What UPS Doesn't Want You to Know

it's very difficult because when you're working like all night or you know the graveyard shift you know you tend to sleep during the day and you don't really get time with your family or with your kids do a lot of my co-workers and peers you can just see it on their face they look angry and honestly depressed you know like a lot of them feel like they're stuck you know like you know they need the health care and the benefits but like the pay sucks or they've invested so much time with the company and they're still not full-time it just a lot of people are angry when you think of good middle class jobs you probably think of ups but the shipping Behemoth has a secret while full-time delivery drivers are the face of UPS it's the part-time workers like Cesar Mendoza who are the heart of the 100 billion dollar company in fact part-timers make up around 60 of the 340 000 UPS workers represented by the teamsters these workers have been ignored for nearly 30 years but as ups and the union wrestle over a new contract with a massive strike looming August 1st part-time workers are coming out of the Shadows to tell their story of what it's really like to work for the world's largest package delivery company my name is Jonathan Thomas senior I'm a UPS employee for almost 40 years and I'm Jonathan Thomas Jr and I've been a UPS part-time employee for about five years the biggest disparity is pay right he's being paid a part-time uh position where you know I'm full-time when I first started I remember my wage was very poor once I got past probation I was up to full pay and for me it was a matter of I think six weeks but now that probationary period has been extended to four years so the the new people the part-time people even the the full-time new full-time drivers aren't getting their full pay for four years so that's quite a disparity well me and my girlfriend and my son we stay at our in-laws house and we've been there for a while because we can't really afford our own like one bedroom apartment here in California with the part-time wages I make and the part-time hours I get the hourly pay for UPS part-timers got bumped up to 22 in larger markets during the pandemic when it was hard to find and keep workers at the beginning of 2023 it went back down suddenly to to 16. they didn't really give us a reason why they took away that extra pay it was like an incentive yeah it was like an incentive and it was over even though the volume didn't change you know like it's e-commerce is now bigger than before if you pay is not there they're gonna have to put in that overtime which is yeah which is sad since part-timers are only guaranteed three and a half hours of work a day overtime is a hot commodity the resulting process of securing those extra hours of work is exhausting and divisive we're not really United as a union in the warehouse we're kind of all just like turning against each other because because we need to pay our bills and pay our rent so we fight for hours and fight for positions normally I come in at 3 30 a.m and I'll get out around 8 30 a.m if I'm lucky it all just depends it's very fast paced they want to get a certain amount of work done by a certain time so they kind of push you to work fast we are physically moving those packages our job mainly is moving packages it's not driving and I think most people perception is that we're just driving I talk to many drivers and you know within the first five years of being married they're divorced because of how long they work how many days they work they they have a gap between them and their kids so us as union workers we make this sacrifice for our kids but it's hard that that's what it's going to become we're going to have to lose that relationship with our family at first I really didn't want to do any ups work because I knew just firsthand just from seeing him come home exhausted you know especially during the hot summers that we would have that I knew it was like really laborious work it wasn't until about 26 when you start to know lose health insurance coverage that I started like freaking out like what should I do which he you know which dad then told me was to go do part-time work at least because they still get the same health coverage that I've basically had my whole life whenever I need medication go to the hospital anything I'm not paying anything I think Hospital appointments are like that's our only only thing we have to pay right for emergency visit UPS has spent years rerouting new hires to exploitative part-time work with false promises of promotion I joined the fight with the Union probably about two years ago because we started noticing that this last contract they did US horribly like wrong I never see anyone go into a full-time driver position they always go into being a two to four position first which was basically a part-time position that works full hours become a 224 and then maybe you'll become a full-time driver and not like your position changes not like the work you do changes you know the only thing that changes is is whatever code they type into their system for like pay that seems a bit that's like ridiculous I know people in my warehouse that they've been working for UPS for 14 years and they're still part-timers you know a lot of us um try to make money other places you know but we don't get hired because the companies want us to commit you know 110 to their company you know they don't want us to work part-time at UPS so it's hard finding another job you know when you're um you're right there doing a hard labor job you know in the middle of the night and you're just sitting there thinking like damn like I invested so much time with this company I thought would have paid off by now but you're still making part-time hours part-time wages you're not really moving up at all you're just in the same hole you've been in the whole time UPS has until July 31st to reach a fair contract agreement with the Union part-timers are pushing for big changes to nearly every aspect of their job one thing we're really looking to get out of this contract is sort of a pay rise across the board for part-time and full-time employees not just to keep up with inflation but to actually do well and prosper on our own the inflation is used I think as a as a talking point for corporations to discuss you know why it's Justified to pay us less or something because it's such a complex issue but the the bottom line is that I know for a fact EPS hasn't been losing any money they've actually gained tremendous e-commerce is just ever expanding so for them to cry that inflation would cause any sort of like Rippling effect as far as our pay is absolute nonsense you know and I think UPS plays that card too every time we have a contract they cry poor but they've spent every dime they possibly can before the contract just so they can get to that well look at our numbers okay well what did you invest in to get you there the part-timers want higher part-time wages more full-time positions combo jobs more hours because we can't really have a chance out here in California with four or five hours like we can barely pay for gas and groceries like me and my family can't even afford a studio apartment out here so it's like you need to give your workers who you care about a Fighting Chance out here so we can keep our heads above water I've heard you know the the younger people are worried that the the senior people are going to sell them out which is so far from the truth we are so United I think everybody the minute they become a full-fledged employee in Teamster they realize that their greatest future is looking at the young guys and helping the young guys get what they get and even more this was the sign I carried during the 1997 UPS strike do you have any memories of the 1997 strike that your dad walked to pick at line for I don't remember you on a picket line or anything but I remember being in a union hall with hot dogs and you know and playing with other kids many of us are willing to go on strike this next contract because all these years we feel like they've been getting away with so much you know and we just feel like it's time now like it's time to take care of your workers and invest in your people there's more to the human experience than just waking up at five in the morning commuting to your job doing your job until you know nine at night commuting back home sleeping and doing that you know every day until like you're free for two days of the week if you're lucky right and that that time you're spent laboring at home to catch up on the stuff you're behind that you're missing out on a lot of The Human Experience that way and I think a union can help you balance that bias the sphere of work from retail to giving you is giving you Warehouse your life back to essentially yeah to gaining your life back yeah

Channel: More Perfect Union

Views: 460,331

Keywords: more perfect union, politics, ups, ups secrets, amazon shipping

Id: SnBu8qkyRcU

Length: 9min 5sec (545 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2023