I was a package runner, so I would take the packages from the truck to the house, while the driver could organize everything and get things ready for the next few houses.
The worst part was the super short breaks. We would stop for maybe 5-8 minutes, piss, and grab food to go.
There were a few things from my experience there that stick out in my mind:
- There was this weird implied situation with running. It was iterated to me multiple times that UPS does not encourage me to run, but I needed to do everything I could to efficiently get the package to the house and back. So they were basically telling us to run, even though they couldn't specifically say it.
- On my route one day, there was a van following us and stealing packages that we were dropping off. We had no idea until they scared the shit out of some poor lady, who ended up calling customer support. Apparently, she saw me, and even motioned for me to leave the package... but I never saw her- I just dropped it off. When she went to the door to get it, the thieves were taking it off her porch. I'm glad she said she motioned me to leave it, because if not, UPS wanted to hold me personally responsible for the loss.
- We had to pick up packages from a handful of UPS stores in the area. We even had a bigger truck that day to hold the capacity. There was zero organization to it, it was just throw everything that could fit on the truck. We had it filled to the TOP, but we still had to do some deliveries. I had no idea where to find the packages, because they got all mixed up... So we ended up crushing some packages because we had to climb the mountain of boxes to find them. I always felt bad about that day because I stepped on a styrofoam box of omaha steaks and completely destroyed it, but we delivered it anyways.
Don't feel too bad, Omaha steaks are crap.
Amazon in particular has incredible power since they can decide what they themselves will ship, and what to send to others to ship. This allows them to self-ship lightweight, regular sized packages, which are the most profitable things to ship, and send the harder to ship items to carriers. It is a brilliant form of arbitrage.
On top of that all of the major parcel companies are at least partially competing with a giant, government subsidized entity (the post office).
We are coming off of a long recession, meaning the workers themselves have been grateful just to have job. Long recessions breed labor abuse, because the workforce is willing to accept it.
Lots of reasons. I am sure it is technically unlawful to make an employee shit him or herself, but what is allowed is not the driving factor here.
The union also fights against CDL requirements for better/safer drivers and allows excessive overtime because it pays out so much.
Its not a good union by certain measures, like a lot of big unions focused on low/no skill labor it can help raise salaries (and raise product cost) but also not be helpful in anything they think 'hurts' workers like mandatory unpaid breaks, CDL requirements, background/credit checks, etc.
Modern unions have little in common with the unions of old that existed before we had any real safety regulations and far less labor regulation. Now they exist almost solely to return as much financial value as possible (wages) for the investment (dues).
If you're implying credit checks don't hurt workers, you can GFY. Medical bankruptcy is real in the US and being unable to obtain employment because you were sick and couldn't afford a $300,000 bill is asinine.
Considering the work pattern of last mile delivery drivers compared to OTR truckers and how rarely both groups fall asleep at the wheel and crash into things this doesn't bother me in the slightest. Being subject to all the regulatory overhead that goes with a CDL would be bad for, the workers, the employers and anyone buying their services. It's not like UPS drivers are falling asleep at the wheel and running over little old ladies left and right. There's no negative externality that can be eliminated by regulating delivery drivers.
"Now they exist almost solely to return as much financial value as possible (wages) for the investment (dues)."
And the company doesn't exist for the same thing?
I can't really imagine myself caring.
It's not about the property owner's feelings. However, even that can be viewed as an externality that UPS is pushing onto third parties.
I'm guessing most of HN is Engineers making loads of money who don't have to think about struggling in any sense when it's a reality that 78% of people in USA are living paycheck to paycheck.
Edit: I even see the HN anti-union comment flagged because again, HN is anti-union and anti-labor.
Or maybe it's a timezone thing? I'm in Europe, I tend to browse HN during our days and evenings. Maybe the threads visited by most Americans show up as I go to sleep, and disappear from the front page before I wake up?
Of course, unions are a barrier to "disruption" and there's a lot of anti-union propaganda floating around, a lot based on selective examples of unions' worst behavior.
Personally, I think unions should be stronger, but maybe we need to experiment different models for unionization and employee organization.
Stop trying to make this about "unions vs no unions."
Edit: No proof has been supplied this happened to an actual UPS employee, nor has there been any official statement by the union that this is actually something that has happened. Therefore, this is fake news until proven otherwise.
Want to emphasize how bad workers have it? Just tell people they’re pissing in bottles!
The reality is no, workers aren’t pissing in bottles. At least not on a regular basis anyway, and not because they were forced. If they were, it means they’ve been drinking tons of water. But how would they have time to drink so much water if they supposedly don’t even have time to take a bathroom break?
Awareness of your own bodily functions is just a part of life. One that people take for granted, until it puts them in a difficult situation. There was once a time on my way to work I got stuck in a bad traffic jam and had to shit really bad. Eventually, there was a point where I realized I wasn’t going to make it and started rummaging through the backseat for any kind of bag.
Fifteen seconds on Google turned up an unofficial forum for UPS workers. Pissing in bottles appears to be extremely common. From perusing a few threads on the topic, the zeitgeist appeared to be "everyone does it, but if you leave your piss bottles in the truck after your shift then you're an asshole".
https://www.browncafe.com/community/threads/what-do-you-do-w...
https://www.browncafe.com/community/threads/urine-bottles-in...
https://www.browncafe.com/community/threads/urine-bottles-le...
https://www.browncafe.com/community/threads/urine-bottles.36...
It is also possible people actually prefer to do this rather than stopping frequently and dealing with the hassle of finding a place, parking, running the risk of it being a single restroom and already being occupied.
[0] https://www.browncafe.com/community/threads/what-do-you-do-w...
What? Those are two distinct and not comparable things. Besides, being a driver can be pretty hefty labour and you'd be stupid not to be drinking lots of water while you work.
And of course they're not pissing in bottles every day. The problem is that they don't have the time to take a rest break due to the unrealistic volumes of deliveries each driver is expected to make regardless of traffic, weather, or other conditions.
You can drink water and drive at the same time.
Would this be less bad if they supplied one of those bottles that is specifically for that purpose? And what is so bad about that anyway? What if there was a porta potty similar to what is on boats (or rv's) in the truck? Would you feel the same way?
After all at least where I am located (and elsewhere) they are competing with the low end labor which delivers for Amazon for less cost. And those employees are driven pretty hard (and get paid less with less benefits).
UPS driver is not a leisurely take your time type of job. It never has been. They have always hustled in any way they could (and I remember them from the 70's).
YES.
"Astronauts do it too."
Astronauts are in an entirely different environment, where they have nothing but a thin suit separating them from the lifeless vacuum of space. Not at all comparable to delivering packages.
"It's not like they are cleaning out sewers in Mumbai."
"Someone else has it worse" is never a justification or an argument.
>
> YES.
You piss in bottles on the job because the job demands it (never explicitly, of course). When you're poor, working poor, a manual laborer, etc... The power dynamics at these levels are so grossly disproportionate that you don't have a seat in the room, let alone at the table. You have to piss outside of your break times? Deal with it. Oh, you didn't get a break? Sorry, here's your last pay check, don't come back here tomorrow. That may be the extreme end of it, mostly experienced in the construction business (where I really saw the worst of it), but it wasn't far from the truth when I worked in warehouses loading trucks or in a glass plant, either. And, maybe it's a vastly different experience in a not-at-will state, maybe it's changed dramatically since the early 2000s, I wouldn't know but I really doubt it.
This pissing in bottles thing is just part and parcel for manual laborers and, speaking from personal experience, I never once found it degrading. In the 8 or so years that I spent working manual labor full-time I'm not aware of any of my co-workers who did, either.
I agree with you here, completely, but it's the world some people live in. And, I don't think telling people that the behavior they are forced to engage in frequently, as a result of the bankrupt power structures they have to operate in, is degrading, is going to help them at all.
> everything in your post sounds horrible.
To you, and i'm sure to many others, as well, maybe even most. That doesn't mean it translates to the folks who live these lives.
> There is absolutely no justification for it, none.
Other than objective reality, sure.
The public service are the last unionised workers in Britain and are about the only people who ever go on strike any more.
Because we have at least 2 reports of it happening to UPS employees on this (currently very short) thread. Extrapolating the UPS rate of self-soiling to the entire economy, there should be literally thousands of people just pissing and shitting themselves at work every day.
But there aren't. Because most people work in jobs that let them take restroom breaks frequently enough that they don't need to soil themselves, and have access to a restroom during those breaks so that they can actually do so. UPS drivers don't: they may not have access to restroom facilities when they actually need to use them.
I doubt there will ever be an official metric, so it's your word against theirs.
I, for one, find the narrative that "they're just making it up so they can extort their employer for more money" to be less believable than than simply considering that it's the truth.
Furthermore, it was pointed out earlier in this thread that employees discuss engaging in this behavior _amongst themselves_. If it is, in fact, completely untrue, you would have to add "widespread conspiracy" to your acceptable narrative. (My reasoning being that there's far less incentive to lie to a co-worker than to a boss; only the boss can affect change. The notion that 260k low level employees have banded together to promote a lie, including amongst themselves, is so unlikely I'd call it laughable.)
According to employees, it happens frequently.
I extend my arguemets about whether or not the behavior occurred (at all) to the frequency of the behavior: either it's a lie or it's not.
Once again, seems to me like it's not.
That sounds like the public needs to take that up with their employers.