Some tech workers questioned whether UPS drivers deserved high pay — others jumped in to note the importance of the jobs and harsh working conditions.
As a tech worker, I’m super happy they’re being compensated so well. We’re witnessing the power of workers organizing and I’m loving it. I would like to see unions in tech become a thing, but it’s impossible to organize anything with the people here and talking about it openly will get you fired for “completely unrelated” reasons.
At my work I’m the office guy and I work closely with our service techs out in the field. I’m acutely aware they earn more than me and honestly, they deserve every penny of it. My broken old ass isn’t getting on a roof any time soon 🤣
“This is disappointing, how is possible that a driver makes much more than average Engineer in R&D?” a worker at the autonomous-trucking company TuSimple wrote on Blind, an anonymous job-posting site that verifies users’ employment using company emails. “To get a base salary of $170k you know you need to work hard as an Engineer, this sucks.”
Maybe get organized, and you can get better pay too.
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…
Doesn’t it take at least a decade of working in the warehouse to get a seat in a truck? And how many years do you need to drive before you reach that salary? Tech workers can earn six figures right out of college.
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.
