Jason Flynn loves one aspect of his part-time job as a UPS package sorter: He was able to get it in 15 minutes.
What he doesn’t love, he said, is earning $18 an hour pay to move 70-pound packages every few seconds, the “noxious” air from the exhaust of trucks and the “supervisors yelling at you to keep it moving.” Since suffering an injury earlier this year, Flynn said he has been able to work only one or two shifts a week at his Chicago facility, and has to supplement his UPS pay with dog-walking or food-delivery gigs.
“I have to constantly make up the money elsewhere,” the 32-year-old told CBS MoneyWatch. “I’ve been in near-poverty for a long time…. I would bike 40 minutes each way to work instead of taking the train,” adding, “I haven’t paid my rent yet this month.”
Flynn is among the thousands of part-time employees at UPS pushing for higher pay as the Teamsters union, which represents 340,000 UPS workers, and the delivery giant resume contract negotiations next week. If no deal is reached by July 31, the union has vowed to walk off the job in what would be America’s biggest strike in 60 years.
The major outstanding issue is pay, particularly for part-time UPS workers, who make up 60% of the company’s workforce, according to the Teamsters.
Read more at CBSnews.com
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