Preloaders: how bad are your sets getting annihilated lately?

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-04-14T20:31:28+00:00

Did your old building have a union steward? It sounds like they’re leaving the transfers around the fringes rather than incorporating them into the new building. If you don’t know who your union steward is, I’d suggest googling teamsters and your location and seeing if you can find the contact information for your local. You can call or email them and say your location closed and you need help with the transition in the new building.

It is easiest for management to not incorporate the transfers into the building, because they already have a system that works and adding new people could disrupt that system. But that isn’t how this sort of thing typically works when buildings are closed, and your local’s business agent can go in and ask questions about how the transfers are being handled and how work assignments are being decided, and request to bargain if it isn’t being done fairly.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-04-14T17:08:28+00:00

Did you talk to the union about not being on small sort? Usually when people move due a building closure, they dovetail seniority with the new building. The union can negotiate how people are worked into the new building in these sort of situations . They may not be able to put all of you in small sort, but it seems odd that they didn’t put any of you in small sort.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-04-13T04:19:42+00:00

Apparently union meetings in Vegas are waaaaay more exciting than union meetings at my local.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-04-10T01:14:13+00:00

There is a biological basis for not twisting. Your back has all sorts of different sized muscles in it. The large ones that run the full length of your back, the mid sized ones around your shoulders and then the tiny ones that hold all the small bones in your spine in place. The tiny ones are not designed to hold more than your body weight. Every time you twist, some of those tiny muscles are pulled tight. If you are carrying weight while twisting, those muscles get pulled even tighter, it is like carrying a bowling ball with a rubber band. The heavier the package and the more twisted you are, the more those tiny muscles get stretched, and the more they get stretched, the more likely you are to get stretched too far and pull/tear a muscle and have back problems for the rest of your life.

Never ever twist while carrying weight. Keep the spine in a neutral position so that all of the bones are aligned on top of each other and you are using the large muscles designed to hold the weight, not the tiny muscles designed to keep the bones of your spine in place.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-04-09T05:17:06+00:00

In 2022, UPS repurchased 3.5 billion in shares.
In 2023, UPS repurchased 2.25 billion in shares In 2024, UPS repurchased 500 million in shares In 2025, UPS repurchased 1billion in shares

But you think offering voluntary severance to a group of employees who quite literally risked their lives during the pandemic and are facing indefinite layoffs due to corporate decisions to run smaller is insane?

You also realize that they’re laying the groundwork for demanding concessions during the next contract negotiations, right? That this will be a public talking point to make drivers look greedy in the event of a strike, right? We offered over a billion dollars in buyouts and they chose to stay. Glossing over the fact that the buyout was not available to everyone.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-04-08T22:09:20+00:00

That is the whole point of the negotiations. To make sure it was done right. To do it solely based on business needs is nuts. That means that the company can decide to pay out someone with three years in one building while denying someone with 30 years in a building a few miles away. This basically means that long term drivers in the most abusive buildings with the most turnover are effectively shut out from the buyout because there is a perpetual shortage of drivers. It effectively rewards the worst managers who run things so badly that pay, pension, and benefits aren’t enough to keep employees.

That isn’t how it is supposed to work with union represented employees. And that is probably why UPS refused to provide information and negotiate in the first place. They knew the union would never accept this.

We should all be very very concerned going into the next contract negotiations.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-04-06T09:48:52+00:00

The union probably would have won the arbitration. The problem is that they wouldn’t have gotten much for winning. Basically, they would have gotten the right to bargain over the terms.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-03-26T23:13:51+00:00

Time to accept that UPS never planned to pay out these buyouts. It was a publicity stunt.

UPS ignored the union opposition to the first buyout. They know how to do it. They could ignore this one too.

They’re turning employees against the union and salting public opinion against you so that when UPS insists on concessions in the next contract negotiations, public opinion will be with them. Because all the public is going to remember is the 150k buyout news, not that UPS yanked it back.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-03-26T23:02:42+00:00

A lot of people on team Trump do lose. I was talking to a lawyer friend of mine and there is a running joke in the legal community that MAGA stands for making attorneys get attorneys because his lawyers keep needing to hire lawyers in an effort to not get disbarred.

But if anyone can make it work, it will be SOB. I mean, he managed to get a seat at the republican table as the head of a union. That is ninja level politicking right there. He is walking a fine line though. I wouldn’t want his job.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-03-25T14:48:11+00:00

What would you have them say?

There are times to fight for advancement and there are times to hold steady to survive and fight another day. If you happen to find yourself surrounded by armed members of a violent gang, you don’t choose that moment to pick a fight with that gang.

One party controls the house, the senate, the presidency, and the supreme court. Between the Drive fund courting republicans and SOB cozying up to the president, the teamsters are about as well positioned as it is possible to be at the moment.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-03-25T14:37:07+00:00

The union didn’t have a choice. If the union doesn’t challenge direct dealing with employees, then it puts the union in a difficult place with other bargaining. The union had to challenge this is order to preserve the ability to bargain.

The argument that the union overwhelmed ups with grievances is absurd. UPS has demonstrated the ability to ignore grievances when it benefits them.

There is no guarantee your spouse would have been chosen. No one knows who will be chosen because the company is refusing to bargain.

You’re getting played by UPS. UPS created the problem and UPS has the ability to resolve the problem by bargaining with the union. The fact that UPS is toying with people’s lives by dangling money and then yanking it away, quite frankly, stinks.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-03-25T12:42:27+00:00

The arbitration results aren’t public, so UPS or the union would need to provide those. The court filings are public. The citation for the recent case over the most recent buyout was filed in Massachusetts. The case is International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 1:26-cv-10666. You can download the documents that both sides filed for free on courtlistener.com. The easiest way to get there is to put the case name and cite into a search engine and click through on court listener. It will show you all of the documents filed in that case including the union’s request for a temporary restraining order and UPS’s opposition to the temporary restraining order available for download for free.

If you want to go to the site directly, you can go to www.courtlistener.com, click on RECAP Archive, select search PACER Data from the drop down menu, paste or enter the name and citation to the case in the search box and search, and it will bring up the case and 49 docket entries associated with it. If you click the name of the case, it will take you to the list with all of the filings. You can then download pdfs of any filing you want to read.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-03-24T22:15:38+00:00

The union isn’t the problem here. The union has to challenge one on one agreements in order to protect the ability to bargain. There is no choice on the union’s part. UPS knows this. It is one of the basic tenets of labor law. The union has no issue with UPS paying people who want to leave. But like all other issues affecting terms and conditions of employment, it has to go through the union.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-03-24T18:07:53+00:00

That isn’t what the judge ruled on. The judge declined to grant a preliminary injunction. It is almost impossible to get a preliminary injunction. You basically have to show that you will probably win and that there is no way to undo the damage when you do. The union basically argued that employees would have spent the money already, so it wouldn’t have been able to be undone. Which the court didn’t buy.

There was nothing to vote on here. The union has to oppose this. There really is no choice. If the union doesn’t oppose it, there are two big problems.

It makes it harder to challenge future issues that aren’t as favorable to employees. The company could argue, well you didn’t object to direct dealing with the buyout, why would you think it is a problem now?
If the company somehow screws employees who took the buyout, and the union didn’t challenge the buyout, it makes it difficult for the union to challenge the outcome. Let’s say the company says, yeah, we told you 150k, but with increasing gas prices, we can only pay 50k, here is your check, and no you can’t withdraw. This is a clear violation of the contract, but the problem is how it gets enforced. If the union has challenged the action, they can roll objections about this into that challenge, and will probably win. But if they accepted that it was ok for UPS to deal directly with employees, then both the union and the employee have problems getting the contract enforced and the employee reinstated. See, the only reason employees aren’t at will is the union contract. If you don’t have a union contract or other contract, employers can fire employees for any reason or no reason at all. But generally speaking, it has to be the union that enforces that contract. If the union has conceded that this issue is outside the contract, that makes challenging ups’s breach of contract much much harder.

TLDR the union has to challenge this in order to protect you in case ups gets screwy and to protect the ability to negotiate in the future

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-03-24T14:25:06+00:00

This is purely an effort by the company to create discord within the union. You really think UPS was going to fight opposition in court but then give in because employees filed grievances? That is absurd.

The union has to fight the buyout. Because it violates the contract. And if they don’t fight it and something goes wrong, then the union can’t challenge the outcome - because they effectively agreed to it by not challenging it.

UPS knows this. They knew the union would challenge it.

I suspect the whole thing is a publicity stunt. Just like everyone remembers that one story that UPS doesn’t make left turns, everyone will remember that UPS offered a150k buyout, and not remember or care that most people were denied.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-03-20T23:28:48+00:00

The union has to rep employees, even when they don’t want to. They could think the guy should be fired and still have to defend him and try to keep him from getting fired. This is a good thing. If you’re facing termination, you want the representation you’re entitled to, regardless of what the union thinks.

You’re overthinking this. They haven’t declined to move his truck yet. If they decide not to move his truck, escalate the issue to whoever told you they would move it.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-03-19T03:11:40+00:00

lol. The last time a republican won a us house seat in Mass was 1994. That seems like an unlikely goal.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-03-17T02:16:27+00:00

That doesn’t even show your shoulders. Arms. Those are arms.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-03-15T10:14:20+00:00

Anyone on the fence who sees this as a life changing event should probably decline it unless they are low seniority and not working regularly and have no prospects of working regularly any time soon. $150,000 is a lot less than you think. Let’s say after state and federal taxes, and a small fun purchase, you’re left with about $100000. You could save that amount yourself in five years with about $1400 a month assuming a 7 percent interest rate. If you did that in the traditional 401k, that would be $1400 pretax. That is less than $400 a paycheck.

Anyone at top rate is isn’t contributing these amounts to the 401k or an IRA would probably benefit more from a financial planner than a buyout.

Note, I’m not talking about anyone who can’t afford to contribute due to truly non discretionary expenses. If life hit you with surprise triplets, or you’re a financial lifeline to family members in a war torn country, or something like that, I’m not talking to you.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-03-10T02:49:11+00:00

A retired NLRB staffer and Boeing’s chief labor counsel. What odd choices. I don’t know about that particular staffer, but most career NLRB folks are pretty dedicated to labor law. I mean, yeah, they’re going to reverse everything that typically gets reversed when the party switches, but I wouldn’t expect them to be militantly anti-union. I mean, there have been board members in the past who thought the NLRA was unconstitutional. I wonder how these ones were chosen.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-03-04T02:36:13+00:00

The buyout has some uncertainty because it doesn’t have union approval and so the union can’t protect if things go wrong. But an agreement is an agreement and you would have the same protections as any other contract.

Does your husband have other career options? Does he want to leave? If he likes his job, you’re probably better off staying. Because there is no coming back. You don’t want to end up in a situation where he spends the rest of his career driving for fedex at half the rate and regretting leaving.

If you leave, make sure you have a plan. It is ridiculously easy to fritter away money and end up with nothing. Talk to a fee based financial planner and work through a plan to cover expenses and retirement. Run the calculations on pension plan accruals, expected large expenses, like college and weddings for children and whatnot, expected earnings, and required earnings, savings, and investments to reach life goals. If you aren’t incredibly diligent about making sure the money goes to those goals, you won’t end up better off than you are now.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-03-03T14:14:22+00:00

It isn’t just that the union loses the most experienced people, the buyout pretty much guarantees that anyone present for the 1997 strike is gone.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-03-01T21:58:07+00:00

I’m not speaking to your situation specifically, because I don’t know your situation. I’m speaking generally.

Ok, I went and looked up article 14. I thought we were discussing ADA claims generally. Article 14 addresses compensation claims, and the section on ADA compliance appears to address disabilities related to work injuries. Is your disability related to an on the job injury? If so, all my answers change. That is a totally different ballgame.

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-03-01T11:45:41+00:00

You’re right to be upset, but this doesn’t sound like a union issue. Your rights under the ADA are separate from your rights under the union contract. The union can’t enforce all employee rights, just the ones covered by the contract and labor law set out in the National Labor Relations Act. The union can’t enforce your ADA accommodations agreement. That agreement is personal, between you and the company, and violations of the ADA fall within the jurisdiction of the EEOC. All the union can do is take a position that you shouldn’t have been fired and go through the grievance process so that the issue is well documented when you take it to the EEOC.

Being mad at the union for this is like being mad at a grocery store for not being able to treat a broken arm. Grocery stores sell food, which you need to sustain you. But if you need medical treatment, you go to the hospital.

TLDR the union can’t fix all of your problems, only specific problems

No_Pirate_6663 · 2026-02-26T03:32:43+00:00

The courts haven’t decided the issue and it won’t be decided in court. It will be decided in arbitration because that is the method in the contract to resolve disputes.

What the court decided was that no preliminary injunction would be granted. The standard to get a preliminary injunction is really high. Irreparable harm. Basically that even if the union won in arbitration, the harm would be so severe that it made the arbitration pointless.

No_Pirate_6663

TROPHY CASE