When it comes to wise warnings, we know two things for certain: never fight a land war in Asia and don't come for the person who spends 6-8 hours in a steaming-hot truck and carries heavy boxes upstairs for a living. One social media commenter is learning what the rest of the nation is about to find out -- UPS (UPS) -) drivers are not to be trifled with.
In a viral TikTok post, one driver speaks up about exactly why your UPS packages might start seeing delays -- he also bluntly talks about pay rate differences between full and part-time employees.
@juantrujillo027 Replying to @joeyboombatz68 #teamsters #sloidarity #ups #strike #amazon #fedex
♬ original sound - Juan Trujillo
When one commenter said that a full-time employee's hourly rate of $42/hour was more than he deserved, driver Juan Trujilio vehemently disagreed. "Yeah, $42 an hour is definitely not enough," he said. "We're gonna get a raise and we do every year by a dollar to $1.50 every year -- and it's going to be higher [this year.]"
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"[But] we're not going on strike because the drivers aren't getting their raise," he clarifies. He goes on to explain that raises for full-time drivers have already been negotiated. "We're going on strike [for the] part-timer only making $16 an hour and that's unacceptable."
"How the hell do you think we got the $42 anyway, by sitting back and accepting $35?" Trujillo continues. "No, we demanded what was ours and that's what we're doing now."
@juantrujillo027 Replying to @joeyboombatz68 #teamsters #sloidarity #ups #strike #amazon #fedex
♬ original sound - Juan Trujillo
In another video on the subject, Trujillo gave more context on UPS drivers' demand for higher wages. "When I say $42 an hour isn't enough, it's not because I can't live comfortably," he explains. "It's not enough based on the amount of revenue that we're producing for this company."
"During the pandemic, [UPS] made $100 billion and just kept that -- they didn't even work for it. Talking about their shareholders, [but] we were the ones loading the trucks. We were the ones delivering the packages."
"[Covid-19] was running through the hubs. People were catching it; some of them died[...] The drivers were out here dealing with the general public[...] contracted it and brought it back to our families, and some of them died."
"We're not the greedy ones," he tells viewers who may not understand the reason for a strike. "Were the ones that actually worked for that $100 billion."