Contract proposals for 2018

[brownIEman]

Why would UPS's market share get to 0? We could trim the sails and dump management overboard to lighten the ship of dead weight during stormy trends.

Well, I quit so I'm doing my part!
Better get cracking on the rest - market share has steadily gone from above 80 in the nineties to 24 today. The trend has been steady and unwavering for well over 20 years. What do you imagine is at the end of that road if not 0 ?

 

[Bubblehead]

Well, I quit so I'm doing my part!
Better get cracking on the rest - market share has steadily gone from above 80 in the nineties to 24 today. The trend has been steady and unwavering for well over 20 years. What do you imagine is at the end of that road if not 0 ?

I quit because you're giving our part to the Post Office...

.... instead of embracing the volume at a reduced margin in the short term, in order to build the infrastructure/fleet/staffing.....

....to dominate in the future.


How can you quote those numbers in the wake of Surepost?

 

[brownIEman]

I quit because you're giving our part to the Post Office...

.... instead of embracing the volume at a reduced margin in the short term, in order to build the infrastructure/fleet/staffing.....

....to dominate in the future.


How can you quote those numbers in the wake of Surepost?

The loss of market share has been going on since long before surepost.
I get the thought of taking lower margin packages to pay for expanding infrastructure. But that does not work with negative margin volume which sure post would be if we kept it all in house. Worse, customers would push for more and more volume done at the lower rate and if UPS refused they would just give the volume to FDX and its smartpost. The only reason smart post and sure post work is because the post office has all carriers beat hands down in stop density on the delivery side. They go to every adress every day. But their back bone network is built for letters not packages like UPS fax are

 

[Article 3]

The loss of market share has been going on since long before surepost.
I get the thought of taking lower margin packages to pay for expanding infrastructure. But that does not work with negative margin volume which sure post would be if we kept it all in house. Worse, customers would push for more and more volume done at the lower rate and if UPS refused they would just give the volume to FDX and its smartpost. The only reason smart post and sure post work is because the post office has all carriers beat hands down in stop density on the delivery side. They go to every adress every day. But their back bone network is built for letters not packages like UPS fax are

My my my. Doom and gloom..
Less market share with higher profits every year.
The sky is falling.

And laugh all the way to the bank.

The company started the fight in 97 when we had "80%" off market share
"Last, best, and final offer" with HMOs and performance based compensation graded by the payer.
You did it to yourselves and dragged us into the pit with you greedy liars.

 

[Article 3]

The loss of market share has been going on since long before surepost.
I get the thought of taking lower margin packages to pay for expanding infrastructure. But that does not work with negative margin volume which sure post would be if we kept it all in house. Worse, customers would push for more and more volume done at the lower rate and if UPS refused they would just give the volume to FDX and its smartpost. The only reason smart post and sure post work is because the post office has all carriers beat hands down in stop density on the delivery side. They go to every adress every day. But their back bone network is built for letters not packages like UPS fax are

How would other "customers" know what we charge for surepost?
The company uses surepost to syphon off business end users pkgs to the post office....places that we go almost every day.

How about the volume held in trailers on Mondays to keep drivers off the road, reduce our guaranteed "90%" and reduce the % of 8 hr requests allowed for the week?

Yeah, we care about customers. Holding a business for an extra day to reduce the workforce is really honest business. We saw this go down recently when the commercial customer complained about it.

 

[wide load]

Forget about raise. David Abney is spending your ca$h on me, babes Can't wait to see my pretty face on your trucks. Some like it big and brown

Are the trucks big enough to include your ass?

 

[brownIEman]

My my my. Doom and gloom..
Less market share with higher profits every year.
The sky is falling.

And laugh all the way to the bank.

The company started the fight in 97 when we had "80%" off market share
"Last, best, and final offer" with HMOs and performance based compensation graded by the payer.
You did it to yourselves and dragged us into the pit with you greedy liars.

Well, somebody's bitter.
Doom and gloom? Don't know, theoretically the slide could stop anytime. I only know the numbers, the market share has
dropped from above 80 to 24. As I said earlier, it is my impression that UPS is in a situation now where it can run profitably, but not
competitively.

The company started the fight in 97 when we were DOWN to 80%. It was higher in the early nineties. The market share slide had already begun by that point and the top leadership were very concerned about it. Largely I am sure because they vastly under estimated the huge growth that was starting to take place in the market due to ecomerce. The company's whole fight to cut cost to serve was an attempt to regain a competitive cost structure. Yes, that would have meant lower total compensation, hence the fight. By the way, UPS' last best, final, as poor an offer as it may have been, is not what you struck over. By the time the strike was called on Aug 4, that proposal had changed and UPS had made an offer that was very similar to what wound up being approved. The strike was because Carey wanted a strike.

The tango that has lead to UPS holding a much smaller percentage of a much bigger pie has been danced by two sides. Your greedy liars took us down with you BS is just that. You have swallowed the IBT's propaganda hook, line and sinker and your interpretation of events is as skewed by your immersion in that narrative as mine is skewed by the corporate narrative I was immersed in. The difference appears to be that I am at least aware that I have a bias and I attempt to look past it.

 

[brownIEman]

How would other "customers" know what we charge for surepost?
The company uses surepost to syphon off business end users pkgs to the post office....places that we go almost every day.

I was referring to the customers who currently use surepost, so they would know what we charge because they are using the service. We do not offer surepost as a stand alone service. For a customer to use surepost, they also have to have a contract to use us as a carrier for other services. Surepost is an offering of a no frills (for instance there is no guarantee on delivery date) super cheap service. The idea being that our customers can pay a low enough fee for shipping on these packages that they can absorb the cost and offer free shipping to their customer ordering it. But if we start treating these packages the same way we treat our ground, (in other words providing just as good time in transit as our ground) our customers will likely start to push for more of their packages to be shipped on the cheap. And remember, UPS got into surepost only as a response to Fedex' Smartpost, which they developed first and used to syphon off customers from us.

How about the volume held in trailers on Mondays to keep drivers off the road, reduce our guaranteed "90%" and reduce the % of 8 hr requests allowed for the week?

I am very confused about this comment. If a feeder arrives on property in time for a Monday preload, with volume that is planned to be run on that Monday preload, and management decides to roll that feeder over, just ignore it till the next day? That is a REALLY good way for managers to get fired. Remember, if that load was planned for Monday, it has volume in it that will have a service guarantee of that day. Rolling that feeder would be like a driver burning packages. An entire feeder full of burned packages.

Now, if you are talking about a feeder that arrives on Monday, but that has Tuesday volume (volume that is planned based on time in transit to be delivered on Tuesday), that is a different story. Some feeders do arrive a day early. So if I am running an operation on Monday, and I have a feeder of Tuesday volume on property, I have a decision to make. Do I "jump" that volume and get it delivered on Monday or leave it for Tuesday? A lot of variables go into that decision, not the least of which is would jumping that Tuesday load make Tuesday's dispatch so light that drivers like you would start to accuse us of deliberately cutting routes on Tuesday to mess with people.

Yeah, we care about customers. Holding a business for an extra day to reduce the workforce is really honest business. We saw this go down recently when the commercial customer complained about it.

Again, I would have to ask if it is Monday volume or Tuesday volume. I have been bitched at by customers who tracked packages and saw that their package had an arrival scan in our facility a day prior to when it is due, and assumed since it was on property, they would get it that day.
If your management was deliberately rolling Monday volume, for whatever reason you imagine they were doing it, somebody needs to get fired.

 

[What'dyabringmetoday???]

Is there a contract proposal somewhere here?

 

[brownIEman]

A person would be an absolute idiot if they wouldn't think a corporation, especially a corporation with union employees, would do everything in their power to lie,cheat,and steal from their workers... both union AND non- union. This would also including having in place an "allowance " system that can be manipulated by the company to be anything they want it to be...answer me this one question i.e. Man, a few years ago I had a time study and I actually gained close to an hour( putting me +15, -15 everyday... that lasted about 2 weeks and mysteriously the numbers went back to where they were... when I questioned a few sups about it I received a head shake and a " I don't know, I really don't."....the company didn't like the time I was "given " so they pushed a few buttons and poof, everything was gone... just an example of a company lying, cheating, and stealing.... I'm sure there are other examples others could give....

I have some experience with these types of incidents. I will try to give an explanation. Note, I am not giving a justification, as I believe it is not justified.
When a time study is done, there are a ton of variables involved. Nearly as many, and in some cases more, than the variables a driver runs into on a daily basis. So there is a review process - a time study is completed, new allowances entered for unit numbers, and yet other eyes may look into those results and review. Sometimes, they find that the person doing the time study was in fact incorrect in some calculation and that is corrected on review.
Now, as you might imagine, if a time study is done and results in a large increase in allowance, those studies will get way more scrutiny than a study that takes away a lot of allowance. There is a sort of natural resistance built into the system to push the allowances lower, tighten up the operation as it were, caused by the fact that it is much easier for a poorly done study that reduces allowance to get through than a poorly done study that increases allowance.

And in the "they are always out to cheat me" BS game that goes on on both sides, there are some crusty older IE time study guys who would look at a study like the one you had and think "Coldworld really manged to pull the wool over the eyes of the guy who did that study, he is trying to cheat us!!" and then Mr crusty IE will make it his mission to find any justification to review and trim back that allowance. He will feel justified because he feels cheated and he is just correcting that. You of course feel cheated and are sure everyone is just a dishonest money grubbing whore in management. When that is not EXACTLY how it works when you open the hood an really look at the process, but its close enough from your vantage point that I can surely understand how it looks that way to you.

And round and round it goes...

 

[BigUnionGuy]

I have some experience with these types of incidents. I will try to give an explanation. Note, I am not giving a justification, as I believe it is not justified.
When a time study is done, there are a ton of variables involved. Nearly as many, and in some cases more, than the variables a driver runs into on a daily basis. So there is a review process - a time study is completed, new allowances entered for unit numbers, and yet other eyes may look into those results and review. Sometimes, they find that the person doing the time study was in fact incorrect in some calculation and that is corrected on review.
Now, as you might imagine, if a time study is done and results in a large increase in allowance, those studies will get way more scrutiny than a study that takes away a lot of allowance. There is a sort of natural resistance built into the system to push the allowances lower, tighten up the operation as it were, caused by the fact that it is much easier for a poorly done study that reduces allowance to get through than a poorly done study that increases allowance.

And in the "they are always out to cheat me" BS game that goes on on both sides, there are some crusty older IE time study guys who would look at a study like the one you had and think "Coldworld really manged to pull the wool over the eyes of the guy who did that study, he is trying to cheat us!!" and then Mr crusty IE will make it his mission to find any justification to review and trim back that allowance. He will feel justified because he feels cheated and he is just correcting that. You of course feel cheated and are sure everyone is just a dishonest money grubbing whore in management. When that is not EXACTLY how it works when you open the hood an really look at the process, but its close enough from your vantage point that I can surely understand how it looks that way to you.

And round and round it goes...

@brownIEman

I can accept this post, as a truthful observation.


If I'm not mistaken.... you're retired ?

The reason I ask, is because of computer based "virtual" time studies.

It started around 2008 or 09 ?


IE getting on the car, to perform "physical" time studies ?

Isn't that gone ?



-Bug-

 

[brownIEman]

@brownIEman

I can accept this post, as a truthful observation.


If I'm not mistaken.... you're retired ?

The reason I ask, is because of computer based "virtual" time studies.

It started around 2008 or 09 ?


IE getting on the car, to perform "physical" time studies ?

Isn't that gone ?



-Bug-

Not exactly retired but close enough - I quit about a year ago will draw when the time comes.

The virtual time studies cane in before I left. I don't have as much experience with them but I'm familiar the process. What happens on the back end with those is not too different than it was before. There are still a couple sets of eyes that review them and those eyes are almost universally going to say "sounds good" to an allowance loss and say "that can't be right, let's take a closer critical look" at a time gain. The inertia is always geared to tightening not loosening.

I remember reading some threads here on BC of drivers saying they gained time on a virtual study. In a lot of ways it looked like those were a more accurate view of a route. Then the inertia kicked in and some of those formulas got tweaked and you don't really hear those stories anymore.

It is what it is. It sure as hell isn't what it aught to be, bit it is what it is.

 

[Article 3]

Well, somebody's bitter.
Doom and gloom? Don't know, theoretically the slide could stop anytime. I only know the numbers, the market share has
dropped from above 80 to 24. As I said earlier, it is my impression that UPS is in a situation now where it can run profitably, but not
competitively.

The company started the fight in 97 when we were DOWN to 80%. It was higher in the early nineties. The market share slide had already begun by that point and the top leadership were very concerned about it. Largely I am sure because they vastly under estimated the huge growth that was starting to take place in the market due to ecomerce. The company's whole fight to cut cost to serve was an attempt to regain a competitive cost structure. Yes, that would have meant lower total compensation, hence the fight. By the way, UPS' last best, final, as poor an offer as it may have been, is not what you struck over. By the time the strike was called on Aug 4, that proposal had changed and UPS had made an offer that was very similar to what wound up being approved. The strike was because Carey wanted a strike.

The tango that has lead to UPS holding a much smaller percentage of a much bigger pie has been danced by two sides. Your greedy liars took us down with you BS is just that. You have swallowed the IBT's propaganda hook, line and sinker and your interpretation of events is as skewed by your immersion in that narrative as mine is skewed by the corporate narrative I was immersed in. The difference appears to be that I am at least aware that I have a bias and I attempt to look past it.

Posting ignorantly is not a plus even for the uninformed.

The multiple thousands of 22-3 jobs came out of the strike as did good raises. We didn't go onto HMOs and performance based compensation.

This volley of conversation reiterates why many hourly enjoyed sitting on the strike line...
just to say screw you.
Relish the moment.

 

[Article 3]

I was referring to the customers who currently use surepost, so they would know what we charge because they are using the service. We do not offer surepost as a stand alone service. For a customer to use surepost, they also have to have a contract to use us as a carrier for other services. Surepost is an offering of a no frills (for instance there is no guarantee on delivery date) super cheap service. The idea being that our customers can pay a low enough fee for shipping on these packages that they can absorb the cost and offer free shipping to their customer ordering it. But if we start treating these packages the same way we treat our ground, (in other words providing just as good time in transit as our ground) our customers will likely start to push for more of their packages to be shipped on the cheap. And remember, UPS got into surepost only as a response to Fedex' Smartpost, which they developed first and used to syphon off customers from us.


I am very confused about this comment. If a feeder arrives on property in time for a Monday preload, with volume that is planned to be run on that Monday preload, and management decides to roll that feeder over, just ignore it till the next day? That is a REALLY good way for managers to get fired. Remember, if that load was planned for Monday, it has volume in it that will have a service guarantee of that day. Rolling that feeder would be like a driver burning packages. An entire feeder full of burned packages.

Now, if you are talking about a feeder that arrives on Monday, but that has Tuesday volume (volume that is planned based on time in transit to be delivered on Tuesday), that is a different story. Some feeders do arrive a day early. So if I am running an operation on Monday, and I have a feeder of Tuesday volume on property, I have a decision to make. Do I "jump" that volume and get it delivered on Monday or leave it for Tuesday? A lot of variables go into that decision, not the least of which is would jumping that Tuesday load make Tuesday's dispatch so light that drivers like you would start to accuse us of deliberately cutting routes on Tuesday to mess with people.



Again, I would have to ask if it is Monday volume or Tuesday volume. I have been bitched at by customers who tracked packages and saw that their package had an arrival scan in our facility a day prior to when it is due, and assumed since it was on property, they would get it that day.
If your management was deliberately rolling Monday volume, for whatever reason you imagine they were doing it, somebody needs to get fired.

Good luck with that last (sentence) analogy.

 

[Will-I-am]

Let's see, what the "hive" at the BrownCafe has to say.


Be realistic.

Don't be stupid.

It's an honest question, and I would like honest answers.


I'll start:


1) Maintain H&W.... and improvements.

2) Maintain our pension.... and improvements

(including a cost of living increase for retirees)

3) Eliminate 17-I from the Central Region supplement


It's your turn.

Go.



-Bug-

Been driving three years. Just got forced in on Saturday delivery. We need major coverage on Saturday. There is no language there. No respect for seniority. Should be paid overtime for working Monday (our day off) but they claim if we take a different day of in the week we aren't elegible for 6 day pay Monday or Saturday.( pointless to work Monday unless you plan to run out of hours by Saturday). On holidays that land on Monday we aren't given Tuesday off.( they cut about 20 routes on Monday, Tuesday would be Monday if holiday lands on Monday so it's pointless to have an extra 30 drivers if you don't have work for them).

 

[Inthegame]

Been driving three years. Just got forced in on Saturday delivery. Should be paid overtime for working Monday (our day off) but they claim if we take a different day offriend in the week we aren't eligible for 6 day pay Monday or Saturday.

If you take a "different" day off, you're not paid OT for a sixth day because you aren't working six days.

 

[Jones]

If you take a "different" day off, you're not paid OT for a sixth day because you aren't working six days.

Whoah!

 

[Bubblehead]

If you take a "different" day off, you're not paid OT for a sixth day because you aren't working six days.

Whoah!

I agree with ITG, in the Central Region at least.
Can't comment on the South and other regions.

Where the Company runs with this concept and violates freely, is in they think they have the right to use these people who have taken a day off, over senior drivers who would be on a sixth day punch.

The Article 8 language says the Company has a right to use employees "who have not yet had the opportunity" for a fifth punch.
Taking a dive, or calling in doesn't mean an employee hasn't "had the opportunity", only a true layoff scenario applies in my mind.

The bastards are always pushing the envelope and are rarely called on it.

 

[Jones]

I agree with ITG, in the Central Region at least.
Can't comment on the South and other regions.

Where the Company runs with this concept and violates freely, is in they think they have the right to use these people who have taken a day off, over senior drivers who would be on a sixth day punch.

The Article 8 language says the Company has a right to use employees "who have not yet had the opportunity" for a fifth punch.
Taking a dive, or calling in doesn't mean an employee hasn't "had the opportunity", only a true layoff scenario applies in my mind.

The bastards are always pushing the envelope and are rarely called on it.

I was just kidding, I thought it was funny that ITG had to point out the obvious fact that you don't get paid for a 6th punch if you don't work 6 days.

 

[BigUnionGuy]

I agree with ITG, in the Central Region at least.The Article 8 language says the Company has a right to use employees "who have not yet had the opportunity" for a fifth punch. Taking a dive, or calling in doesn't mean an employee hasn't "had the opportunity", only a true layoff scenario applies in my mind.

Yep.

It's supposed to be a means of letting the company have an opportunity to pay straight time

vs overtime, as it would apply to a 10% employee.... who doesn't have a 40 hour

guarantee for the week. Not forcing someone in on straight time because they called off

or had an unpaid day off.



-Bug-