Following months of negotiations with Teamsters, UPS announced in June that it would install air conditioning in new trucks starting next year. The company said it would send new trucks to the hottest parts of the country first, if possible. The company also said it would retrofit its existing package cars with cab fans, exhaust heat shields, and cargo area ventilation.

“While these improvements will make a difference in the months and years ahead, we had to fight like hell to secure them,” the Teamsters union said in its social media post Thursday. “Chris Begley should still be alive to experience them. All companies, including UPS, need to remember that their past failings to protect workers can have deadly serious consequences in the future.”

Chris Bagley should still be alive and it’s a damn shame the Teamsters failed to protect him from social murder. Only new trucks? Only next year? They drove trucks without fans, heat shields, and ventilation? What the fuck.

The Teamsters could have, at the very least, demand a total halt on driving trucks without fucking fans. “Oh but that’ll cause package delays!” Well I guess we just have to murder drivers for the sake of logistics.

If anyone tells me how great and historic the new contract is one more fucking time I’ll fucking lose it.

  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.mlOP
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    1 year ago

    Drivers are regularly being hospitalized and murdered because the trucks are unsafe. Your union failed to put the health and safety of workers ahead of the company - like you said, the union isn’t going to bankrupt the company because they’re on the company’s side. Not the workers.

    • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      You sit here, typing away, demanding everyone man the barricades now.

      Ok. what have you done, personally, to improve drivers conditions?

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.mlOP
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        I can barely keep myself alive working in extreme heat on the production line, at best all I can do is agitate and highlight the class contradictions so people see the horrific conditions that workers continue to suffer under the new contract. I, myself, collapsed in a sobbing delirious wreck because my welding station didn’t even have a fan - just like this man! And what do I hear from other people? Victim blaming, saying its his own fault he died! Slander, saying he didn’t take care of himself and its his fault he didn’t know his limits!

        And if I had died when I collapsed at work last month, they’d have said the same thing. All. My. Fault.

        Fuck that.

        Inevitably more drivers are going to fucking die because the union sold out for a compromise contract instead of fighting for the health and dignity of all drivers! Instead of demanding climate control for everyone, they don’t even get fans.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.mlOP
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            Air conditioning only in new vehicles, so drivers in old vehicles will still die. Vehicles without basic heat protections like shielding and fans are still allowed on the road. No heat breaks. What am I looking for?

              • queermunist she/her@lemmy.mlOP
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                1 year ago

                Cute.

                The sellout contract still leaves many drivers in danger of heat related threats to health and safety, because it only mandates air conditioning in new vehicles. Old vehicles are still death traps and there’s no stipulations to forcibly retire old vehicles.

                And now another driver is dead. How many more will have to die before you admit your union failed?

    • AnonTwo@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      Some of the things he typed were regarding health and safety. I fail to see how they didn’t consider health and safety.

      And he’s right that it’s offputting how heavily you had put your shame on the people who got a lot for the employees, and virtually none of it on the company that fought to stop it.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.mlOP
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        They didn’t consider health and safety as an immediate concern. They considered it as secondary to the company’s profits, that’s why it’s going to take so long to get even basic heat protections like fans and heat shields. There shouldn’t have been a phase-in period. They should have grounded the fleet until they at least had some basic protection, if not full air conditioning.

        And the company’s managers should be in work camps, that goes without saying. Instead, they’re in bed with the union.

    • bbbbbbbbbbb@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      Health and safety starts by being able to show up to work and make money to live on, thats the US system. Its not the best system, but its what we have to work with and the union is making it better and better for us every contract. Talk to Fedex express employees, theyre going away. Talk to FE Ground or Amazon, DHL, whatever else is out there. They dont have it nearly as good as we got it at Big Brown.