By David Loyd, UPS Freight, Local 150, Sacramento, Calif.

We here in the South Sacramento service center need to be added to the report on UPS Freight subcontracting. In the past seven months we have lost 10 road jobs.

Prior to June, 2008, our terminal had three sleeper teams scheduled to Harrisburg, Penn., two to Kansas City, Kan. (making a turn and a half), and two to Dallas (also making a turn and a half).

The Harrisburg and Dallas teams are now doing halfway meets with teams from those service centers. That’s close to a 50 percent cut in pay. The rest of the freight we used to move on teams is being moved by Landspan, CRST, or by rail. Our Kansas City schedules are now being moved directly by Landspan and CRST.

Our Denver freight is being moved by HVH out of Denver. We had extra board runs going to Portland, Ore. every other day—one starting on Monday morning and the other on Tuesday. Now that so-called “overflow” freight is being put on Werner trailers. That’s eliminated at least two jobs a week from the extra board.

We asked management about losing the runs and were told they can do this because there’s no return freight. That’s not true. With the sleeper work, when we had scheduled runs, we had freight going both ways. We grieved on it but it’s been 16 months and no word on any decision.

It’s clear from the reports from other service centers that what we face in South Sacramento is just about the same as everywhere. Management is dispatching to reduce or eliminate our union jobs. This has been unfolding almost since the ratification of our contract. It’s time for the IBT to show us what they mean by union power and that starts with challenging UPS freight on subcontracting.

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