How hard is it to change a feeder route?

[HFolb23]

Our Feeder jobs haven’t changed at all, their hours are the same as far as any of them have told me. We’ve simply lost the positions, the same routes are now leaving from the Hub but still serving the same destinations.

To make a comparison, all of the similar sized centers in our district have between 8-15 feeder runs. Having 3 out of our building is not consistent with the rest of our region, and historically is half of what we used to have. We had 2 feeder drivers retire, and one leave on disability. None of the routes were ever rebid, and therefore were re-written to work out of the Hub and not our center.

Everyone that I have talked to in the feeder department has been in agreement that it makes sense to re-write the routes and have them staffed out of our center, however my concern is that we haven’t been talking to big enough fish. Hoping that changes after some phone calls were made today but in this area our feeder runs are almost all overnight so I don’t expect to hear anything back until later this evening at the earliest, as that’s when the feeder management works.

I’m hoping to hear something that either says, “we’re going to move deeper with this” or a “sorry they’re staying in the Hub” by the end of the week. You know what they say about hoping in one hand and ting in the other though.

Any more advice or course of action we can take is greatly appreciated.

 

[govols019]

If it was up to our Feeder DM, all runs would be done out of the hubs. He has a hate boner for us feeder drivers in centers.

To be fair, we hate him right back.

 

[govols019]

Our Feeder jobs haven’t changed at all, their hours are the same as far as any of them have told me. We’ve simply lost the positions, the same routes are now leaving from the Hub but still serving the same destinations.

To make a comparison, all of the similar sized centers in our district have between 8-15 feeder runs. Having 3 out of our building is not consistent with the rest of our region, and historically is half of what we used to have. We had 2 feeder drivers retire, and one leave on disability. None of the routes were ever rebid, and therefore were re-written to work out of the Hub and not our center.

Everyone that I have talked to in the feeder department has been in agreement that it makes sense to re-write the routes and have them staffed out of our center, however my concern is that we haven’t been talking to big enough fish. Hoping that changes after some phone calls were made today but in this area our feeder runs are almost all overnight so I don’t expect to hear anything back until later this evening at the earliest, as that’s when the feeder management works.

I’m hoping to hear something that either says, “we’re going to move deeper with this” or a “sorry they’re staying in the Hub” by the end of the week. You know what they say about hoping in one hand and ting in the other though.

Any more advice or course of action we can take is greatly appreciated.

Why were no grievances filed when the work was moved to the hub?

 

[silenze]

@HFolb23. All runs are created at the district level. Your division management has little to no say.

 

[HFolb23]

Most of these feeder positions were lost before my time, not sure if grievances were filed or not.

@silenze Thank you, that’s the kind of information I’m looking for, who’s ear we need to get into. Our Division manager is a close friend with our district manager and he’s already said he’s willing to speak with him about it.

I can’t say enough good things about our Division manager, very approachable and seems to care about the individuals. He’s lessened our dispatches and held supervisors accountable. He’s the first Division manager that I’ve seen to willingly hand out his personal cell phone to a nobody package car driver just to follow up on issues that have been brought to his attention.

 

[barnyard]

My building was an outstate feeder center. When I started there were 8 or 9 feeder jobs in my building. There were more before I started. As the route holders retired, their jobs were moved to a hub. The union leaders do not care where the routes are run, as long as they are run with union people. They also are not concerned if off the street guys are hired, as it is another person added to the union roster.

Unless the OP can bid a job in the hub, I would not plan on a feeder job moving to the building.

Currently, my building has 3 feeder cover guys. A bid feeder guy is retiring, the top cover guy is signing a bid for his own run and there are pretty credible rumors floating around that the empty cover job will not be filled. This year, I covered 3 partial weeks and a few single days. Next year, I should cover 12-15 weeks, minimum. Quite a few people are complaining about the lost cover job.

 

[Brownslave688]

I guess, I just don't see UPS paying something like that. Contract or not.

Consider the source

 

[BigUnionGuy]

Consider the source

Are you going to elaborate.... on a personal experience ?

 

[Jones]

Why were no grievances filed when the work was moved to the hub?

You don't always win those grievances.

 

[ManInBrown]

Here they change many of the runs at peak, to keep the casuals busy with good content so they don’t quit. Spoke to 2 drivers last week that had their cushy 2 hour run each way pulled off them, and the leg was given to a casual. They were told to bad, either deal with it, or you can abandon the job and go on the spare list. Then as soon as peak is over they will get those legs back. They are now open at the times of those legs.

 

[Brownslave688]

You don't always win those grievances.

So you got a BA like ours that discourages anything that’s not an absolute slam dunk?

 

[Jones]

So you got a BA like ours that discourages anything that’s not an absolute slam dunk?

Nope, our BA is pretty good. But we lost a grievance at panel on this issue.

 

[HFolb23]

Knock on wood, fingers crossed, it seems like upper management and the feeder department are considering this.

All three of our feeder drivers have said they’ve been approached by their boss asking if they thought we had a need for more feeder work in our center, to which they’ve all said yes to. Feeder supervisor told them he’ll move the jobs if the works there for it, so at least he seems to be considering us now.

Our DM has been working for us too. He said there are concerns in another center north of us that they have a retiring feeder driver and that there is no one in that center interested in the job. According to our DM, the feeder dept is willing to move that job south to our center if the northern center can’t staff it. Their center manager let the DM know he was going to have problems staffing it before we even started this adventure, so there’s a possibility of getting at least one job back to our center.

At the end of the day, if nothing comes of this, at least it’s shown the willingness of our shop stewards and of our supervisors throughout the chain of command to make an effort to help their employees advance. I think that’s something that all of us can appreciate as a rarity within our company.