I was talking with my mom today about her first job. She got a part time job at UPS (not a driver) when she was 18 in 1978. She worked 20-30 hours per week and was paid $9.50 an hour. Sometimes she loaded trucks, or dealt with opened packages. Teamsters Union, and they negotiated good raises every year. She said a lot of people worked there to put themselves through college as it paid enough to cover living and tuition expenses.
My parents struggled with 3 kids, my dad had to pay child support and alimony to his ex wife. He had a lot of debt from his divorce. Dad worked during the day and mom at night so they avoided daycare costs. They bought a house and we had a lower-middle/ middle class upbringing
UPS used to have a pension scheme, and you could retire and draw a pension after 25 years of working for the company. This applied to everyone, even part time workers! In 2003 my mom was making 28.50 an hour working part time before she retired. The starting wage for new employees? $9 an hour. Fifty cents less than her starting wage 25 years earlier.
I asked her why they would accept that when they had a union and everything and she wasn’t sure.
In her contract she had a really good deal for benefits which is part of the reason she stayed so long. It was $6 a week for health insurance for our whole family. 8 weeks semi-paid maternity leave, plus PTO and more.
She “retired” in 2003 and still draws the pension. I think she gets around 1100 dollars a month. They have paid it for 20 years already. She knew a full time driver that retired with a 3800 dollar a month pension after 35 years.
It is insane how much things have changed. Companies would never offer benefits anywhere close to that today. It makes me wonder how many other companies had deals like this. It definitely feels like young workers are paying for these retirements by producing more, receiving lower wages and crap benefits. Like companies feel that they overpaid old workers (or are still paying them like this) so they have to make up the costs with the current workforce and squeeze what they can out of them.