UPS STILL STRAINING TO RECOVER; DELIVERIES DELAYED IN WAKE OF STRIKE.Byline: Dan Sewell Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Beset by backlogs, frustrated customers and worker defections, United Parcel Service United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE: UPS), commonly referred to as UPS, is the world's largest package delivery company, delivering more than 15 million packages[1] a day to 6.1 million customers in over 200 countries and territories around the world. is still struggling to rebound more than two weeks after its first nationwide strike. The company has reinstated its service guarantees, but acknowledged in a statement to customers Friday that ``there continue to be some delays.'' ``It's been a challenge,'' UPS spokesman Mark Dickens said. The 15-day walkout by the Teamsters union Teamsters Union, U.S. labor union formed in 1903 by the amalgamation of the Team Drivers International Union and the Teamsters National Union. Its full name is the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen, and Helpers of America (IBT). , with 185,000 UPS members, crippled the delivery giant, and company officials say daily operations still haven't caught up. Competitors such as Federal Express Corp. and the U.S. Postal Service The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) processes and delivers mail to individuals and businesses within the United States. The service seeks to improve its performance through the development of efficient mail-handling systems and operates its own planning and engineering programs. say they've added business as a result of the strike. UPS estimates it has lost at least 5 percent of its customer base, but company officials say it's still too soon to know for sure. Tens of millions of packages were stockpiled by customers who either decided to wait out the strike or couldn't line up alternative shippers, added to millions bogged down in the system by the strike. An extremely high number of pickups, hitting 16 million a day, ``created a domino effect'' in UPS' normal operations Generally and collectively, the broad functions that a combatant commander undertakes when assigned responsibility for a given geographic or functional area. Except as otherwise qualified in certain unified command plan paragraphs that relate to particular commands, "normal operations" of after the strike, Dickens said. Before the strike, the company averaged 12 million deliveries a day. This week, deliveries are beginning to outnumber pickups, with 11.2 million pickups and 13 million deliveries Wednesday. UPS officials, who estimated at least $600 million in lost revenues during the strike, have said a 5 percent permanent loss in volume would trigger 15,500 layoffs. Dickens said Friday it's too soon to know how many layoffs there could be. He acknowledged some former strikers hadn't been called back to work. A Teamsters Teamsters large, powerful union of U. S. truckers. [Am. Hist.: NCE, 2703] See : Labor spokesman Friday said some members were complaining about ``a real sour grapes, vindictive attitude'' by UPS managers. ``They have a huge backlog, and yet they haven't called everybody back,'' said Rand Wilson Rand Wilson has worked as a union organizer and labor communicator for more than twenty-five years. Wilson started in the labor movement as a member of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW). , a union spokesman in Washington. ``We've always felt that the layoffs was a bogus threat, but it won't be if the company doesn't get back to business,'' Wilson said. |
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