A 57-year-old UPS driver in Texas died after collapsing in the heat while making deliveries

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.

pinkdrunkenelephants,

An innocent man died and all I see here is petty company vs. teamsters BS

Why aren’t we talking about the fact a dude died in the heat trying to put food on his table? How about that?

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

That’s the underlying cause, but UPS uses the threat of poverty to force him to work himself to death. That can’t be overlooked.

pinkdrunkenelephants,

What can we the people do? Can’t we make it custom to leave cold water bottles for UPS drivers on our porches? Those squeezable ice packs? Wet towels, perhaps?

a_seattle_ian, (edited )

A lot of the pay and benefit increases come with an expectation that the worker will increase their productivity. US workers have been conditioned to blame themselves if they don’t meet these expectations and it has become baked into the work culture. We can not maintain the current imbalance in pay disparity and 1% wealth without structural changes but it’s culturally forbidden to even talk about this without being accused of being a communist. This paradigm has been created after decades of messaging from the system that supports the existing oligarchy - IMO.

Snapz,

Okay sure, but the headline doesn’t say if profitability was impacted?

Fucking capitalism takes another one, man…

uriel238,
@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/pictrs/image/5cf24fba-cda6-41d4-85ef-814b18ee0c65.jpeg

toxicbubble,

and only 8 years til retirement!

Rentlar,

Remember to refuse unsafe work. I know it’s Texas where the state doesn’t give a rat’s ass about labour protections, but the union is there to protect you from reprimands when you report that your workplace is unsafe.

The demand that EVERY truck nationwide, from Wisconsin to Florida to California needs to be fitted with A/C before work resumes is not a practical demand for the union to make since it’s needed way more in some places than others. Stop putting the blame of what UPS needed to do to prevent worker heat exhaustion deaths on the union. As a worker, if it’s above 37C/97F you’ve gotta put your tools down a few times a day, drink water and cool down, and call up your union rep or labour board if you don’t have a good place to be able to work safely.

uriel238,
@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Curiously when Trump appointed Gorsuch, a case came up in which a truck driver chose to abandon his truck and not freeze to death and was fired for it. Gorsuch ruled in favor of the company.

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

Don’t act like the union had to make this compromise. They chose to because they didn’t want to strike and hurt the company, because class collaborationist unions always seek to reach a happy middle ground.

UPS should have been dragged over the coals, not compromised with.

Rentlar,

86.3% voted in approval to ratify this contract, so I don’t see how this was a compromise, really.

DLSchichtl,

OP doesn’t understand yet that life and all its petty squabbles are far more complex than what appears on the face. They don’t yet understand that cooperation between entities of such vast size requires give and take. The tiny tankie in their heart only has the “take” part down.

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

Votes don’t happen in a vacuum. The rank-and-file were heavily encouraged to ratify and told this was as good a deal as they could get, all radical elements have been purged so there wasn’t exactly an organized “vote no” campaign to push for more radical demands, and the new contract is legitimately better than the old one.

This is a sad example of American workers being too beat down to imagine justice.

That’s kind of why I feel like I need to highlight this tragedy. American workers need to be made to see how bad things actually are so they stop settling for sellout contracts.

Potatos_are_not_friends,

Don’t worry everyone.

His body was moved aside and another person replaced him immediately to ensure their is no disruption to your service. Like cogs in a machine.

PP_BOY_,
@PP_BOY_@lemmy.world avatar

I’m very glad to hear this news. I was worried that my Chewy package would be a day late

PrettyBlackDress,

post office wants that mail delivered man. No matter what. I once had to deliver the mail in a hellish thunder storm while everything was flooding. I called the carrier helping me and I asked " do they expect us to deliver the mail in this?" And he was like yea.

As far as the heat here’s my fucking solution

Make it mandatory for the offices to supply the trucks with fucking AC

They are so dam cheap and keep repairing the old trucks with no air conditioning

StringTheory,

Does UPS deliver for the post office? I thought UPS and USPS were separate entities?

ElderWendigo,

UPS is not the post office. USPS is the post office.

infuziSporg,
@infuziSporg@hexbear.net avatar

As a consumer I would feel sick knowing that people died due to hazardous conditions in shipping me stuff. Nothing I can ever buy is worth someone’s life.

catreadingabook,
catreadingabook avatar

Yes, but, what about those poor little multibillion dollar corporations who need their spam mail delivered RIGHT NOW? All these workers trying to, "not die," is getting in the way of their profits!! :(

whenigrowup356,

I get your anger, and I’d just argue that the best place to put that anger is solidarity. Anything less and they’re winning.

The institutions we use to fight for workers will always suck at least a little bit. Even people who mean well still suck at least a little bit. But we gotta fight with the tools we have, not the ones we want.

I don’t mean “shut up and take it,” I mean show up tomorrow ready to keep fighting.

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

Keep fighting? The contract won’t be up for negotiation again for a long fucking time. This was a chance to fight and they blew it.

Solidarity to the drivers. The rank-and-file needs to retake the union from class collaborationist sellouts, the fight isn’t just against UPS but against its agents within the union.

TimeMuncher2,

Why don't vehicles have some sort of heat shielding on the roof? even a car becomes like an oven if it sits out in the sun for an hour. Any vehicle should at minimum have a good heat protection at the roof so that the vehicle roof doesn't transfer heat below and heat up the interiors.

FleetingTit,

The UPS vehicles are open. The roof itself shields the driver from a lot of harmful radiation, but if they deliver in 100°F+ weather, basically everything around them will radiate heat: the cars, the asphalt, the concrete. A heat shield on the roof would be pointless.

Bbbbbbbbbbb,

Man STFU. Its sad that Chris died and is always preventable, but in the end it does come down to taking care of yourself and knowing your own bodies limits. The union isnt going to strike to bankrupt the company until every truck gets AC, trucks not equipped with fans is not a condition that makes trucks undrivable, and dont put the blame on the union for any of this.

This is the best contract we’ve had in years, and historically, it is the best we’ve ever had. We got 60 concessions in the next contract, including improved safety features, all cars must have a fan within 30 days of ratification, 2 within 3 months, all part timers are now starting at $21, drivers are no longer being forced to work 6 days a week, we eliminated the unfair 2 tier pay system for drivers, seasonal vehicle drivers are now seasonal only and part timers get first dibs at those positions, and many other items i cant remember.

Do not slander my union

VoxAdActa,
VoxAdActa avatar

I was a Teamster when I worked for Sygma, and out of all the unions I've been a member of (four, now), the Teamsters were the motherfucking worst. If they were actively trying to take a revolving door of 18- and 19-year-olds just getting their first big-boy jobs and turn them into all into die-hard anti-union voters for life, they couldn't do a better job than they're doing right now, and I told my steward that before I quit.

They designed the whole contract specifically to offload all the real work onto the new guys, protect the older guys when they decided to throw hands on the loading dock, and give as much overtime as possible to the ancient, divorced boomers with no family to go home to, that they could spend pretending to sweep the floors while the trainees finished the actual loading. Guys would bid order picking, then use seniority to bump bid loads/receivers off their jobs and wouldn't pick a single case for the whole contract, while getting paid picker bonuses and shift differentials.

And just to rub salt into the wound, those perks (bumping lower guys off their bid jobs and "sweeping the floor" during overtime) were specifically written out of the latest contract, so only the guys hired under the previous contract would ever get to do them. They straight robbed those kids of even anything to look forward to if they toughed out the low-seniority years. They also negotiated a different pay scale for under 5 years, 5-10 years, and 10 years in, and you can guess which end of that they weighted the raises toward. It was a complete shitshow, and when kids would quit, the Teamsters would keep their initiation fee (taken out of the first three paychecks). You could call to try to get it back, but the best they'd do would be to put it towards your initiation fee for your next Teamster job, as if any of those kids would ever willingly subject themselves to that shit ever again.

AND THERE'S MORE. I just don't feel like typing up a fucking novel on it. Don't even get me started on the shady shit they did during the contract negotiations I was actually present for. It was worse than maddening; it felt like it was specifically crafted by the senior guys to make sure that ladder was pulled up as high as they could behind them, while not actually making any waves for the company. And the safety issues they ignored and covered up, and the fancy fucking "union meetings" they never told anyone about so that they were only attended by the office reps, because they were being held at the most expensive restaurants in the city, on the union's dime, and the number of stewards who were literally fucking floor supervisors, and on, and on, and on....

UIW was kind of spineless and milquetoast, but they took care of us. The Teamsters are fucking old-school mob racket motherfuckers who are single-handedly responsible for an entire generation of workers who think all unions are a scam.

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

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.

AnonTwo,

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,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

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.

deft,

So blame the UPS you fuckin goon

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

Sure, management should be in work camps and forced to pay back their debts to society.

deft,

nobody in this thread agrees

grow up admit fault

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

lol are you trying to peer pressure me?

deft,

if everyone says your breath smells like shit and you can’t smell it, your breath smells like shit.

peer pressure? what a dumb fuckin thing to try and use as defense. shut up

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

If a bunch of libs tell me I’m wrong and that I’m dumb and I should shut up, good! I welcome their hatred. 😘

deft,

hide behind that then

too bad I’m not a fuckin lib you assuming idiot lol

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

“I’m not a lib!”

🤣

deft,

👍

Alto,
Alto avatar

Blaming the teamsters here sure is a creative take, I'll give them that

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

If you hire a bodyguard to protect you and he stands aside while you get murdered, do you not blame the bodyguard for failing to protect you? Obviously the murderer is the murderer, but the bodyguard is a failure and shouldn’t be trusted to do his job.

Bbbbbbbbbbb,

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.

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

He isn’t going to be able to show up to work and make money to live on ever again.

Pons_Aelius,

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

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

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

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.

Bbbbbbbbbbb,

Go read the contract

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

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?

Bbbbbbbbbbb,

Well you should be looking for the contract, for one

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

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?

Pons_Aelius, (edited )

Sorry, you are only attacking the teamsters here?

Not a single word against the fucking company that would have done nothing and would have changed nothing in the future if not for the teamsters pushing for change?

jeffw,

Seriously, this sort of absolutist shit is stupid. So what do we do? We all stop working unless our work conditions are 100% perfect? It’s like people who constantly call for a general strike to change society. Sure, if you’re rich and can afford to stop working, that’s great for you. The rest of us fight for the changes we can get.

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

Well he didn’t stop working and look at where that got him.

chase_what_matters,

You’ve got bad takes, bro.

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

A man is dead.

chase_what_matters,

No shit and it’s not the first time. The union exists to progress its workers rights. Progress is progress. Perfect is the enemy of good, compadre. Fuck.

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

They could have gotten more if they had the guts to strike.

ZzyzxRoad,

Wtf is this thread. I will never understand people who will try to justify shit like this. What does the average person think they’re getting out of fighting against better working conditions and higher pay? This is why it’s so funny when Americans say they aren’t affected by propaganda. Only other countries have that.

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

Joe Biden told them the contract is good and historic, so it must be true.

agent_flounder,

Straw man bs.

How about we quit working while our conditions can be deadly.

Are you seriously going to argue that that is unreasonable? Cmon.

persolb,

If you delete the word ‘Texas’ many of us would probably just see this as unfortunate. If you’re over the age of 30 you probably grew up without ANY air conditioning, even where the temperature exceeded 100F a few days a year.

I’ve never been to Texas, so maybe this place is more like the Sahara than the east coast US.

escapesamsara,

You almost definitely did not do constant work outside, or especially in an oven, when it was 100F even in your made up world where there was no AC 30 years ago. At 100F 30% humidity you take breaks in the shade every 20 minutes for 20 minutes or you just die as a human. That humidity goes up 10% or that temp (lets say in an unairconditioned truck) goes up 10 degrees, and you literally cannot sweat away the heat, your body has no actual way to cool itself off no matter how much water you drink or how cold that water is.

persolb,

Maybe my area was poorer than average over something, but we had no AC and I didn’t know anybody who did. If it was 100F, we went to a matinee because it was air conditioned. Mailmen still delivered even on those days. Granted, that is probably on average less weight.

But as I said, I’m not in Texas either.

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

I called it social murder. If there was any justice UPS would be nationalized and its management put in prisons.

mikeboltonshair,

Lol you have the worldview of a 12 year old… for your sake I hope you are 12

Tikiporch,

Why would UPS be nationalized when we have the USPS?

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

To remove the profit motive.

AngryCommieKender,

To teach Amazon, DHS, and FedEx the lesson not to abuse their workers. Also Dejoy is shutting down the only Post Office in IB, and trying to shut down the USPS, so we really don’t have the USPS

irmoz,

Yeah, literally, what did Teamsters do wrong, here?

ZzyzxRoad,

So UPS will only put ac in new trucks, sometime next year, and possibly get them to the hottest parts of the country, and old trucks will get “cabin fans” (?).

I know negotiations must be really difficult. I know everyone is relying on their jobs and paychecks to survive. But it seems like too often these corporations get away with half measures and vague promises because even when we revoke our labor, they’re still the ones in control. Workers from a company like UPS seem like they should have more control than most though. Shutting down deliveries across the US indefinitely is a pretty big threat. So maybe they could have gotten better results.

irmoz,

The responsibility ultimately lies with UPS, though

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

The union has a responsibility to protect workers from UPS.

phillaholic,

No, they have a responsibility to fight for protections for workers. They can’t implement it, UPS has too. Put your emphasis on UPS.

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

A responsibility they failed because they gave up the fight instead of striking.

phillaholic,

Again, it’s UPS fault ultimately. It’s absurd to blame the union for not forcing UPS to do something over UPS not doing it in the first place.

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

The union exists to force the company to do anything in the first place! That’s their only job! If UPS murders drivers it’s because the union didn’t strike and force them to stop.

More drivers will die because they didn’t strike and force UPS to make its fleet safe.

phillaholic,

You’re blaming the Union for UPS killing drivers.

Take a step back and think about that.

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

I’m blaming the union for not striking.

phillaholic,

Why do they need to strike in the first place? Because of UPS. You’re falling into the trap.

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

What trap? You said it yourself, they need to strike.

And they didn’t.

phillaholic,

They needed to strike in the first place because UPS was doing something wrong. You’re not putting your emphasis on the ultimate party that is in the wrong. You’re attacking the middleman which is the only reason the workers have any power at all. Either you’re falling for the trap like UPS and other big businesses want you to, or you’re anti-union and are arguing in bath faith.

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

I’m attacking class collaborators for getting a bad deal when they could have fought for a better one.

Don’t act like unions have to be above criticism. They need to be critiqued so they can improve.

phillaholic,

They aren’t above criticism, they are above blame when the Employer is to blame. If you can be confused for Anti-Union, your tactics need to change. This is the exact garbage being pushed to spread apathy to workers forming unions. Teamsters got a lot for UPS drivers.

queermunist, (edited )
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

They share the blame when they collaborate with the employer and act as the company’s PR and HR departments.

The anti-union and splitter interpretation of this reality is that this is a reason to not join the union or to form a splitter org (with blackjack and hookers etc), but I think it’s the opposite; this is a reason to agitate the union membership to transform it from within and to push the union to abandon class collaboration. It’s still a labor organization even if it is captured by corporate and nationalist interests. Unlike idiots who think the Democratic Party can be changed from within, there’s historical and materialist foundation for this tactic. The union needs to be taken back, not abandoned.

You can’t just ignore the fact that the union leadership pushed for a bad contract. Nor can you ignore the fact that every other interested party, from the corporate media to the literal President of the US, pushed for this contract.

Critical support, not blind support.

phillaholic,

I disagree entirely, but youre entitled to your opinion.

irmoz,

This comment acknowledges that UPS is doing the oppression, yet still somehow blames someone else

Amazing

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

The Teamsters share the blame for selling out instead of striking for safe working conditions. Deal with it.

irmoz,

I may agree that they share the blame, but their share is significantly smaller.

wintermute_oregon,

If nothing else, ups should have done this is avoid workman’s comp claims.

I was shocked to find out they didn’t have AC

dudewitbow,

Iirc older trucks didnt, the upcoming trucks they have coming in should. I dont think the company has made a wide switchover to the new trucks yet.

I believe the transition starts next year. It was a very recent initiative. Old trucks are supposed to at leat get fans.

klyde,

The new trucks aren’t even out yet. They didn’t have AC for decades bro. You seem to be downplaying this for some reason. Literal decades.

dudewitbow,

Im not downplaying anything. Im just answering if the trucks have AC yet. What makes you think that Im siding with UPS of all companies?

wintermute_oregon,

I don’t know the life span of an ups truck.

A fan can actually make things worse. When it becomes super heated, the fan can increase the heat.

dudewitbow,

Its worse if you cant sweat due to saturation of the air. The main benefit of the fan is to blow off sweat off the body so it can generate new sweat beads

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