I don't think the problem is with drivers, by then the package is not under any stress. I think it has to happen in the trailers. The driver does have the responsibility to pull any damaged package and return it to their center clerk. As I said before, it's in no ones interest to piss off two people.
As far as wages. Drivers make $34.79 an hour, that's a national pay scale. If you were allowed to work the legal limit of 20 hours OT per week, that would be $126,000 per year. Our drivers are restricted to 9.5 hours total per day, except the 4 weeks before Christmas. I was an overtime hound and the last ten years I worked I made about 70K for five years, 80K for 3 years, 90K my last full year, my last year I retired November 1st, so I missed 2 months.
40 percent of UPS full time employees pension is through UPS. They get basically $100 per month per year of service. That's $3,000 per month for 30 years of service, or $36,000 per year. OK pension, but a long way from 6 figures. The other 60 percent of full time employees get their pension through their local union. My local, Teamsters Local 639, has the highest UPS pension in the country. We have had really good trustees for many years. If you retire under age 60, or with less than 30 years, you pay a 5% penalty for each year under age 60. You also have to pay a penalty on your health care for being under 60. My pension with no penalties is about $5500 per month, or 66000 per year. I still have to pay state taxes.
Very good wages, very good pension and health care.
That still doesn't explain how a driver can deliver guns to a gun shop and have virtually no damage, and deliver guns shipped by regular people and have damages. Of course you don't have to ship your guns in a crate. There are probably me and 3 other people in the country that do that. But, the 4 of us never have a damage.
You also keep mixing facts up. The drivers make $34.79 an hour and they are the least likely person to damage a package, because they have the most to loose.
A hub worker makes about $10 an hour and has much less to loose. He's probably only going to work there a couple months before he quits anyway. If your package goes from one Coast to the other, it may be loaded and unloaded 6 or 8 times. The trailer that gets loaded in Corvallis, OR, does not come all the way to Laurel MD, where I worked. It will go to a big hub, get off loaded, consolidated into a more direct load, reloaded then go to another big hub, repeat, till it gets to MD. When it gets to the first hub an unloader puts it on a belt. Then it goes through scanners and to a sorter. The sorter puts it on another belt going to the trailer to continue. Then another sorter takes it off that belt and puts it on a slide into the trailer. So, from coast to coast your package can be handled by 25 to 30 different people.
You should be able to expect your packages to be handled with respect. You are right and they are. One of our managers used to say "Treat every parcel as if it were an honored guest in your home."
Our building processes 60-70 thousand pieces for delivery every day. They process another 100 thousand pieces for shipment to other hubs every night.
The easy answer is to ship it Next Day Air, it will only be handled 5 or six times and not as many belts and slides. Second Day Air is much cheaper than NDA and still reduces handling.
And, that's all I can say about that, Joe.
Last edited by JoeMartin; 09/24/16.
