UPS laying off Technical hourly employees

[local02]

Icry4u made a comment that driving is very hard job. I tell you one think any TSG guy can drive or take any mngrs place and be good at it in 2 weeks but driver cannot do TSG jobs in 2 weeks(or mngr) we know almost every one jobs here. In my opinion TSG is number 1 employee in UPS. To cut us is a loss !!!!

 

[Crystal]

Question - have you had a formal sit down with a representative from HR where they have reviewed this information with you? If so then you have a clear discrepancy between what the company says they intend to do and what your district is telling you they will do. Print a copy of the prior post or the actual email if you have it that shows the companies intent to move affected employees and ask them why you are not being allowed to move into open positions. If you don't feel comfortable with the answer you get then file an EDR case on it. The EDR process is the same as the unions grievance process. You can take it all the way up to an impartial arbitrator who would rule on the case.

Tieguy,

The problem is that even HR doesn't know exactly what we are and are not allowed to do right now. Directly from my management we are NOT allowed to move into any AOT positions or IE, BD ext. The question was asked about union positions, my management asks HR and they said yes we CAN move into union positions we just need to fill out a letter or intent this goes the same for a Specialist position.

We all know that you are not just going to jump into a drivers position in the union so what they are offering you are a part time job... But at least its something. Personally I cannot afford to work part time.

No one is going to be able to show you anything in writing because HR hasn't even worked out the kinks yet. We can just go off of the questions we ask our managers and then they get the answers for us.

 

[CRAZYnTSG]

I too will be personally affected by the layoff. Getting laid off is not a pleasant experience. What makes this experience even worse is the lack of information. To be told almost two weeks ago and hear nothing since is maddening. It is ridiculous and I take it as a personal insult that they would leave there employees out in the cold for so long. Whats even worse is that i think everyone in my district feels the man with the suspenders knows more than he is saying. I hope we hear something soon.

 

[Ms Spoken]

Icry4u made a comment that driving is very hard job. I tell you one think any TSG guy can drive or take any mngrs place and be good at it in 2 weeks but driver cannot do TSG jobs in 2 weeks(or mngr) we know almost every one jobs here. In my opinion TSG is number 1 employee in UPS. To cut us is a loss !!!!

Sure anyone can drive the brown truck with-in two weeks and survive but, if you were a new driver you wouldnt have the same route for two weeks. You would start a route on Monday only to be pulled to another route by Wed. that you might have to run cold. Could you handle the stress?? Could you handle the long hours in the dark no being able to see your house numbers? All I can say is the keys are in my truck and take it for a spin.
It's a shame UPS is laying of any employee but, you should know by now that everyone is expendable.

 

[DS]

upsgal...your point is well taken.But I still think this cut is unneccessary,and the not being able to find jobs for the people involved is almost criminal,after all the hard work they put in.
Crystal ... was that the code to bring down every ups computer,or were you just swearing?

 

[bigcomputergeek]

We have a TSG/TSC chat room going on.

 

[over9five]

Sure. Any TSG guy can do a drivers job.

But here's the reason UPS won't let you:

You'll do great in the classroom. You'll learn the DIAD real fast...... BUT, then you'll hit the road and have to do physical work for a living. None of you will do it! You'll all quit first opportunity you get.

So why waste the time and money training you?

 

[Damn the Man]

Of all departments to shut down, why the TSC's. One word - accountability. I would say about 80 % of the employees in this company don't know how to do their jobs. Who do they turn to? Their management? Ha, management is unable to perform their jobs well alone help someone else. I am sure from a management or corporate standpoint, consolidating the TSC's seems like a logical idea, but the company is broken down into regions, districts, and centers for a reason. The TSC's know their areas and the employees in them. We have the same users call in day in and day out that can't simply get a clue on how to make a computer work, remember their password, or plug in a Lan cable. Great Blue collar company with blue collar minds. The employees at this company are not computer savvy and do not possess business smarts. As far as the New help desk having UPS employees, they are not. The worldship desk in Las Vegas is expanding to support internal UPS. It is a subsidiary company of UPS. All of the ups employees, centers, and drivers will suffer tremendously with the new consolidated help desk. Call sprint, dell, compaq, and verizon and notice the long hold times, frustrating menus, incompetent technicians, and lack of results. TSG, be prepared for the old days, when a supervisor comes banging on your door saying fix the fricking problem, and no I will not call the help desk. UPS has been trying to make sure UPSers call the tscs to open a ticket to account for PMT work. They will be back in the same spot they were in 10 years ago. Everyone out there, Have fun with the PAS system as well. The company stated that every minute that the system is down, it costs thousands of dollars to the company. I am only happy that I will still be around to witness the havoc that is caused by this decision. Maybe supervisors and management out there will finally learn how to do their jobs instead of leaning on the help desk . All along, accountability.
Sorry drivers, I know it is difficult to drive around in a package car, deliver packages, and yes it gets dark and you cant read house numbers. But your job is labor, yes, most people do not want to do labor all their lives, so they learn a skill using their brain and they do it. They go to school, take classes and learn. Labor is not the same as business. Well try learning 80 job positions because of some overpaid supervisor does not know how to download your DIAD board when his/her OMS calls off, run BOD in scs\gss because they are in on the weekend or holiday, or customer counter clerks do not know how to operate a register after a year. I have been at this company for most of my life, I will still be here after the layoffs. I will kick out a TSG technician, just simply because of length of service. Hell sorting packages for a number of years paid off. I have to sleep at night once I realize who lost their job because of how many years I had at the company. Does not matter that they were more qualified than me, have a family, or quite simpy belong to the job. This is not ford and 1 layoff is the same as thousands, it sucks and whoever is behind this, Karma will get you.

 

[anothertsg]

Sure. Any TSG guy can do a drivers job.

But here's the reason UPS won't let you:

You'll do great in the classroom. You'll learn the DIAD real fast...... BUT, then you'll hit the road and have to do physical work for a living. None of you will do it! You'll all quit first opportunity you get.

So why waste the time and money training you?

No argument here. While I know some who would jump at the chance to get a driver position, most of us would not, even though you have better pay and benefits. I'm a NERD. I went to NERD SCHOOL. Case closed!

HOWEVER - wasting time and money on training has NOTHING to do with it. It takes 6 months - 1 year to train each and every technician. This company is wasting enormous $ here, especially since we won't be allowed to transfer anywhere else. When I spoke with an HR rep Friday (who is just as horrified over the way UPS is handling this), there were over 100 job openings in our district alone. They will hire from outside and spend even more time and money training.... etc. Our district will lose 8 technicians. WHY CAN'T WE APPLY FOR OTHER OPEN POSITIONS?
1

 

[broke.in.tsg]

Sure. Any TSG guy can do a drivers job.

But here's the reason UPS won't let you:

You'll do great in the classroom. You'll learn the DIAD real fast...... BUT, then you'll hit the road and have to do physical work for a living. None of you will do it! You'll all quit first opportunity you get.

So why waste the time and money training you?

I'd take a fulltime driving job in a heart beat. I'd run circles around the rest of you lazy whining s. Stress?? HA! Grab my log and things in the morning and I'd unload and load that sucker with a smile all day for $26 an hour. I'd bring my big flashlight too.

 

[UPS_Techie]

In my district there are 31 TSG employees. They are reducing down to 19 technicians. I have yet to hear anyone mention that UPS is hypocritical about its policy to hire from within. In my district in the last two months they have hired at 5 outside employees into IE and other positions that TSG technicians are more than qualified to do. Also, that 6 of the above mention technicians are within 5 years of retirement. Gzz, add the outside newhires and the retirees. This downsizing could occur without any layoffs had workforce planning and corporate planned better. Fact is they just don't care anymore.

I mentioned it on an earlier post. It's on page 4 to 9 somewhere.

We have a TSC in our region and stand to lose between 30 and 40 TSG/TSC jobs. We were told that we CAN apply for some Union jobs. Feeder Driver, Package car Driver and P/T hub employee. You can also apply for a P/T Sup job. If you get/take a Union job, you will not lose your Lenght of Service as far as Vacations go, however, you will start at insider base pay ($8.50) and pick you vacations last. In short, you'll still have the same number of weeks off, they'll just be ones you're not used to having. Winter months. Our HR dept has been available but, had are allowed to give little information. This is Accurate information, straight from out Region Conference call. We should learn more this week. I'll post what I learn as FACT. I've heard nothing of a second round of cuts but, all of NCR's information has been "Dead on accurate".

Now, here is a rumor. TSC's are going to delete and Fubar network data from all Regions they have admin rights to.

Not the right thing to do but, good luck stopping and tracking that!
What are they going to do, fire them??? Wow. They'll lose 6 weeks pay.
It'll take 6 months to get the data back.
_____________________________________________________________

This is a terrible situation!

As far as External support goes, I've heard the same thing from customers. "Thanks for getting here the same day" (that is our job), Fedex would have taken weeks to show up" That's all about to change.

 

[UPS_Techie]

How long do you have to wait to rehire at UPS. One post said you have to sign that you will never rehire. Others say one year.

Anybody really know?

Has any district actually completed this workforce realignment yet?

What were the jobs offered -- PT or FT? What type/function?

And to 1cry4u , ...CHILL.

Once you take the Separation Package, you CAN NOT ever work for UPS again! That is from our Region Call.

 

[UPS_Techie]

Sure. Any TSG guy can do a drivers job.

But here's the reason UPS won't let you:

You'll do great in the classroom. You'll learn the DIAD real fast...... BUT, then you'll hit the road and have to do physical work for a living. None of you will do it! You'll all quit first opportunity you get.

So why waste the time and money training you?

Most of the Techs that I know started at UPS doing physical work and still do. We process late air, move over 70's by ourselves, lift and move entire systems by ourselves, up stairs, ladders and in the ceiling of the buildings. Staying awake and sitting on my @ss, what's physical about that? I can connect/disconnect a trailer and a few hoses. Is it tough eating your lunch while you're going down the road or holding your piss for a few hours? Maybe it's that long climb into the Cab? Maybe for a fat person (not an insult to all fat people, SORRY! Just this one).

I can only speak for myself and my district but, you and/or UPS is full of ****.

 

[exTSCer]

I have a couple of points that may add insight into the current situation.

This is not the first time TSCs have been closed down. Why isn't the Phoenix, Southeast Region and Midwest Region TSCs on the list? Because they were consolidated into other TSCs years ago. The techs in those locations went through the same situation, if you were under the line, you had to leave. TSG Management did everything they could at the time and were able to move that line down a bit by getting techs positions in the other TSCs but that is not really an option with this consolidation as all TSCs are closing.

Anyone in TSC/TSG not seeing this change coming would have had to turn a blind eye to several developments over the last couple of years:

• Consolidation of TSCs to one phone-in number
• Closing of Phoenix, Southeast (had 3 went to 1) and Midwest TSCs
• Consolidation of weekend support to two TSCs
• Consolidation to a single problem logging tool
• PMT
• Tivoli and the automation of patches/upgrades
• Hardware costs dropping significantly while processing power and capacity rising
• UPS is no longer new to technology. 15 years ago that wasn't the case. We had ex truck drivers and admins that were supporting technology and it required growth in our IT infrastructure. Now we are a lot more mature with a large IS community in NJ.
• Removal of systems that require heavy TSG intervention like the old disk based ERI/QPR
• Proliferation of web based applications that centralize support of the servers in one location (the data center) verses having servers/hardware in every UPS location

When I first saw PMT I highly recomended to all my TSG friends to log everything in it. I use to see it when I was a TSC tech and TSG would not log their activity in Yosemite. All those tech jacks (grabbing your TSG tech for work without having called in a log), email support or proactive work are the intangable benefits of having TSG on site that unless logged goes unoticed by management. It looks like a lot of that went un noticed again with PMT.

This whole things sucks, just like it did two years ago when my TSC was impacted with similar changes. I lost friends then and will probably loose friends now.

I would have to say that being an exTSCer, joining a union would not appeal to me in the least. If TSG became unionized, say goodbye to your skills determining if you can get a Senior Tech or Specialist position. It will be based on senority and not how geeky you are. That will hurt TSG departments because almost hands down the techs that are just a couple years out of school have more technology knowledge then a person who was an admin for 15 years prior to opting into a tech position for the higher pay. But guess who is first on the list for the next level position if the shop is unionized? Why wait and stick around at UPS for 10+ years to maybe get the oportunity to make a couple more dollars an hour?

I do believe we are shooting ourselves in the foot. The TSCs were filtering 70-80% of all issues from even getting to TSG. Now, we lose that level of localized support. I fully expect more logs to go to TSG now and guess what, they are down a couple of techs across the board.

 

[jules23]

"Now, here is a rumor. TSC's are going to delete and Fubar network data from all Regions they have admin rights to.

Not the right thing to do but, good luck stopping and tracking that!
What are they going to do, fire them??? Wow. They'll lose 6 weeks pay.
It'll take 6 months to get the data back."

Not to be a kill-joy, because I certainly understand the frustration; however, I really hope this rumor isn't true. It is illegal and anyone caught doing it can be prosecuted under federal law. The NLRA that protects union workers also protects non-union workers unless (quoted from findlaw.com):

"Even if employees are exercising a right under the NLRA, the manner in which they conduct themselves may remove them from the protection of the law. Slowdowns, violence, sabotage or vandalism of company property are not protected by the law."

If anyone is seriously considering any sort of sabotage to the data, etc...they should really think about the consequences of their actions. And if anyone thinks they won't be found out...I'd think about that too.

Just my two cents and trying to save someone some heartache.

 

[ncrtscisme]

i agree that nobody should sabotage the servers...after all, it is against the law. But I can almost guarantee that if some genius tech came up with a plan and brought down all the PAS servers, most of us would want to shake that crazy tech's hand!

Nothing new at NCR today...some TSG techs above the line had to decide today whether they wanted to keep their position or take severance, and so far it sounds like most are staying put. But that's just one area I've heard about.

 

[UPS_Techie]

I agree. I specifically said that it wasn't the right thing to do!

I simply said that there ARE rumblings and most every TSC has it's handful of people that might do something like this. There are a lot of Techs with very little time in that will certainly be gone. I know it's against the law. I just think that it's something that the company should plan for.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least.
PAS, LOE and Member servers just to name a few. I know that there are tape backups but, they're not 100%. It's more like 80% effective.

There are so many Tech ID/PW that are known. It would be very hard to pinpoint who did this. Example. The guy that sits in your cube is off, you know his ID, It's easy for the company to tell who's been on AGN. He's not going to get in trouble. It's going to be narrowed down to 6, 8, 10 or 12 people that could have done it. Charges can't be brought against all of them. It's simply too hard to prove.

*** Again, this wouldn't be the right thing to do! ***

 

[bdva50]

I agree that would be the wrong thing to do. Just because the management is shafting us, it would be wrong to resort to lawlessness which is what sabotage is.

What is frustrating in ECR is that it appears that NCR is getting some information. We are getting stonewalled by our management which is nothing new. They seem to thrive on keeping secrets.

I hope that everyone realizes this is just the beginning of the way the upper management will treat everyone. To those that are protected by the union, I suggest you have some real strong negotiators. Why do you think UPS bought Overnite (a non union company )? I have heard more than one management type mention they will still be able to deliver a lot of freight even if there is a strike.

 

[disappointedinbrown]

Sure. Any TSG guy can do a drivers job.

But here's the reason UPS won't let you:

You'll do great in the classroom. You'll learn the DIAD real fast...... BUT, then you'll hit the road and have to do physical work for a living. None of you will do it! You'll all quit first opportunity you get.

So why waste the time and money training you?

Okay read through posts all the time, first time poster due to this comment pissing me off!

For those of us (technical folks) that have worked through the ranks, we at one point or another did physical work in order to achieve our positions. Poblem with the technical community doing the driving job is we would not wine or complain half as much as the current drivers. 1 I would kick any drivers AS* when it comes to physical labor.

 

[UPS_Techie]

I agree that would be the wrong thing to do. Just because the management is shafting us, it would be wrong to resort to lawlessness which is what sabotage is.

What is frustrating in ECR is that it appears that NCR is getting some information. We are getting stonewalled by our management which is nothing new. They seem to thrive on keeping secrets.

I hope that everyone realizes this is just the beginning of the way the upper management will treat everyone. To those that are protected by the union, I suggest you have some real strong negotiators. Why do you think UPS bought Overnite (a non union company )? I have heard more than one management type mention they will still be able to deliver a lot of freight even if there is a strike.

NCR getting info? He's our friend'n Nostradamus. Everything he's posted thus far has been on the dot. His Management team seems to care a little or at least feels for it's people enough to tell the truth.

UPS HAD, the closest thing to a perfect business model, now they are imitating Fedex. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I wonder who's beating who?