason why they told us to cash out, then I'm ok with it. On the other hand why would the plan still exist today if the government told them to shut it down six years ago. It makes no sense to me.

 

[dannyboy]

No, actually it is retired that is confused. The thrift plan was retired, as an employee can not contribute to it any longer. But the way that it was represented to us was that it had to close down completely. That is why I said they lied. Coupled with the FACT that two of our retired drivers got a forced lump sum dist. at that time made it seem like they were telling the truth. But we all know better now. And when you find out all but one of the management staff are still in, you go figure it out!

Sometimes, when a person tells a "story" long enough, in their minds it becomes the truth. Esp. if their job depends on it.

Regards

d

 

[retired]

Just for the record I was in management at the time and was also told to choose another plan. There is not one management person that I know of that is still in the thrift plan. As I recall management was under more pressure to switch plans than hourly employees were. Don't try to make this into a amangement against hourly issue because it is not. If there was misrepresentation that the thrift plan was no longer going to be allowed it was made to both management and hourly employees. Believe me, I would have considered keeping my money in the thrift plan if I had known that it was going to be able to stay in the thrift plan.

 

[tieguy]

The thrift plan for all intents and purposes is dead. While it still exists its not doing anything. You can't feed it, and the company no longer supports it with any additional interest returns. You were encouraged to roll your thrift plan money into another plan and if you had done so you would have done much better than leaving it in the plan. In 1999 UPS stock IPO'd and those who owned it saw an increase in value of better than 100%. The thrift plan which owns UPS stock saw the same. In 2000 UPS stock stagnated and the thrift plan reflected a loss. From everything I've heard the thrift plan will be offically closed down in the next year.

 

[cheryl]

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