Dear Scott.
My name is Tom ***. and I'm a management retiree from the old North New England District. I started my career as a driver in the old Massachusetts District and went into management in 1979 as a supervisor and retired as a Division Manager in 2005.
There were three things that I really admired UPS for while I worked there; the first being it was a company that had integrity, second was that we promoted from within and thirdly the partnership concept it operated under. Today two of those concepts or values no longer exist. Jim Casey would roll over in his grave seeing how the company has changed since the IPO in 1999. The partnership concept has vanished and the integrity of the company is in doubt, if not gone. In 1999 we had a sham, (I say sham because the company held the controlling shares)
to see if the share holders wanted to go public. At that time I voted against it because I felt it would change the company and it has. As you know the stock opened at $65 and has done very little in ten plus years. Fedex has far out performed us in that time frame. I was lucky and sold most of my shares when the stock was in the 80's.
Since I've been retired I still keep in touch with friends that I had in management and I'm sorry to say that not one of them is happy with the direction of the company. They feel there is no partnership concept, nor loyalty. They feel over worked and under paid and the saddest thing of all is that they feel threatened every day. Call it management by intimidation. Each and every one of my former colleagues all said they would leave this company if they could find a job that would support their families. I can assure you that that did not exist before the
IPO. UPS is definitely a different company than Jim Casey in-visioned, or wanted.
It appears to be all about money now! Mike left the company making about $1.5 Million and since you've become CEO and Chairman how much has your salary grown in your short tenure? I think you know the answer to that question. You gave yourself a pay raise as well as raises to Grade 20 and higher in a time that you froze salaries and contributions to the 401K. The folks that make the company productive with their hard work and sweat despise you for that. Let me say that again, despise you. You are so out of touch with reality in the lower ranks of management. As they say, you're an outsider that only wants to line your pockets with Brown's Gold. You're off to a great start and your compensation certainly supports that.
The real reason for my email is to tell you how sad and sickened I am about the
furloughing of three hundred pilots, one of which is my son. His blood used to be a brown as mine. That is no longer true. Furloughing pilots after stating the 4Th Qtr results and you stating that we have more cash than we know what to do with is a farce. The IPA came up with the MOU and in my opinion was a great effort on their part. Yes, they fell short, but they would have eventually come up with the rest of the cost savings through voluntary efforts and or early buyouts for the more senior crew members. In my opinion the real reason for the furlough is not money, it's about power, control and contract concessions. The company never had any intention of accepting the MOU from day one. It was a cowardly tactic to gauge the pilot group to see how unified they were and if you could pit senior against junior. There's where I have a problem, it's called integrity. You didn't bargain in good faith!!
Quite frankly I think you folks shot yourself in the foot. You are dealing with a very unified group of folks that realize your MO and will not give a dime back to the company even if it means the remaining pilots taking care of the furloughed pilots at some point down the road. The thing that is really going to suffer is SERVICE. I know you are fairly new to UPS, but that's the reason the company has survived for 102 years. YOU CAN NOT PLACE A VALUE ON SERVICE. You have now placed that in jeopardy, at least as far as the air products are concerned.
I was once as brown- blooded as you can be, but in the last ten years it has turned back to red. No, maybe a little PURPLE and I never thought I would root for the competition. I'm ashamed of the company I once knew. I personally don't think the company has a bright future. The people below you make you successful, not the ones at the top. I'm here to
tell you have a very disgruntled manage force steering this Titanic. Unhappy people do not go above and beyond, happy people do!
I wish you luck.
Thomas ****
and make service and money, then are asked to continue to work more and then pay UPS for you commitment to service. I will not ridicule you in 2013 but WE WILL stand by you again on the strike lines around the USA.
