Do UPS package deliverers make up to $75k/year?

[Deja Q]

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/11/12/101008310/index.htm?postversion=2007110709

But such is the Gen Y reaction to what one academic described as a "plum blue-collar job." (UPS drivers make an average of $75,000 a year, plus an average of $20,000 in health-care benefits and pension, well above the norm for comparable positions at other freight carriers.) Much derided as a group of upstart technophiles of little work ethic and even less loyalty, Gen Yers aren't exactly a perfect fit for Big Brown. In fact, it's hard to imagine a worse match.

(SNIP)

The inevitable discord started to show in 2003, when the oldest Gen Yers were in their mid-20s. UPS senior staffers began to notice a serious decline in some major performance indicators, among them drivers' time to proficiency. Before, trainees had needed an average of 30 days to become proficient drivers; the younger group was taking 90 to 180 days.

Perhaps more disturbing, the number of new drivers quitting the post after 30 to 45 days on the job spiked. That was cause for serious alarm. Gen Yers make up over 60% of the company's part-time loader workforce, from which it draws the majority of new driver hires. And in the next five years, to keep the more than 100,000 driving jobs that currently exist filled, the company will need to train up to 25,000 new drivers.

Dunno about work ethic, but why would their loyalty be so little? It's easy to persecute, but if the sweet and charming author would elaborate her claim a little...

I wonder why she doesn't go after Fed-Ex. I've a horror story she'd love to hear.

[rucky]

1. I would leave my Dilbert job in a minute to drive for UPS. n/t

[WolverineDG]

2. Employers are no longer loyal to their employees

That's the corporate attitude that they've grown up with. Since the corporations have repeatedly shown they don't give a damn about their employees & only the bottom line, why are they now shocked that their employees have adopted the same attitude?

dg

[Deja Q]

3. Exactly.

What is Nadira being spoon-fed to come up with her myopic "insights"?

[trotsky]

8. BING-freaking-O. n/t

[Midlodemocrat]

4. When the stock went public my aunt became a multi-multi

millionaire. Her dad had acquired a fortune in the stock which wasn't worth anything until it went public.

How I wish I had jumped on THAT boat.

[Parche]

12. Friend Midlo

Am I in YOUR Will? :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :hi:

[Midlodemocrat]

16. Yeah, like we ever saw any.

:rofl:

[Clark2008]

5. Uh... no.

UPS is one of my clients - and, while they do pay pretty well for my area - none of the drivers I know make that much.

[Midlodemocrat]

9. But they can. My cousin earned $120,000 when he stopped

driving and went inside to product management.

[Hamlette]

6. It pays well but its a tough job

the drivers have a very tight schedule and if they don't make it, they can get fired (although we don't honestly see any egregious firings here at the unemployment office)

It's great though if you are a business. I knew my UPS guy would be there at 10:15 every morning. He never varied by more than 5 minutes. If it was 10:20 and he hadn't come, I didn't have any deliveries due that day.

[AlCzervik]

7. why would any employee be so loyal to a company? you think most companies

care when they lay off their workforce?

It's a job, not a family.

[Gormy Cuss]

13. The higher the investment in the employee, the more incentive for companies to care.

High attrition rates cost money and that's the company incentive to treat employees well. Recruiting costs alone can be quite substantial. Add to that positions where there's a specific and rare skill set required and the costs to replace an employee can be quite substantial. Smart companies understand that.

Employees will stay with companies that treat them well. Good pay, good benefits, and clearly defined workplace rules are some ways. Training for a job with such specific demands is another.

OTOH, low skill level jobs, or jobs requiring generic higher education credentials may require little investment in employees and in those positions companies generally don't think twice about lay off workers or outsourcing the jobs to domestic or international locations with lower costs.

[SoCalDem]

10. One word... UNION n/t

[A HERETIC I AM]

11. Yes they can, depending on overtime.

"Package Car" drivers as they are known, like their Tractor Trailer driving co-workers, are Teamsters.

I don't think the issue is with loyalty, so much that it is actually hard work that is appropriately compensated. UPS manages expenses very closely and a driver has to make so many deliveries per hour to be profitable. If they aren't willing to hustle, they won't be able to do the job. I have known plenty of UPS package delivery drivers over the years and i have rarely heard a bad word about the company.

Back a few years ago when they went public (became a stock traded on the NYSE) there were drivers that had been with UPS for 20 years or so that had participated in the ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) that literally became millionaires overnight because UPS stock spiked up after the IPO of the Class B shares in November of 1999. Of course, it sold down shortly after that but it has held steady in a relatively narrow trading range since then. Pays a decent dividend too - $1.68/share for a
2.3% yield.

If the Gen-Y'ers aren't willing to sweat a little, they won't be able to keep the jobs like that. There are going to be more stories like this too, IMO. There continues to be an aging workforce in the Unionized industries. (Railroads, Longshoremen, etc.) Those men and women want to retire and they need to be replaced. Only so much will come from legacy replacements

[MiniMe]

14. I had a friend who worked for UPS for about a month

This was in the early 90's. She said that they paid well, and the benefits were good, but their rules drove her crazy. They had some kind of manual that specified how long each step should be. It had rules about stepping lively when you step off the vehicle, and how long for each delivery. She was working on a personal residence route, not a business route. Anyway, with that lively step off the truck, and it had to be on the proper leg, just not sure which one it was, she hurt her knee. Then gave up on it.

She was a pretty good friend at the time, but I'm not sure if she was pulling my leg on some of this or not. I took it as fact at the time.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. I knew a janitor in the Postal Service who averaged $75k a year.

Of course, the overtime caused him to practically live at the office.

Such things are possible if you're willing to give your life away.

[DemoTex]

17. UPS pilots are the highest paid in the airline industry .. BIG BUCKS.

FEDEX pilots are #2.

[dysfunctional press]

18. the article doesn't say "up to" it says "average"...

that means that at least some must make more than that...
unless they're doing something like including the ceo's salary as part of the "averaging"...:shrug:

[notadmblnd]

19. Companies like UPS and FEDEX cheat employees

by keeping them part time. when they work part time.. it means no benefits. Sure, they might go on a hiring spree just before the holidays, but come January, most of those jobs are gone. I would venture to guess that very few recent hires make it to full time.

[Midlodemocrat]

21. I don't believe that is true.

The young man who built my patio worked part time because he was also working for the guy who does my landscaping.

He went full time to Supervisor as soon as the opportunity opened up. He's doing very well for himself.

I also have some family members that work for UPS and they say that they pay well, treat the employees well, even though the truck driving and delivering is very hard physical labor.

[NeedleCast]

20. Speaking for the white collar world

or at least some of it, I can say a lot of my disloyalty stems from the employer's disloyalty to it's employees. I've been part of the white collar (IT) work force for about six years now. In that time I have worked for Lockheed-Martin, Northrup Grumman and a smaller defense contractor called ACS defense (which was aquired by Lockheed a few years ago). Now I work for a much smaller contractor for Department of Justice.

I'll be the first to say contractors are very mercenary. Offer me a job I think I'll enjoy with better pay and/or better beneftis and I'm out the door. That might make me disloyal, but I know that the companies I work for have no loyalty to me. I was only with Lockheed-Martin a short time before there was a large contract dispute that caused a stop workage on our project. Despite the fact that I have a very large skill set that includes both an IT background and five years of experience (and high level security clearance) in military intelligence, Lockheed laid me off (along with everyone else on the project except the project manager). Lockheed is an employer of 110,000 plus people and with my skills in the D.C. area they could have placed me in any one of dozens of projects on a short term basis while the contract was cleared up. They chose to lay off everyone instead, because that was the simple, more cost effective solution. No loyalty.

My experience with Northrop was very similar. I worked at the office of naval intelligence as an intelligence systems instructor. For a year or so, our workload was VERY high. Sixty+ hour weeks, weekends, extensive travel. However, due to an internal IV&V issue, the second stage of the project was badly delayed. Again, the entire training team was essentially laid off despite the fact that my manager and I went to great effort to support the fact that the training team could be doing meaningful work while we waited for phase two of the project to roll out. Northrop would have lost a few thousand dollars (a drop in the ocean to a multi billion dollar company) but they laid us all off anyway. I was actually fired vice being laid off because of a clerical mistake on my application...I left an acronym off my level of security clearance and they accused me of falsifying a federal document and fired me (conviniently enough in the same month the rest of the team was laid off). They also threatened to "sic" a federal attorney on me for the "falsification" which cost me four thousand dollars in legal fees although no action was ever taken.

The company I currently work for was great. Excellent company culture, great company parties that usually ended up with the CEO plunking down his AmEx at a hotel bar and telling everyone the company would pick up drinks all night and cabs for everyone who needed one. Good vacation package and benefits. First name basis with my division vice president, I play poker with him every once in awhile. Ate hot dogs at the CEO's house during a company cook-out. Very cool family environment. The company is a leader in local charity work with Teardrops to Rainbows, Breast cancer research and the local (DC) military hospitals. We were recently aquired by another huge corporation, which means that in a year or so, it'll just be another Lockheed.

That's why employees no longer have any loyalty. Our employers - more often than not - don't show us any. If they will lay me off or sell me out when it'll give them a .00000000002% blip on their company-wide profits, I'll happily move on every time someone else is willing to throw a little more money at me.