Am I the only person in the world that thinks the UPS logo looks like Hitler’s face and hair line? (Google says there is a lone Redditor who also does.) The brown color closes the deal, for me.
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Yep, $75k to have a commercial drivers license (which has impacts outside work), a pretty high rate of injury, a tight schedule with turn by turn GPS tracking, a few years minimum line experience in the plant (which you can’t do if fat and lazy), mandatory drug testing, and being regularly trusted with packages of high value / sensitive nature (eg, personal documents).
The fact that this seems unusually good pay is just a sign how fucked up our wage system is.
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Yes. That’s not really a lot of money in 2018. Should we race to the bottom more?
Try living in any major metro area on that - it’s not like you’re going to be living the high life.
A fight for good wages, benefits and working conditions at a major company like this is a fight for everyone.
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Not only that, but $75k is basically a minimum of what it takes to live what we call a “middle class” life. Afford a decent house (you know, not falling down, able to perform routine maintenance, roof, painting, the odd sewer repair) raise a couple of kids and save for their school (college, technical, trades, whatever, still takes money). So if it’s a career type job, much less than that and it’s hand-to-mouth, no savings, living on the edge.
This attitude of “$XX,000” for “YYY” is crazy. Yes, it costs money to get people to do things. Because people need money to live. And it’s more than it was when you got your first job and lived on $2 an hour.
/rant
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Funny - there was a post/ad on my local Nextdoor site about how UPS is hiring drivers
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says - good timing -
You might want to check their hours.
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Yes, it is crazy. What’s even more crazy to me is when I see this attitude coming from people that actually have to work for a living and they themselves don’t see the connection between other middle class and working class people and themselves.
I worked in the union grocery biz for a long time - 1984 to 2000 - and often we were chided by the general public for how much we got paid and what kind of benefits we got. Which early on were both pretty great. By the time I left, not that great. But what is better for our communities? Well paid people with good benefits who can live comfortably and raise a family? Or people struggling to make ends meet? When working people effectively answer the latter (by not supporting their fellow worker) I don’t understand it.
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They absolutely should fight for those part time to full time conversions to come in at their standard rates. And then they have to fight for higher rates and benefits for the part-timers,or that will continue to be the wedge that they use to split labor.
Like said in the article - if they let them shaft the part-timers, they’ll eventually replace them with the lower wage workers. Taking bonuses and supporting the tier is voting against your own interest.
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It surprises my younger self to say this, but “Go Teamsters!”
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Or Patriots
Or Raiders
Or no bumper sticker at all
Remember Regan firing all the air traffic controllers? It set a horrible but important precedent. It showed that you, as the executive of your own company, can just fire the unionized strikers who refuse to return to work, and damn the consequences. Heck, in the current climate, it would be no surprise to see a return to strike breaking with the hiring of Academi (nee Blackwater) or a similar thugs-for-hire outfit to break the strike, literally, or even having police or armed forces do the job under official orders. In the minds of too many Americans, particularly of the political leadership, there are no rights for the average person, only privileges for those who who can afford them. And Unions have been derided, demonized, and weakened to the point where it seems likely that any serious strike would result in a massive legislative and social backlash that would effectively ban them.
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Cannot unsee.
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Keep in mind, UPS isn’t just delivery drivers though. My dad used to work UPS, and sometimes he did package cars, which everyone hates. Eventually he got a job that involved him driving from the hub in Lenxa KS to somewhere in California, and back with a co-driver. They basically didn’t stop for anything but gas and took shifts driving so that they could make the run from Lenxa to California and back in three days.
I cannot imagine a sum of money you could offer me to make that job worth it.
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Unfortunately, it’s the most effective part of the divide and conquer strategy brought to us by the rich and powerful. They keep workers focused on envying anyone who has more than they do, and fantasizing that they will one day be rich. While they aren’t paying attention, their ability to survive, thrive, and/or gain wealth is being undermined.
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And somewhere the robo-trucks are laughing and smoking big cigars.
Me too – Sincerely, FedEx
That sort of thing that makes the Market Basket protests even more impressive. The employees there weren’t even unionized, never mind the customers that joined in the protests. Yet they won. But we can’t expect that to happen often.
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Do you need a CDL to drive a UPS van? I thought they were small enough that they could be driven on an ordinary car license at least in the US.
Remember when they named an Airport after him, soon afterwards?
That too was an important precedent.
The Air Traffic Controllers were unionized employees of his own company? How the fuck do you parse that one? The nation is NOT the ‘presidents company’ and any precedent set was very much NOT about private companies, nor even publicly held companies (which would be a closer, but still inapt analogy, to the elected public servant executive).
So you say. I disagree.
“too many” is n=>1. I can agree there is more than one american who feels that way. Care to name names? I agree there are more than one of those types in America.
Yes, the sky DOES appear to be falling. Cluck Cluck.
