A TikTok consumer who says he’s a driver for UPS is searching for to set the report straight concerning the pay bump promised to staff after the Teamsters union, which represents about 340,000 UPS employees, threatened a serious strike.
The delivery large reached a take care of the union on July 25 that will improve the compensation of UPS Teamsters, together with supply drivers. Throughout an earnings name, UPS CEO Carol Tomé mentioned the common full-time driver will earn round $170,000 yearly in pay and advantages by the top of the five-year contract.
That determine has triggered plenty of dialogue on social media, with some questioning whether or not supply drivers ought to be given such a excessive quantity.
Do not miss
TikTok consumer Skyler Lee Stutzman, who says he’s a driver for the parcel firm, took to the video-sharing platform to offer a his perspective of the brand new contract.
“$170,000 a 12 months is a little bit of an exaggeration,” he mentioned in a clip posted Aug. 11, which has been seen almost 15 million occasions and attracted greater than 25,000 feedback. “I’m going to do my finest to be clear concerning the wages that we make.”
Right here’s what Stutzman needed to say concerning the tentative UPS contract being voted on by union members.
Doing the mathematics
In his present contract, Stutzman claims to make $41.51 an hour. Underneath the brand new tentative labor deal — which may very well be ratified as soon as voting ends on Aug. 22 — he says his pay would improve to $44.26 an hour. He then multiplies that hourly price by 2,080 hours (40 hours per week) to succeed in an annual pay of about $92,000.
Story continues
Per contract phrases shared by the Teamsters, full-time staff would see a wage improve of $2.75 an hour in 2023, which mirrors Stutzman’s declare. Over the size of the contract, wage will increase would complete $7.50 an hour.
The union says the deal would enhance the common high price for supply drivers to $49 per hour. At that price, working 40 hours per week would pay simply shy of $102,000 yearly.
“However that’s not together with time beyond regulation,” Stutzman identified. “It’s additionally not the essential half we’re lacking right here.
“One of many different issues that lots of people don’t think about is our medical insurance coverage and our pension.”
Learn extra: People are spending a ridiculous $253/month extra on groceries. However this straightforward hack can flip your demanding every day spending right into a golden nest egg
He says UPS pays between $11 and $13 an hour towards pensions of full-time staff. If the hourly pension contribution is $12 and that’s paid out for two,080 hours, that will come to an extra $24,960 a 12 months in pension contributions. For its half, UPS says it contributes greater than $23,000 a 12 months to every full-time worker’s pension plan.
As for medical insurance coverage, Stutzman doesn’t give an estimate — however a survey commissioned by the Kaiser Household Basis discovered the common annual premiums for employer-sponsored medical health insurance in 2022 have been $7,911 for single protection and $22,463 for household protection.
“You may rapidly see that it will truly take a few $170,000 a 12 months job to exchange this one for me,” Stutzman mentioned.
He added that, “whereas the media is making it just a little extra profound than it truly is,” he acknowledges he works for an “superb“ firm.
Hunt for greater wages
The explanation why Teamsters threatened to strike within the first place was to enhance advantages, pay and to ax UPS’s two-tier wage system for part-time and full-time employees.
“We anticipated negotiations with the Teamsters to be late and loud, they usually have been,” Tomé mentioned in the course of the earnings name, including that UPS has slashed its full-year income forecast “primarily to mirror the amount affect from labor negotiations and the prices related to the tentative settlement.”
The labor deal is the “single largest private-sector collective bargaining settlement in North America,” the union mentioned in a press launch.
Within the week after the tentative settlement was introduced, on-line jobs board Certainly noticed searches with the phrases “UPS” or “United Parcel Service” within the job title spike by greater than 50%, in accordance with knowledge obtained by Bloomberg.
Do not miss
This text gives data solely and shouldn’t be construed as recommendation. It’s supplied with out guarantee of any sort.