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UPS driver pay and benefits deal in US to be worth $170k a year, firm says

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Re: UPS driver pay and benefits deal in US to be worth $170k a year, firm says

#81
post #69
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would you be willing to when companies can easily allocate the record profits they have to wages?

Three reasons. (1) I can afford it. (2) The increase in price and latency will probably result in my ordering less stuff. (3) I doubt that any company is going to allocate a substantial portion of their profits without raising prices. If it’s between raising prices, which I can afford, and people who do difficult jobs I depend on not having an easier, fairer life, then I’ll choose the raised prices.

> The increase in price and latency will probably result in my ordering less stuff.

No, you just stated your generous intent. You have to order the same amount in order to properly support the UPS driver. Ordering less stuff will reduce the demand for UPS drivers, causing some to be fired. You have now harmed UPS drivers, treating them unfairly.

Re: UPS driver pay and benefits deal in US to be worth $170k a year, firm says

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market determines the "fair" wage of a delivery driver and it is not $175,000.

The fun thing about markets is that there's one for labor too, and apparently the labor market has decided otherwise.

It's the result of decades of union busting and pro-capital class propaganda. Everyone forgot labor is sold, and its price has only ever increased outside rare boom times by collective bargaining.

Re: UPS driver pay and benefits deal in US to be worth $170k a year, firm says

#83
post #73
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nobody's forcing anyone to do anything. It's just the free market, right?

There's nothing free about this.

What does that mean? Employers are raising wages in the free market. Unionized or not, the market is free - nobody is forcing companies to not unionize, and if that means more employee retention then the others better follow suit if they are keen enough. There’s no monopoly on who can have a union.

Re: UPS driver pay and benefits deal in US to be worth $170k a year, firm says

#84
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like they made $100B in revenue and $74B profit in 2022. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/UPS/ups/revenue UPS annual revenue for 2022 was $100.338B, a 3.14% increase from 2021. UPS annual revenue for 2021 was $97.287B, a 14.96% increase from 2020. UPS annual revenue for 2020 was $84.628B, a 14.22% increase from 2019. UPS annual gross profit for 2022 was $74.152B, a 3.08% increase from 2021. UPS annual…

You need to look at net profit not gross which is much smaller. The net profit margin 10%.

Why? Aren't salaries paid before obligations and taxes?

Re: UPS driver pay and benefits deal in US to be worth $170k a year, firm says

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not subsidizing, it's paying. I don't subsidize a roofer when I hire them, I pay them. So your question is "why should poor people have to pay UPS drivers a decent wage?" Which I predict you would argue that you think this is too much money/healthcare/retirement for a delivery driver.

The market determines the "fair" wage of a delivery driver and it is not $175,000.

Why do you say it is not 175K? How much should it be? Is it because you don’t want to pay that much?

Re: UPS driver pay and benefits deal in US to be worth $170k a year, firm says

#86
post #79
post #5

I will pay more for items to be shipped to me and wait longer for them to arrive if it means the UPS drivers are treated fairly.

Wow, that's incredibly generous of you. If I start listing out thousands of other professions that are not well paid, do you promise to loudly state your intention of generosity on an internet comment? It's the least you could do, after all.

Not OP, but yeah most definitely. And I have also started actively seeking out providers who pay a fair wage - for example I only get groceries at farmers markets. I sincerely wish they would do the same for clothing but that’s harder to find. It’s not my fault that capitalism makes it incredibly hard for me to do this by restricting the number of businesses that pay a fair wage, but I genuinely do my part. I don’t buy from Amazon anymore unless I have no choice. I’ve paid double the price at times just to avoid Amazon.

Re: UPS driver pay and benefits deal in US to be worth $170k a year, firm says

#87
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what people who have underpayed workers normally say. A pay upgrade for employees firsts lowers the income of the company and that's bad for owners and investitors, not the users. Users get higher prices way later in that game.

UPS will have to increase shipping costs which directly hurts the poor with their Amazon purchases.

Hogwash, most poor people stay the hell away from UPS. 99.99% of the time the USPS is a better deal when hurting for cash.

UPS could also just lower their profits a little, but somehow that’s blasphemy but laborers asking for more money is not? That’s an incredibly lopsided take.

Re: UPS driver pay and benefits deal in US to be worth $170k a year, firm says

#88
post #69
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would you be willing to when companies can easily allocate the record profits they have to wages?

Three reasons. (1) I can afford it. (2) The increase in price and latency will probably result in my ordering less stuff. (3) I doubt that any company is going to allocate a substantial portion of their profits without raising prices. If it’s between raising prices, which I can afford, and people who do difficult jobs I depend on not having an easier, fairer life, then I’ll choose the raised prices.

UPS has a lot of fixed costs and doing less business could hurt them more than making less profits. They have to start paying higher wages now because of the deal they made. Their customers likely can't absorb higher prices as quickly and like you point out will cause a decrease in business as people ship less. It's a balance for UPS and it very likely isn't "just raise prices to match".

Re: UPS driver pay and benefits deal in US to be worth $170k a year, firm says

#89
post #8
post #4

that's more what I'm payed as a senior dev ... maybe I should change career

No need for dramatic responses. If you JUST want money you can go make more in the trades. For the work we do as software engineers we are beyond well compensated.

speak for yourself. Local jobs (salary is monthly obviously):

  Hiring part time staff:
  - java script 6 people
  - Flutter Developer 3
  Working hours: 8:00am -5:00pm can negotiate
  Salary : 300$-700$
Not sure what full-time hours are, I guess 996 or whatever.

Re: UPS driver pay and benefits deal in US to be worth $170k a year, firm says

#90

One fact many people don't realize is that in order to achieve broad-based wage growth, we will have to face GDP losses. This is because there are many businesses that depend on cheap labor to exist. As wages rise, these businesses will start to fail, reducing GDP. We should see this scenario (wage growth with stagnant or decreasing GDP) as a healthy adaptation. The danger is that politicians will react to the bad GD…

> One fact many people don't realize is that in order to achieve broad-based wage growth, we will have to face GDP losses. This is because there are many businesses that depend on cheap labor to exist. As wages rise, these businesses will start to fail, reducing GDP. > We should see this scenario (wage growth with stagnant or decreasing GDP) as a healthy adaptation. The danger is that politicians will react to the ba…

> do we want to incentivize that young people aspire to this?

Honest question, why not? Someone has to do it for society to function. We can't all be software engineers and CEOs, why shouldn't the person driving the UPS truck feel satisfied with their accomplishments instead of constantly being told they are doing it because they either didn't put in the work to "better themselves" or couldn't hack it, as certain parts of our society currently seem to do when it comes to "unskilled labor"?

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