So here is my story. I started working for UPS in Washington state in October 2015. In August 2017 I make an educational transfer from Washington state to South Carolina. For the first month I was working in surepost and occasionally scanning in unload and helping with DAs at a center that had a temporary chunk of another center on the lot until it's new building was about to open. One day I was approached by the Head and Assistant managers and the big boss started yelling at me because I had informed a supervisor the day before that I can't really load trucks because of a previous work injury to my wrist from my UPS center in WA which is documented with Insurance and UPS. I was trying to warn them that I am a liability and a hassle to have on the load line because anytime something over 70 comes for me, I'm going to have to stop the belt and get someone else to load it for me. So this manager is yelling me saying "You aren't going to come up in here and tell me how to run my center, stop the belt whenever you want. Work at your own pace, no. You don't get to work in this cushy surepost position as a new hire..." etc after over a month of working there at this center. So he gives me an ultimatum and tells me that I can either go to the new center opening the following monday to work as a clerk, or I can load trucks at his center. I was not about to further injure myself on the load line, I already have this pop in my wrist now that I doubt will ever go away and I was not required to be able to lift over 70 lbs when I was hired, so why should it be a reason that "I shouldn't have been hired in the first place"? He said this to me, knowing that I was a transfer and after I told him it was a pre existing injury to which he verbatim replied with "I don't care, I don't want to hear your excuses, if you can't do the job, you shouldn't have been hired." I asked him for the number to the center and the contact information for my union rep and he said if I wanted to clock out for a break he would give it to me, otherwise "not on company time. report back to work."
From this whole experience I decided it wasn't really worth fighting because I didn't want this guy to be my boss anyways, I just want to be a part of a team where everyone has the same goal (Efficiently finish the sort and get the trucks out on time) and mutual respect for each other despite their position. Focus, no drama, and no added stress for no good reason. At this first center, all of the supervisors were touching packages: some helping in unload, some were full on loading trucks, and sometimes there was only a supervisor stationed to split the belt, etc. If I were to say I want to file a grievance, the steward's response would be "No one really cares around here." I even have video evidence of the supervisor as the only employee splitting the belt one two separate days. Still, no one wants to file.
So less than a weeks notice and very little understanding of the area let alone the dynamic of the new center, I agree to transfer yet again into the new building in order to clerk. My first day is the first day the building is open so it is crawling with construction workers, upper management, security management, new employees, old employees that had never been to the center before, etc. It was a mess. I get moved around to three different positions. At the first spot I am told that my outfit is too revealing. I was wearing all black, none of it see-through, and no skin was showing so I asked for clarification and I was told for the first time after two years that I am not allowed to wear leggings. This is annoying and upsetting but whatever, I get moved to the second spot and I automatically sign into a few DA computers at the smalls section to show some new hires the scan and print program (in case the slaw machine misses a scan, which we all know is often) and then I am approached and told that my bag needs to be transparent. Again, a rule I had never been told after two years of always bringing a bag to work with me, But I told them I would try to find one for tomorrow and they are welcome to search my bag if they so desire. Then I am moved to my third and final spot and there is a guy standing on the platform where I am told to be (a clerk station located at the top of the belt right before the splitters). I went up the steps a little irritated and I exclaim out loud "Like wtf is going on down here in the south? UPS is FROM Washington and we don't have to deal with nearly as much bulls*** as the employees here have been since I've been here" and the guy on the platform replies "Well maybe you should just go back there then" (Or "go back to where you came from" or something) and I had had it... It was too early on a Monday... so I said "Effing Excuse you?" and he then identifies himself as the security manager and says "well you come up here cussing up a storm in front of a manager and you have a bag that's not see through in front of the security manager of all people... it's all in the handbook so I suggest that you get more familiar with it." I ask him for a copy, he doesn't know how to get one for me. But as he is speaking, he is splitting the belt right in front of me. Why is the supposed security manager splitting the belt preaching to me about what we can and can't do as employees of UPS? so I ask him to stop touching packages and to please let me do my job (In a snooty voice, but I definitely said please). Again he exclaims "You can't talk to me like that" and I said "Since effing when?! Have you ever even stepped foot in a UPS preload sort? This is America, people cuss all the dang time. Even my supervisors cuss. It's freedom of speech in a high energy and sometimes high stress environment" and he tells me again that I better peep the contract and that it's never been allowed. I go on to ask for clarification since he can't provide me a copy and he replies with "I'm not speaking to you anymore," splits a few more packages on the belt, then walks away to find someone that would approve my termination. I work the whole day thinking that it was over and done with and I focus on my work. I even get pat on the back for some of my ideas to keep volume flowing as the mechanics figured out bugs in the belt that created jams. I became familiar with several supervisors as I was asked to return to smalls to sign into the computers. I was a brand new hire and I was a helpful asset to the team and my work was never an issue the entire day. When the shift was over I was asked to stick around. I accepted that I would probably get written up for my attitude or talking back, I was prepared for this. But instead I was fired without warning, with my union rep in the room telling me it was about to happen.
Even though people in the building tried to convince the security manager to forget the whole ordeal and let it slide, he literally called outside of the building to follow through with making sure I was terminated. I did not receive a warning, it was my word against his, and I was fired for "off the clock harassment" I'm assuming because the clocks weren't up and running on the first day of operation but technically I was fired for off the clock harassment for cussing *in front of* a manager (not at) at the beginning of a full work day (but after the sort had already started).
Today, two weeks later, I was called back in to the center to be reinstated as long as I write a letter committing to behaving professionally and appropriately and sign an agreement to not receive back pay for the previous two weeks of missing work. So I had to do that in order to get my health insurance back so that I can get my prescriptions and blood test done and now there is a suspension on my record that can be used against me in the future? I feel like I should be in a position to make them quake in their boots, not make me feel threatened in my job. Now i'm scrambling to pay for my rent, car payment, car insurance, and they can't back pay me for two weeks of part time preload work? For dropping the friend-bomb? I feel like the union should have done a lot more for me. What do I do. what CAN I do (now that I've signed so I can get my job back)? I think I've forfeit my right to go to the panel with this but they told me that process would take 6-9 months and I'm still not guaranteed to be back paid for anytime at all let alone to be out of work and or insurance for the length of the process. I literally don't even have a copy or a link to the contract or handbook, so much of my stuff is displaced from moving across the country.
Termination without any warning or precedence for cussing at a unionized job in America. This place is really going to the dogs.
and all this angst and frustration blew over. .
