UpsYours
Well-Known Member
Vote NO and they will get there asses back to the negotiating table and get serious. There shareholders dont want a STRIKE....
Contract talks ... any news? C'mon feeder fill us in!
- Thread starter brownboxman
- Start date
Brownslave688
You want a toe? I can get you a toe.
The technology does exist. Saw a special on tv about a year or two ago. It is quite a ways from being cost effective though. Cars will also drive themselves one day and all drivers will essentially be helpers.
ups clerk
Well-Known Member
The only time the company gets involved is when it affects them...like when they gave the union 5 billion dolars to get out of Central States, or in 1982 when they introduced the two tier waged system. Except for those two contracts, the managers and supervisors never approached people in our hub to vote for a contract.
Bagels
Family Leave Fridays!!!
I didn't mean "loading package cars" per se, that is a bit specific and complicated of tasks. My point is that there are robotics capable of doing human work and chores. Surely the technology is only in it's infancy stage, which I also mentioned. I think these advances will come about more quickly than you suggest, unless you are much older than I.
I'm uncertain as to which technology you're referring to. "Fully automated" facilities already exist. Most FedEx Ground and UPS facilities built this millennium have this technology, and UPS's largest facilities have been converted. "Fully automated" means that a person unloads a package, and then it is automatically scanned/moved to the proper slide in which it is loaded - basically replacing SPA, sorters & pick-off people. Let's be realistic: UPS has told us the technology is currently cost effective for only its largest facilities. Yes, that will change. But with few exceptions, the costs of converting existing facilities -- most of which are smaller or aging larger -- will always be a barrier. Thus, it's most likely that the technology will incorporated only into replacement, new construction facilities. Given that there's always cheap interim solutions -- they experimented with automated adhesive label printing machines on several of our unload doors -- I doubt there will be an aggressive build out.
But back to my original point: we have not developed robots capable of unloading & loading trailers and package cars, nor are we even close to doing so - and yes, we'll be dead long before this technology is cost effective. As another poster mentioned, self-driving cars are a reality... so maybe in 20 years, UPS trucks will drive themselves while UPS pays a helper $8.50 a hour (still) to walk the packages off...
Which one do you believe. And it was 6.1 billion that UPS gave the Teamsters.
Which one do you believe? And it was 6.1 billion that UPS gave the Teamsters.
BigUnionGuy
Got the T-Shirt
The 6.4 Billion was paid to The Central States pension fund.... for the withdraw liability.
ocnewguy
Well-Known Member
I see it all now...federal minimum wage is $14/hr by then...UPS still starts at $8.50 arguing that the benefits make the hourly pay more than minimum
kingOFchester
Well-Known Member
20 years you will NOT have trucks driving themselves without a driver.
island1fox
Well-Known Member
ups clerk,
This is a fact ---more times than not --the UNION negotiating committee asks the COMPANY not to have PCM'S and sell the contract.
If Hall truly believes he has made the best deal --He does not want mgmt screwing it up by saying something stupid.
If the two sides disagree then the Company tries to sell it.
'Lord Brown's bidding'
Well-Known Member
The tech most certainly does exist; it may be in its infancy (and like a baby thus awkward, clumsy, and if you don't project its growth seemingly unable to ever achieve anything), but it exists, and will mature, and probably in all our lifetimes.
Brown Cafe - Skilled Work, Without the Worker
How long did it take the internet to mature? Cellphones? Computers? You really think it'll take 50-60 years for this stuff to mature? Dude, I don't want my HTC PPC 6800 because my EVO (itself nearing obsolescence) is SO much more advanced (and yet lighter!).....and we are talking 3 years!
'Lord Brown's bidding'
Well-Known Member
104Feeder, food for thought:
In two western states-I believe California and Nevada-they have already passed legislation that allows for driver-less Vehicles to be operated on the state's roadways. Their sensors allows them to both drive faster and closer than it seems possible for human beings, so whatever cost that might happen with the occasional sensor failure is more than made up for by not having imperfect and much more flawed human drivers behind the wheel. "Minority Report" and "I, Robot" are probably 10 years away, not a lifetime, at least in personal vehicles. However, as the tech is fine-tuned I think more and more companies will try to adapt it for their operations. It will be safer; will probably cost less (sobering to realize I will make over $2 million if I reach retirement; most people on the planet will not touch that), will reduce liability and all sorts of other things, and the cost savings they'll give companies will in some ways passed back to the consumer, and those highly educated who are employed to run such operations. The one entity that would fight this is the union, and I can see all sorts of arguments centering on how they are "hindering progress", their uneducated members promoting "death on our highways", and "something about the children" (because it always comes back to the children).
In two western states-I believe California and Nevada-they have already passed legislation that allows for driver-less Vehicles to be operated on the state's roadways. Their sensors allows them to both drive faster and closer than it seems possible for human beings, so whatever cost that might happen with the occasional sensor failure is more than made up for by not having imperfect and much more flawed human drivers behind the wheel. "Minority Report" and "I, Robot" are probably 10 years away, not a lifetime, at least in personal vehicles. However, as the tech is fine-tuned I think more and more companies will try to adapt it for their operations. It will be safer; will probably cost less (sobering to realize I will make over $2 million if I reach retirement; most people on the planet will not touch that), will reduce liability and all sorts of other things, and the cost savings they'll give companies will in some ways passed back to the consumer, and those highly educated who are employed to run such operations. The one entity that would fight this is the union, and I can see all sorts of arguments centering on how they are "hindering progress", their uneducated members promoting "death on our highways", and "something about the children" (because it always comes back to the children).
That's a misleading title. I only see that robot doing 'unskilled' work. It would be interesting to see that thing try to handle an overweight or an irregular package.
I would not compare the advancement of an established technology with that of an experimental nature. Once established, it will advance leaps and bounds, but it's those initial development costs and hurdles that will take decades.
Bagels
Family Leave Fridays!!!
There's plenty of skepticism over Industrial Perception's claims. And yes, I believe it'll take 40 or more years for such technology to mature to become cost-effective on a wide-scale basis. RPS Ground introduced fully automated facilities well before many of UPS's youngest employees were born, and the technology still isn't cost-efficient for UPS to incorporate on a wide-scale basis. And sometimes technology that works in modeled simulation just doesn't pan out. Northwest Airlines found this out the hard way ten years ago when it attempted to move toward an automated boarding process -- simulations that worked perfectly in the lab absolutely tanked in action. Ten years later, Delta Air Lines (which merged with Northwest awhile ago) is re-launching the automation... with similar results.
brown_trousers
Well-Known Member
Are you calling the work done by your fellow coworkers "unskilled"? I think even a smalls sorter makes an extra $1 an hour for a "skilled" position. And I have personally seen an automated smalls sorting machine sorting smalls
No, I was ridiculing company nomenclature. I am a "skilled" small sorter, and it is by no means a walk in the park. Many drivers have told me they could not do the job.
'Lord Brown's bidding'
Well-Known Member
Dude, it's a baby. They are trying to get it to walk. It's got to learn to coordinate its limbs and body with the motions necessary to pick up its rattler before you talk irregs and overweights! But the thing has been born; it is far from perfect now, but before you know it it will be going to grad school at a major hub near you!
I have no doubt that the company may never replace all loaders in all facilities; they don't have to. But just have the ability to cut several thousand jobs from the larger hubs who process enough volume to end up saving the company money (in the NY Times article linked to in the post I posted above one company estimates one robot replaces two workers; a machine that'll cost $450,000 to install) could save the company something like $3.5 million in a 20-year career) they'll pursue it.
