UPS worker dies of heart attack; UPS Freight lays off part-timers over holidays
Workplace nightmare after Teamsters sellout
By
Will Morrow
22 December 2018
The WSWS UPS Workers Newsletter urges UPS workers to subscribe here for updates and information, and to send us reports for publication on the conditions in your hub. We will protect your anonymity.
There is widespread opposition and anger among a quarter of a million UPS and UPS Freight workers over brutal conditions enforced by management and the Teamsters in the wake of the union’s imposition of sellout national contracts in October and November.
A WSWS UPS Workers Newsletter report on the reign of terror by management has been widely read and shared by workers on social media, and workers have continued to send in reports documenting the conditions in their hubs.
Lauren, a worker from Orlando, Florida, with a decade at UPS, described the conditions of speed-up and management harassment over the peak holiday season. “We have the revolving door of new hires,” she said, “and the closer we get to peak season the less training they get. Some of them don’t even know what can and cannot be sent across the belts. They’re being moved around the building to different positions where they have no training.”
“I’m pretty sure you’ll probably find the same behavior in most hubs. Production becomes the top priority while safety goes out the window,” she said. “I know we’ve had a few people lose fingers in the load in pinch points on rollers in the midnight shift.” UPS has hired over 100,000 seasonal warehouse workers over peak season. The workers earn as little as $10 per hour, often taking the job in hopes of landing a full-time position.
In early November, a driver at Lauren’s hub died of a…