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.
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.
Go read the contract
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?
Well you should be looking for the contract, for one
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?