UPS CEO says drivers will avg $170k in pay and benefits at end of 5-year deal | Hacker News Reader

UPS CEO says drivers will avg $170k in pay and benefits at end of 5-year deal

cnbc.com

26 pointskoolba70 comments

I find it senseless how bankers get billions of tax payers money and no one raises an eyebrow. But the moment your average worker starts to get a wage increase everyone screams inflation. Fed had flooded the market with money and brought along asset inflation for years but the moment nominal wages started to rise every Economists suddenly started to worry about inflation, as if the time to increase the rates were not 11 years ago in 2012.

Here is a Fed governor explaining how she can’t feel inflation anymore. It’s painful to watch the mental gymnastics. [1]

[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/feds-mary-daly-says-i-dont...

It’s about class and power. I’m still amazed at how brazen Powell is about it all.

Because bankers, like it or not, produce that much value. UPS drivers don’t, and are instead holding their company hostage to force them to pay them more, placing unnecessary restrictions on people entering the job market, which ultimately comes at the expense of everybody else in their market.

Produce that much value in what sense? In potential future value for whatever might use credit and other financial services, yes, I agree with you, but that's potential. Value useful right now is being provided by the people doing the work, not the ones playing around with figures to determine where value should be allocated.

Without those UPS drivers you don't have deliveries, with no deliveries there's no online sales, there's no movement of goods, this is actual proper value being produced in the real sense, not in an accounting spreadsheet somewhere.

UPS drivers, like it or not, produce that much value. Bankers don't, and are instead holding the economy hostage through abuse of insider information [0], regulatory arbitrage [1], and capturing short-term value via liquidity mismanagement [2] or creating long-term systemic risk via post-Glass-Steagall gambling on derivatives that eventually leaves shareholders and taxpayers holding the bag [3], which ultimately comes at the expense of everybody else in the economy.

[0] https://www.goldmansachs.com/investor-relations/corporate-go...

[1] https://www.atlantafed.org/-/media/Documents/news/conference...

[2] https://apnews.com/article/silicon-valley-bank-bailout-yelle...

[3] https://money.usnews.com/investing/stock-market-news/article...

I cannot figure out if this is sarcasm or serious. And now I am worried about my mindset and the HN hive mind.

It’s been like this for a while sadly. At this point I’ve read so much nonsense on this site by true believes, I’d wager on the latter.

Marginal cost does not equal marginal "value" in general. It only holds under specific circumstances.

> value

Horseshit. It is labor who produces value, value that is directed, sold for its surplus, and earmarked for profit to the pockets of the directors.

Can the CEO build the widgets?

If no, then stop bootlicking for a CEO class of which you will never likely (be invited to) join.

The reason we see so few folks complain about subsidies for banks/business is because it is banks/business that control the channels by which we consume that information.

We know China has its firewalls. Russia too.

American “info firewalls” are all purpose built to bolden consumer fetish for consumption and hide or mute dissent against corporate bailout/subsidy.

Similarly the logic flips on the pay increase depending on what end it is.

When the CEO gets a $5 million raise some will say "well now he will work more" (aka it's good)

When the laborer gets a $5 raise these people say "well now he will work less!" (aka it's bad)

This is consistent in their head because their fundamental belief is in a hierarchy as if it's by divine providence.

It also ties wages to morality. They imagine the rich are virtuous while the poor are immoral so the money goes to different ends.

It sounds so old timey and I agree, so call people out on it when you still hear it.

Here is a Fed governor explaining how she can’t feel inflation anymore.

Why is that a controversial statement? If you're rich the current rate of inflation simply isn't a problem for you. Rich people have so much money that even doubling the prices of most consumer goods won't affect their quality of life in the slightest. I thought that would be painfully obvious to everyone. Or is the controversy that she said the obvious thing everybody knew out loud?

If the comments in here are to believed and it's not just people trolling, it makes me pretty ashamed of our industry: https://www.autoblog.com/2023/08/09/ups-drivers-land-a-17000...

"This is disappointing, how is possible that a driver makes much more than average Engineer in R&D?" a worker at the autonomous trucking company TuSimple wrote on Blind, an anonymous jop-posting site that verifies users' employment using their company email. "To get a base salary of $170k you know you need to work hard as an Engineer, this sucks."

USP driving is taxing both mentally and physically. Sweltering heat, freezing cold winters, people screaming at you, manual labour.

They also don't understand the difference between total comp and base salary.

Total comp as a metric is almost always used to exaggerate the amount of compensation by adding things to salary/rate.

- Pension/401k/profit sharing contributions - Employer contribution to health insurance/life insurance - Vacation/sick time compensation

These aren't nothing, and you do want to have it available for the basis of total-comp to total-comp across employers, but they're _not_ the same as direct comp.

The people quoted in the article are making the category error of comparing salary to total comp. If an engineer is making 170K in direct comp, they're almost certainly making _way more than that_ in total comp. Insurance might be 10K. Profit sharing/401k could be up to another 15%. Other fringe benefits like health club membership could be thousands of dollars. You people who get options -- that counts, too.

> UPS’ CEO said drivers will average $170,000 in pay _and benefits such as health care and pensions_

> Full-time workers will average $49 an hour

$49/h × 2,000h = $98,000

The title of the article is a little exaggerated. How much of the $170k is "benefits" which should not be benefits but basic employer services.

Exactly. At this rate, we should include the cost of all the sexual predator (not sure of the exact technical term) lawsuits faced by ceo as a part of their compensation as well. As well as cost of lawsuits for wrongful deaths when talking about police pay. It is insured so they know the cost upfront…

Instead of taking the CEOs (!) word at face value, as a journalist one could also ask for the details of the deal from Teamsters and do the the math yourself.

I am allowed to dream, right?

Edit: German collectively bargained salary tables are public. As are the contracts behind them.

I believe the tentative master agreements are here: https://teamster.org/ups-ta-2023-2028/

Average is thrown off by the outliers. What you want is the median.

However, they're also counting all benefits (and probably significantly over counting). From TFA:

> The tentative deal would raise part-time workers' wages to at least $21 an hour. Their pay was a sticking point during negotiations. Full-time workers will average $49 an hour, and the agreement would end mandatory overtime on drivers' days off, according to a summary posted by the Teamsters Union.

So, they're claiming benefits are worth $70K per year per person. I highly doubt that there would have been a strike threat if that were the case.

You’re assuming they work 40 hour weeks. UPS workers average close to 60.

Not clear at all? Does this mean 170k in total comp for the 5 years? Or that a full year TC in 5 years will step up to 170k?

They also mention FTEs will make 49/hr, which at expected 40hr weeks seems to be roughly 100k a year pay, plus other benefits which may add up to 170k?

This was poorly summarized I think..

CEO is trolling working class. It’s total cost of benefits added to TC. So while from an economist POV this is the total cost of one employee, it’s not the TC (total comp) that Tech often uses, largely because it’s hard to know the added costs that the company pays per person

Health insurance, workman's comp, pension liabilities, etc.

The "fully loaded" cost of an employee is a _lot_ more than the cash comp they receive

this is highly misleading & rage-baity. In India I have seen jobs mention this kind of thing as CTC (Cost to company) which is what it really is not what get reported to IRS as gross income.

Isn't this a bit ridiculous pay for a delivery driver?!

The average Public School Teacher salary in the United States is $56,937

Have you tried being a delivery driver?

So tired of hearing this nonsense reply. How physically taxing a job is doesn’t determine its value.

Have you tried living without delivery drivers?

Not the point, and you clearly have a loose grip on economics.

Have you tried living without water? No? Would you pay $170,000 per year for it?

/remind me 2050

Value is what people are willing to pay but that is not what should primarily determine prices, they should be primarily determined by the costs of production. That is what competition is for, driving the profits to zero and the prices towards production costs.

The value of water is very high, people would pay any price because otherwise they would die of thirst. The price on the other hand is low because the costs of production are low. The explanation why the price reflect the costs and not the value in this case, you can pick on your own, maybe competition, maybe the expectation of people with pitchforks if you try to get rich by selling water for $100 per liter, maybe regulations, ... probably a combination of several things.

Sure it does. It limits the supply of people who are willing and able to perform the job, which increases the market value of those who are.

I mean, if no one is willing to do a job then you have to pay more for it. That's why dangerous jobs have hazard pay. And since you can't do a physical job for a long as a white collar job, you need more money to compensate.

To rephrase: “The supply of workers available should not determine how a job is compensated.”

Would you like to reconfigure your statement such that it doesn’t violate the basic law of supply and demand based on your arbitrary system of valuing labor?

Yes, public school teachers are grossly underpaid. They should also make $170k. They each add more value to society than the average FAANG engineer.

This is the most correct post that’s ever been on this website.

Unfortunately, the value to society is not the main factor in compensation. If the incentives were to be aligned that way, we'd live in a very different world.

The answer is to pay school teachers more, not demand everyone else be paid less.

I don't think delivery drivers should be paid three times the salary of teachers.

Surely the solution you have in mind is to increase teacher salaries, right?

Wow, why didn't anybody think of that before?

Then the answer is to pay teachers more, not others less, right?

I don't understand these people's mindsets. I've read a few comments on reddit stating that SWE should earn less because so does everyone else, instead of wanting for everyone else to earn more. Unbealivable how some people just want to pull others down out of spite.

If everyone else earns more, nobody else earns more, because of inflation

Supporters would probably say that this would come at the expense of investors/shareholders.

It doesn’t, it comes at the expense of other people in the delivery driving industry, who are kept out of UPS jobs by the union

You really have an ax to grind on this subject. Can you explain in more depth what you mean by that, exactly?

In a zero sum world this is true. However if we have technology to harness energy more cheaply and produce what we need more cheaply you will simply have abundance. But if everyone is doing BS work and fighting over a dwindling supply of good things, you have high inflation of those good things and they become unaffordable.

You’re right, I think the implication is executives and shareholders earning less to make that happen.

Whats the actual difference? If everyone gets $170k or if everyone gets $100k or if everyone gets $50k? They will all get the same amount...

Isn't it ridiculous that we find it ridiculous that some people get a fair wage instead of finding it ridiculous that those who don't don't? The only ridiculous bit here is that teachers, in any country, are underpaid. _That_ should be fixed.

Also we should fix demeaning people for performing various types of jobs. A job is a job and the person is valuable.

It's not a fair wage it's a ridiculous wage.

Did you want to make any kind of argument here?

Shlepping shit is hard work. Especially in this heat. And you are on clock and monitored.

If you think the pay is amazing, go apply. UPS is always hiring.

Also, be aware that you will quickly discover the difference between mean and median when you are one of the bottom rung workers.

Other jobs are hard work too.

You’re comparing apples to oranges. Delivery drivers create direct economic benefit to a corporation and should (imo) receive compensation that is aligned and proportional to that benefit.

Public school teachers are government employees. While I think their job, from a societal perspective, is more important than a delivery driver’s, it’s impossible to make the argument for higher pay on the same grounds. I do agree that teachers should be paid a lot more.

Imagine the teachers strike for a year.

It's $66,745, ranging from $47k in Mississippi to $91k in New York:

https://www.nea.org/resource-library/educator-pay-and-studen...

The US median income for individuals is $54k, so your average teacher actually makes a decent income.

Basing this off the median salary doesn’t mean it’s good. I know what median means, before you ask, but the cost of everything has grown so disproportionate to the median wage that this 54k is closer to poverty than it is a self-supporting wage near a major city.

I think teachers should be paid more, but it's hard to compare salaries without factoring in summers off.

You’re right more people should have summers off.

this is highly misleading & rage-baity. In India I have seen jobs mention this kind of thing as CTC (Cost to company) which is what it really is not what get reported to IRS as gross income.

(copied my comment from other thread)

$49 * 37.5 * 52 = $95,550 per year.

I've not had a drink but I think I'm missing something.

Maybe their company healthcare is valued at 50K per employee per year?

What you’re missing is about 20 hours per week.

So the $49 is immediate, at the end of the 5 years it should rise to $56.50. And I think a fulltime salary is 40hrs/week is it not?

56.505240 = 117,520, plus overtime and healthcare and pension and other benefits being the other ~55,000 I suppose.

Maybe I should switch jobs. Can imagine this is a more relaxing and healthy job

Better that fixing a kubernates yaml configuration for sure.

170k over.. five years?

I’m not getting it.

Unions will usually negotiate salaries and pay-raises for several years in advance, e.g. $5000 raise every year for 5 years. So by the end of 5 years their average salary+benefits will reach $170,000.

They are saying that it will take them 5 years to get to the point where this is true.

If you read the article, you see that in 5 years' time, they expect the average hourly pay for FTEs to be 49 USD. That works out at around 100K/year, plus whatever benefits and pension contributions are made on the employee's behalf. Details aren't in the article and 70K of benefits and pension contributions seems high, but not completely implausible.

What ACTUALLY happens over 5 years is a different question.

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