Express giants raise salaries dramatically! It involves 340,000 employees, and the annual salary of "old driver" who has worked for 5 years is 1.27 million yuan, plus paid leave
United Parcel Services (UPS) is the world's most valuable courier giant, handling nearly 25% of all packages in the United States, with approximately 24 million packages per day. But as inflation rises in the United States, the company also faces the problem of increased employment costs.
Under UPS's latest collective bargaining agreement with its employees, the new contract will raise the starting salary of part-time workers from the current contract wage of $15.50 to $21 (about 153 yuan) an hour, and the maximum hourly wage for full-time employees will rise to $49 an hour. An experienced freight driver earns up to $175,000 (1.27 million yuan) a year in salary and benefits, more than a high-paying profession such as a programmer.
Drivers can earn up to $175,000 a year
On Tuesday, UPS's union approved a new five-year collective bargaining agreement that sharply raised pay and ended tight negotiations that pushed the company to the brink of strike. Teamsters, which represents the interests of 340,000 United Parcel employees, said in a statement that about 86 percent of employees voted in favor of the deal.
The agreement shows that an experienced freight driver earns $49 an hour at the end of the five-year term and earns about $175,000 per year in salary and benefits. In addition, workers received other benefits, including additional paid time off and a commitment by UPS to install air conditioning in the new cars it buys starting next year.
Specific terms of the agreement include:
Existing full-time and part-time UPS truck drivers will earn $2.75 more per hour by 2023. The total wage increase was $7.50 per hour during the term of the contract.
Existing part-time workers will immediately increase to no less than $21 per hour and up to a maximum of $23 per hour.
The average maximum wage for full-time drivers rose to $49 an hour, and UPS truck drivers became the highest-paid delivery drivers in the United States.
In addition to the new hourly raise, UPS truck drivers who are currently part-time will receive a long-term raise of up to $1.50 per hour.
Some drivers (all UPS Fraternity member drivers classified as 22.4) will be immediately reclassified as regular chartered drivers, ranked by seniority, ending UPS's unfair two-tier pay system.
Safety and health protection, including vehicle air conditioning and cargo ventilation, UPS will equip all large delivery vans, sprinters and packing vans purchased after January 1, 2024 with cab air conditioning. All cars will have two fans, heat shields and air intake vents in the cargo compartment modified.
For the first time, all UPS truckers will have Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a full vacation. Overtime is no longer mandatory on member drivers' rest days.
Last month, UPS truckers nearly went on strike as labor negotiations stalled. According to the union's original plan, if the two sides fail to reach an agreement by July 31, the union will organize a general strike, which will be the largest strike in the United States in 60 years, and CBS News said that the resulting economic damage could be in the billions of dollars.
Union members have always been at odds with UPS on pay, and the company's profits have soared in recent years, and the Associated Press said the change in home shopping brought about by the pandemic has boosted UPS's profits by more than 140%.
On July 15, UPS made headlines when it offered workers a good-paying contract at the last minute, raising the average annual salary of the company's full-time workers to about $170,000. The five-year preliminary agreement still needs to be voted on by union members. Voting began on 3 August and closed on 22 August. The vote mentioned at the beginning of this article is the final result of this vote.
Some tech workers noted on social media that the raise could make UPS drivers' salaries more competitive with white-collar workers. An employee of a self-driving truck startup wrote on social media: "This is so disappointing, how can a driver earn much more than the average engineer in R&D?" To get a base salary of $170,000, you know that as an engineer you need to work hard, which is terrible. ”
Another wrote, "I'd love to see your dad, who has been delivering for UPS for more than 35 years, delivering hundreds of packages in Texas temperatures of more than 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius), literally Santa Claus in December, working more than nine hours a day at age 67." ”
According to job site Glassdoor, the average median salary for software engineers in the United States is $103845, with a base salary of about $91,958.
In the two weeks since the deal was reached, "UPS driver jobs near me" became a popular search on Google.
UPS net profit fell nearly 30% in the first half of the year
On August 8, Beijing time, United Parcel Service (UPS) disclosed financial data for the second quarter and first half of 2023. According to the financial report, UPS's total revenue in the second quarter of this year was $22.1 billion, down 10.9% year-on-year, and net profit was $2.08 billion, down 26.8% year-on-year; Total revenue for the first half of the year was $44.9 billion, down 8.4% year-on-year, and net profit was $3.976 billion, down 27.9% year-on-year.
According to a new report by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), demand in the intra-Asian market was weak despite the improved performance of the Asia-North America trade lane. Looking back at the first half of 2023, freight demand in Asia Pacific fell by 6.5% year-on-year. This has also affected UPS's international express business. According to UPS financial report data, the total revenue of its international express business in the first half of this year reached 8.958 billion US dollars, down 10% year-on-year. Adjusted operating profit decreased 26.4% year-over-year to $1,708 million.
The impact of the strike by UPS union employees on UPS's total revenue continues. UPS said in its earnings report that it is currently updating its full-year 2023 consolidated revenue and adjusted operating margin targets, mainly to reflect the impact of labor bargaining on sales and costs related to the temporary contract it just agreed with the truckers' union on July 25.
UPS now expects consolidated revenue of approximately $93 billion and adjusted operating margin of approximately 11.8% for the full year 2023.
Editor|Lu Xiangyong Du Hengfeng Proofreader|Liu Siqi
Daily economic news is synthesized from Cai Lian News, Securities Times, 21st Century Business Herald
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