Tech workers react to UPS drivers landing a $170,000-a-year package with a mixture of anger and admiration

Hey, I'm a union organizer at a tech company! Union support is more likely than you think in the industry. It's all about a strong OC forming connections with your coworkers. If you want to be the change, reach out to CODE-CWA!

I think there is real pressure to divide different workers. This article is just one I've been seeing that had this narrative. And no tech worker I know is angry.

The only thing I’m really afraid of is that with organization, they’d learn how little work I actually do.

Yeah this isn't a bad thing. If anything it's an excuse to ask for more. Tech workers are notoriously shit at unionizing.

Definitely true. It's kind of like any physically intensive job that you can only keep up for so long before your body gets messed up to the point where you have to quit early. That "big money" isn't forever, it has to be saved up while it's earned for retirement later, which might be sooner rather than later due to physical disability.

Plus there's the lack of holidays, and in fact crazier work hours with fewer breaks and no days off during the holidays, because that's when there's the most shipping going on. Much harder than coding or other tech work in air conditioned rooms and breaks during holidays, etc.

Engineers are among the most atomized groups of workers I’ve ever interacted with. So many of them genuinely believe that they’re the smartest in the room, not matter who is in the room with them or what the topic is, and they believe they deserve more than anyone else. I’ve been working on radicalizing one of my engineer friends for close to a decade and the most I’ve gotten him to do is admit that things could be better. That said, my pops is also an engineer, and he’s an old school socialist, been supporting Cuba since the 60s, and is radical enough I can’t share some of his perspectives here and feel safe, so it is possible for engineers to have class consciousness. It might be harder for those who didn’t grow up subsistence farm laborers like my pops though…

By you! Thanks for making this comment. I thought I was going nuts with the deja vu.

And I’m posting from kbin, and not everything gets pulled in from lemmy communities. I checked before posting, but there wasn’t a post for me from kbin. Federation is still imperfect.

I was going to say, $49 for full time drivers and like $25 for part time. Part time meaning those guys waiting to get a route. That’s $52k for the people waiting for that big payday.

Also, the media who is obviously not on the unions side, is not mentioning that the pay increases are based on the end of the contract.

Drivers are not going to make 170k if the contract passes the vote. They will be making 170k in 10 years. Their base pay will increase 5% the first year, and then every year they will get a 75 cent raise.

Does anybody want to guess what inflation will drive tech engineers salaries to in 10 years?

If inflation continues as it has, UPS drivers will be locked into wage increases that don't beat inflation.

UPS is also experiencing record setting turnover rates for employees right now. They are giving write ups to employees en mass. Literally lines of workers waiting for their turn to receive their write up each morning.

The contract being called a massive win by the media, UPS, and the head of the Teamster's is actually bullshit. Very few drivers support it, and it will probably not pass the vote.