Petition of Grievance
On Friday, May 27th 2022 at about 8:30am at the 3390 facility, I observed one of the supervisors handling packages, placing them on the belt, and sorting. I went over to him and said to stop touching packages, that it is stealing. He said he would wait for the grievance procedure and just laugh about it later, as if treating wage theft was simply the cost of doing business. Further on, he threatened to punish me for leaving my work area for daring to come over and say something. We were instructed that dishonesty will not be tolerated in the workplace, and that we should report theft. I reported to my immediate supervisor, him; so, his threat was an abuse of authority. Not only was he mocking me, but he justified being a thief since he can just throw his authority around to demand compliance. It went from beyond the honest mistake of not knowing, to willful negligence and malice to defend it. Even deflecting, refusing to give his name for obstruction. Clearly, the grievance procedure doesn't work at correcting behavior.
~Article 3 Section 7 – “Supervisors Working (a) The Employer agrees that the function of supervisors is the supervision of Employees and not the performance of the work of the employees they supervise. Accordingly, the Employer agrees that supervisors or other employees of the Employer who are not members of the bargaining unit shall not perform any bargaining unit work, except to train employees or demonstrate safety, or as otherwise provided in the applicable Supplement, Rider or Addendum. However, in the case of Acts of God, supervisors shall comply with the procedures in subsections (b) and (c) and may only perform bargaining unit work until bargaining unit employees are available.”
If he needs to wait for another preloader, don't take shortcuts because it's inconvenient; there were plenty of union employees already there. UPS management is contractually obligated to leave the work designated to preloaders for us, as supervisors are a part of our safety equipment to which we have no access when they are working (e.g., training, DoKs, and removing leaking packages with a clear indication of contents). Overtime is valuable, especially on the wages they offer for the amount of danger we are put into daily just to afford our corner of the sidewalk. Staffing shortages because Corporate wants to pay people the bare minimum is not an Act of God (in light of Trump's tax cuts for businesses to raise wages, we got nothing; even working through the whole pandemic as an essential worker, nothing; inflation? nothing).
It was absurd when we held a Wellness Week to watch for dangers around the home, nevermind the living witness of that advice turned out to be watching for crippled raccoons crossing the street. As management makes more money and sleeps at night with a pillow, they need to hold in higher regard the people willing to do the hard work and getting disabled for life just so someone else can have food on their table. I went from living on the street with thieves stealing my things to finally a job with supervisors committing wage theft from the poor. I just wonder what would happen to a preloader caught stealing (and whether my suspicion is true that management operates like a corrupt police union with a Blue Code whose rules don't apply to them). Turning a blind eye creates cause for concern about oversights on safety, like failing to provide the necessary equipment to fulfill the 8th Key to Lifting and Lowering. Saying we only have one forklift driver means we are not properly staffed; yet, we were expected to work in unsafe conditions until then. The solution was just to put someone else there, let them get injured. Lack of corrective action can only ensure no confidence in current management; we have a union for a reason: irresponsible management decisions regarding the welfare of living human beings.
As a member of a different union, the Teamsters grievance procedure to recoup loss is unavailable to me except through Federal worker protections or – as strangely as the contract asks for – Acts of God. If that's what they're waiting for, UPS is going to have some serious problems for turning a blind eye to theft in spite of their prosperity. When a business acts like the end time symbol of Pharaoh telling us to make bricks without straw and double our quota, they're tempting plague on society and causing our children to fail. We recently had an announcement that our building was pushing twice the volume as last year. Later, notice was given about a new scanning system being implemented. That new system is here: they took away scanners from preloaders and gave them to supervisors to do work instead. Now come the write-ups for misloads as if it wasn't expected. All it takes is a few missed air packages to destroy any potential savings, and extra gas to shuttle them doesn't exactly fit the profile of environmentally conscious. Whatever prompted management to make that decision, “logistics,” effectively created new opportunities to punish the lowest wage employees since blaming them is cheaper. We have the equipment to scan, but they want us to dedicate more time to loading so we can get off the clock faster. Corporate ethics aren't exactly something to admire.