LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- UPS plans to further scale down dayside work on Fridays at its global air hub in Louisville next month, a move that will likely result in more schedule changes for hourly employees, though no jobs will be lost.
The move comes as the Atlanta-based shipping giant navigates an industry-wide decline in package volume and as the union for its rank-and-file workers threatens a nationwide strike that could start in August.
Hundreds of part-time employees at the Worldport hub have already had to change their workweeks — with many moving from a Monday-Friday schedule to one that includes Sundays — after UPS stopped sorting its own packages during the dayshift on Fridays earlier this month.
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When that move was announced, UPS told employees it would still handle a small amount of packages for the U.S. Postal Service on Fridays. However, the postal service now plans to move those packages elsewhere, employees have been told. The postal service declined to comment.
"We're making some minor operational changes to the initial plan we announced earlier this year," UPS spokeswoman Michelle Polk said. "We’ll continue to talk to our team members so they’re aware of what is happening."
Polk confirmed that a "small amount" of employees on the dayshift on Fridays will have to change their schedules when the plan goes into effect July 21. She said there will still be some work at the international air hub during dayshift on Fridays, though she couldn’t elaborate. As with the previous change to the Friday work, no jobs will be eliminated, she confirmed.
About 11,000 people work at Worldport, where hundreds of cargo planes are loaded and unloaded daily and nightly. The facility at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport processes about 2 million packages a day.
But UPS handled about 17% fewer air packages in the three months ended March 31 compared to the same period in 2022, according to a regulatory filing. FedEx Corp., UPS’ primary rival, saw overnight packages decline 11% in the year ended May 31.
UPS is adjusting schedules at other air locations, such as its hub in Dallas hub, in response to the package market.
Avral Thompson, president of Teamsters Local 89, the Louisville union representing thousands of package handlers at Worldport, said employees don’t like the changes but the union is working on the details with the company.
"We can't tell the company they can't shut down a sort on Friday. It's their right to do it. If they don't have work, they don’t have any way to put somebody to work," Thompson said Wednesday. "But we're doing everything we can do to soften the blow."
The latest change could be disruptive, Thompson told WDRB News on Wednesday, because union-bargained rules allow long-tenured employees to "bump" less-senior employees from jobs whose schedules or working conditions may be more desirable.
"Every time we have a senior person being bumped … then that person gets to bump (someone else) and it causes a domino effect," Thompson said.
If not managed correctly, this "could really be detrimental to the company," because workers could have to be trained for different roles, he said.
Geraldine Dawson, a 25-year part-time package handler at Worldport, recently moved to a Sunday-Thursday schedule, from Monday-Friday, because of the changes. She said she and many others faced a choice of working nights or showing up on Sundays.
"I spent so many years on night shift, and I enjoy working day shift so much, it was never really a decision," she said.
