UPS Fact File. The big Brown Lie

Found this on the "big brown lie" sometime ago but had forgotten where I'd filed it.

The website http://www.thebigbrownlie.com/ doesn't seem to be active any more.

There are some recognisable themes in there

I'm guessing this maybe a good 10 years old

UPS FACT PAGE

Data compiled from Department of Labor, various media stories, Aaron Freeman, and the AFL/CIO Website

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INJURY STATISTIC'S

• On average one UPS employee is killed on the job each month
• Over 60,000 UPS employees are injured on the job annually
•  Thousands of injuries go unreported due to threats and intimidation from UPS management
•  According to the National Academy of Science: The national injury rate is 8 injuries per 100 employees, or 8:100
• UPS’s injury rate is 15:100 employees
• Into the 90’s UPS was the highest fined company by OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) with over 1300 citations, 1/3 of those were “serious” in nature.
• In 1994 in order to avoid a contempt ruling in Federal court UPS was fined $3 million for their repeated failure to comply with the Government mandated Hazardous Material Spill Program
• According to a Cornell University study-Former UPS workers missed an average of 275 workdays A PIECE due to injuries sustained at UPS
• UPS pays out over $1 million A DAY in worker compensation claims
• OSHA receives more complaints from workers at UPS than from any other company
• UPS has an occupational injury rate 3 times that of the transportation industry
• UPS has one of the worst HAZMAT violation records in the industry
• Young, new workers are becoming disabled for life at an alarming rate from injuries received while at UPS
• UPS drivers lead the industry in alcohol and substance abuse associated with stress at UPS
• UPS drivers rank in the top 9% of most stressed adults in the nation
• 1.8 million worker suffer workplace injuries, 600,000 of those injuries are “ergonomic related” such as repetitive motion, and carpal tunnel syndrome
• Between 1972 and 1996 UPS spent over $4.6 million for fines levied against them
• 85% of the injuries at UPS are “ergonomic” in nature
• UPS raised the weight limit of its packages from 50lbs to 150lbs, which injury rates increased as well
• The average value of a UPS workers life is $5,000
•  In Chicago a brand new employee (described as barely more than a "boy") serving his 30 day probation died of heat exhaustion while unloading a truck during one of Chicago's heat waves. He was required to meet the standard of unloading 2000 packages per hour in order to make probation. OSHA fined the company $5000.
• Packages presently can weigh up to 150 pounds each. The company has refused to bargain over weight limits, reserving the right to require drivers to unload alone packages that could run 200 or more pounds. When challenged, management told the union that if the driver needed help, s/he could ask the customer to assist. Young, inexperienced workers are becoming disabled for life from injuries received at UPS, often their first real job.
• UPS has consistently stonewalled union demands for appropriate safety equipment such as decent seatbelts, seats, and tires, and has refused to retire from their fleet trucks that have only single cylinder brakes.
• The EEOC has filed a class action suit against UPS for violating the rights of disabled workers. Workers who suffer eye injury are entitled to be transferred to other jobs, but UPS has refused or failed to accommodate their disabilities.
• UPS has a rate of occupational injury that is three times that of the transportation industry.
• The National Coalition on Ergonomics, an employer association has worked to prevent OSHA from adopting standards intended to cut down on repetitive motion injuries. Among the main corporate opponents of sensible repetitive motion injury regulations has been UPS, which is among the leading violators of OSHA regulations.
• The average penalty for a serious violation is $709, according to "Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect," a new report by the AFL-CIO.

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Political influence vs. safety statistics:

• Ergonomic injuries account for all serious workplace injuries and cost society approximately $50 billion each year
• Ergonomic injuries affect women the most who make up less than 50% of the workforce, but account for 1/3 of the total workplace injuries
• UPS facility in Lenexa Kansas was fined $140,000 by OSHA for deplorable working conditions that were resulting in an injury rate of almost 20:100 employees, thus began UPS’s venture into the ergonomic arena battling OSHA, and the public interest
• UPS sued OSHA in Federal court over the “Lenexa Kansas citation”, and the Federal judge ruled that since no “ergonomic” standard existed for workers all citations were dropped, and OSHA began working on ergonomic standards
• Head of OSHA during President Bush (’92), Dorothy Strunk, drafted language protecting American workers from ergonomic injuries, and begun to fight and force companies to incorporate these provisions to protect American workers from further ergonomic injuries
• UPS realized the monetary cost to their business would cost their shareholders $3 billion, they headed the 300 company members of the National Association of Manufacturers Coalition on Ergonomics to battle OSHA, and the “ergonomic issue”
•  40 UPS drivers sued UPS in Federal court for ergonomic injuries from the design flawed computer clipboard
• UPS joins ranks with US Congressman (R) Peter Hoekstra, with a former U.S Attorney named Joseph DiGenova who drafted the ergonomic defeating language in their successful attempt to destroy the Ergonomics Bill
• 1995, UPS’s PAC held 55 “meet and greet” sessions with members of Congress, spending about $450 per member, and then direct contributions of $4,550-just under the legal $5,000 limit
• 16 out of 17 members on the House Appropriations Subcommittee looking at these rules who attended UPS’s “meet and greet” event voted for UPS
• (R) U.S Congressman Ballenger oversaw OSHA-drafted a bill to reduce OSHA’s power and remove any enforcement ability
• UPS donated $24,000 to Ballenger (ooohhh look that's him just there, above)
• (R) U.S Congressman Bonilla-drafted appropriations rider to prevent OSHA from collecting data from employees on ergonomic injuries
• UPS donated $14,250 to Bonilla (ooohhh look that's him just there as well, above)
• UPS sued OSHA again in Federal court to prevent OSHA from collecting further ergonomic injury data, which 85% of UPS workplace injuries are ergonomic in nature
• From 1991 to 1996 UPS contributed over $7.6 million to members of Congress
• 1993-94 UPS’s PAC was the largest contributor to congressional candidates-$2.65 million
• 1995-96 UPS gave over $575,000 to supporters of “Ballenger Bill”
• UPS handed out more than $3 million for the 2000 elections with 73% going to Republicans
• Teamster General President James P. Hoffa joins UPS in refusing to address skyrocketing injury rates (refer to news article enclosed)
•  Teamster General President James P. Hoffa appoints OSHA killer hired gun, Joseph DiGenova, to the IRB overseeing union corruption, which the position is paid for by members dues money to the tune of $100,000 a year plus a union retirement
• UPS was found to have illegally contributed to James P. Hoffa’s election campaign in 1996
•  Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa was a former labor attorney representing UPS and ATA member, Yellow Freight againstUPS employees
• UPS hired Eugene Scalia, son of U.S Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, as a lobbyist to defeat ergonomics
• UPS attempted to endow a chair at the University of Washington and fill it with their bought M.D, and hired consultant, Stanley Bigos, who testified against the ergonomics standard in the House
• UPS and their Coalition is lobbying for the for the application of “cost benefit analysis” or worker death to cost to profit ratio
• UPS claimed publicly that the national ergonomic standard would cost its shareholders $3 billion
• UPS was the top contributor in the 2000 US Presidential Election- transportation sector: UPS $3,135,569
• Ergonomic injuries affect mainly lower wage scale workers, which is comprised mostly of minority and female workers
• UPS was the #1 political contributor while being a member of the NAMCE, the 300 company coalition headed by UPS
• UPS hires former OSHA head, DOROTHY STRUNK, as a consultant to attack and defeat the very language she drafted to protect workers from ergonomic injuries.  She’s paid over $60,000 as a UPS lobbyist (see documents enclosed)
• President Bush (’00) returns the favor to UPS and defeats the ergonomic bill affecting millions of American workers

 “Not a day goes by without a major fraud being reported in the mainstream media, with $100 million frauds coming around once a month or so. Corporate fraud costs the nation hundreds of billions. Compare that to street crime and burglary, which, according to the FBI, costs the nation $3.8 billion a year.”SOURCE~ Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor.          

UPS’s SOCIAL AND BUSINESS PRACTICES

• Annual turnover rate at UPS is 400%
• UPS’s association with National Welfare to Work campaign has hired more than 50,000 welfare recipients since the program began in 1997. Very few of those people remained by years end respectively.
• UPS receives incentives for hiring these people into “poverty” jobs
• Average weekly salary of the “welfare to work” employees was $104 after taxes per week. ($8.00 hr X 3.0 hour guarantee X 5 days – 25% with holdings and - $25 in union dues)
• Work place abuse, unsafe working conditions, and no hope for a FULL TIME job cited as reasons for leaving UPS
• UPS is routinely sued by the EEOC and various other Civil and Human rights agencies for violations, and discrimination
• RAINBOW PUSH Coalition is well known for attacking companies who violated minority’s civil rights, but it seems that UPS is a trading partner on their Board, and now has nothing to worry about from RAINBOW PUSH
• UPS’s main public relations firm, Edelman Public Relations Worldwide, is the volunteer firm for the UN Global Compact. The Compact is hoped to be a PR coup for “companies with tarnished public images to show to show their support for democracy and human rights” without ACTUALLY having to change their “practices”
• UPS is being sued in two separate class actions from previous customers who were over charged for insurance, which stems from UPS’s $1.8 billion tax evasion suit
• UPS was sued in two separate suits involving wage fraud regarding meal issues of drivers in New Jersey and Washington state, which have costUPS employees an estimated $3 billion
• Monopolistic practices: UPS is routinely suing foreign governments for “unfair, and monopolistic practices”, while expanding exponentially around the world, and at the same time keeping foreign companies out of the American market
• Workers at UPS who report unsafe working conditions, unsafe and illegal equipment, payroll fraud, and corruption are harassed and discharged often without help from the Hoffa controlled Teamsters union clearly in violation of Federal law

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Donation

Gratuity

Backhander

Sweetener

Kickback

Inducement

Fix

Payoff

Bribe