Corporate America, and UPS by association, is in the business of eliminating current jobs, not expanding them. As frustrating and evil as that might seem to some, that is the sad reality of the world. So, when people say "create full-time jobs", the "Employer" will only do so if absolutely forced to; SurePost is the primary example, and it is only growing day-over-day.
Considering the fact that the Teamsters (or any union) are in the business of creating jobs, it might be a bumpy ride. As it always is, I would imagine.
Corporate America is in the business of making money. That's the primary goal of each company. A healthy business wants to grow and grow profitably. Improving productivity does sometimes lead to job reduction, utilizing technology can lead to job reduction. At UPS we used to have thousands of people work in the Delivery Information department looking up hand sheeted delivery records for customers making inquiries. Now, the customer can look at the information of a package online and get an answer back in less then a second. They can even get an image of the signature of a person. This has improved the service to our customer, and reduced UPS cost. Should UPS have kept people working in D.I. just because?
Customers want low cost delivery options, FDX bought the company that was rebranded FDX Smartpost. The volume of packages flowing to SmartPost was increasing at a very fast rate. As a company, UPS had to decide, do we let FDX grow and get all that volume or do we go after the same volume? In this way a UPSer can pick up the volume, process the volume in the hubs and preloads and a UPS driver delivers them to the USPS for final mile delivery. We save on not having to deliver to the end customer. Customers made the decision to reduce costs and at least most of this volume stays within the UPS network, or would you rather we had no Surepost service and let FDX have a virtual monopoly on this service?
Teamsters are not in the business of creating jobs, only companies create jobs. Teamsters are in the business of taking existing jobs and making them Teamster jobs. (For example the often heard phrase that the Teamsters will unionize FDX). At UPS with article 22.3, the teamsters aren't creating jobs, they are simply trying to merge two existing jobs done by PT employees into 1 FT job done by an article 22.3 employee. Ironically, this will mean less total people and less total jobs. If you want more UPS Teamsters, then UPS has to grow as a company we need to pick up and deliver more packages then we do now. We need to take volume away from our competition. (Primarily FDX) If we did this, then we will have more UPS employees of which many are Teamsters. To keep our customers and win new customers, we have to be better then the competition with slightly higher rates, or be cheaper then the competition. Customers may pay a percent or two more for what they consider better services, but they will not pay too much more for it. If you look at the next contract, how much more in total compensation (pay, H&W, Pension etc) can a UPS Driver receive then a FDX driver. Granted, Scott makes a lot of money, but if you look at the vast majority of management, we have lost overall compensation (insurance cost, no raises, reduced MIP etc).
