News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:“We’ve Changed the Game”: Teamsters Win Historic UPS Cont... by the_only_law on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @05:53PM (#36870107)
I was talking to someone who’s partner works at UPS doing IT stuff. Apparently their contingency plan was to force people like him to additionally work the striking roles for no additional pay under the threat of firing.
Re:“We’ve Changed the Game”: Teamsters Win Historic UPS Cont... by ImaCake on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @06:01PM (#36870223)
If that’s true then UPS management is not very smart. Thanks to changing demographics there is now a permanent worker shortage which has allowed these strikes to succeed. You can’t threaten to fire people when they know they can get hired by the next company. The workers will just call your bluff.
Re:“We’ve Changed the Game”: Teamsters Win Historic UPS Cont... by Mountain_Skies on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @06:23PM (#36870484)
I worked with UPS's top management in an outside consulting role unrelated to labor issues around the time of their first contract negotiations after the strike of the 90s. Avoiding another strike was their number one priority even if they had to put out a strong public face of something different. Workers have fared well each time the contract has come up and I believe the 90s strike had far more impact on the company's management culture than most, even the union, realizes. The folks I worked with seemed to believe another strike would be perhaps not fatal but damaging enough to put the company on a path towards death. It was to be avoided at all costs.
Re:“We’ve Changed the Game”: Teamsters Win Historic UPS Cont... by vGPU on Wednesday July 26, 2023 @01:06AM (#36873339)
Nobody really notices that the garbage on TV is a rerun and not a new season of my 600lb life.

They notice really quick when their Amazon packages get delayed.

If a worker strike caused Amazon delays by 2-3 days people would be storming UPS headquarters.

Re:“We’ve Changed the Game”: Teamsters Win Historic UPS Cont... by runako on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @06:00PM (#36870213)
I interned at AT&T a while back. At the time, they required all "management" employees to prepare for their alternative roles in case CWA called a strike. The IT group I was in had people training to do field installs and maintenance as I recall. Interns in the group were considered "management" employees. Weird times.
Re:“We’ve Changed the Game”: Teamsters Win Historic UPS Cont... by nonethewiser on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @06:24PM (#36870493)
I was at UPS IT and my manager regularly did deliveries. In that case it had nothing to do with unions.
Re:“We’ve Changed the Game”: Teamsters Win Historic UPS Cont... by sidewndr46 on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @05:59PM (#36870202)
This is how Caterpillar handled the assembly line employees strike. My understanding is they never really rehired union labor.
Re:“We’ve Changed the Game”: Teamsters Win Historic UPS Cont... by vGPU on Wednesday July 26, 2023 @01:09AM (#36873355)
More than half of Cat’s labor is outsourced outside of the US, and they just got caught using slave labor in china not long ago.

If we kept manufacturing inside of the US, they wouldn’t be able to abuse their workforce like that.

Re:“We’ve Changed the Game”: Teamsters Win Historic UPS Cont... by favorited on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @06:03PM (#36870259)
This is what happened last time. Managers and office workers were sent out on delivery runs, usually doubled up since they're not going to be as efficient.
Re:“We’ve Changed the Game”: Teamsters Win Historic UPS Cont... by zecaurubu on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @07:13PM (#36871024)
That's also the contingency plan for the national postal service in Brazil (ECT/Correios) - a state-owned company. My father, an instructor, had to drive a van around the town to deliver express packages during strikes. The strangest thing about these situations was that old employees (a few were 80+) were also assigned to package delivery duties and some of them would end up getting lost. This was before cellphones were widespread, so Dad and his colleagues would go searching for the missing employees after lunchtime and bring them back to the office.