UPS made massive revenues in the last quarter, financial statement reveals
Take up the fight against the contract and the sellout union bureaucrats by joining the UPS Workers Rank-and-File Committee. To contact the committee, email upsrankandfilecommittee@gmail.com or fill out the form below.
UPS made $22.1 billion in revenue and $2.0 billion in net income in the second quarter, the logistics company announced in its financial statement Tuesday.
These figures show that UPS continues to make record money off of its highly-exploited low-paid workforce, as voting continues on a new sellout tentative agreement. Announced by the Teamsters bureaucracy shortly before the August 1 strike deadline, the contract limits increases to part-time starting pay to $21 an hour and includes below-inflation wage increases for drivers. It also freezes pension contribution increases for workers in much of the country.
The quarterly results were originally due last July but were delayed by nearly a month. The obvious reason for this was to limit the impact that revelations of massive profits would have on the rank and file under conditions where the Teamsters bureaucracy was conducting cynical maneuvers, pledging to strike by August 1 if it did not have a contract by then. This was done to get in front of rank-and-file opposition and prevent it from escaping their control and developing into a full-blown rebellion.
The union bureaucracy is boasting that the new contract includes $30 billion in new money spread out over five years. This must be taken with more than a grain of salt. For the 2018 contract, which was imposed by the bureaucracy after workers voted it down, the Teamsters bureaucracy claimed that their deal created $14.5 billion in new money. But in reality, the company’s total spending on compensation and benefits, including tens of thousands of managers, overseas workers and nonunion employees, increased by little more than $10 billion by the end of 2022.
However, even if this $30 billion figure is taken as granted, UPS makes almost as much as that in revenue in a single quarter. The company’s annual revenues topped $100 billion for the first time last year and net profits surpassed $10 billion, more than double the levels before the pandemic. This has been due to the shift towards online shopping over the last three years, meanwhile the company, with the support of the Teamsters, kept workers on the job without meaningful protections from COVID-19 or even hazard pay, leading to a significant number of deaths.
While remaining at historically high levels, total quarterly revenue fell by about $2.7 billion compared to the same quarter last year and slightly missed analysts expectations of $23 billion (however, adjusted earnings per share beat Wall Street’s forecasts). Operating profit year-on-year also declined from $513 to $295 million in its supply chains solutions business.
Some of this was due to a diversion of some volume as customers sought to avoid the impact of a potential strike at the company. But UPS has also reduced its forecast for the rest of the year slightly, due to a slight shift away from online shopping now that all limits on the spread of COVID have been removed. That is already leading to a major new surge of the pandemic, according to wastewater treatment data, although exact figures are unavailable because the Biden administration discontinued its tracking of cases.
Nevertheless, the company will continue shoveling massive amounts of money to its shareholders. It intends to move forward with its previous plans to pay out $5.4 billion in dividends and $3 billion in share buybacks by the end of the year. This $8.4 billion in payments to investors amounts to nearly $25,000 for each of its 340,000 unionized workers in the United States. Many part-time workers, for whom starting pay is currently as low as $15.50 an hour and who work shifts lasting three or four hours, do not even make that much in a year.
UPS’ stock price dropped little more than 1 percent on the news. At the close of trading, shares were trading at $180.55, around 55 percent above the level in January 2020.
According to UPS, the new contract, if ratified, will cut into its profits, but only slightly. The company forecasts its profit margin this year will be 1 percent lower than previously estimated, in part due to the contract. By comparison, the company’s adjusted consolidated operating margin was 13.2 percent last quarter.
The financial report exposes the lie from the Teamsters bureaucracy that the contract is “historic.” In reality, it maintains a highly-exploited workforce whose conditions would not change substantially over the next five years. $21 an hour, in fact, is so low that many workers already make this due to regional Market Rate Adjustment (MRA) pay increases the company implemented to attract and retain workers. The status of their wages under the new contract is uncertain due to highly vague language.
“We can’t keep making ‘record breaking’ profit every year after year. Someone’s being exploited if you’re making [hundreds of millions in profit], and your employees are fighting to make $21,” one UPS worker said.
“As someone who had gotten an MRA, then had it taken away from me [after being switched from part-time to full-time], to see part-time employees and full-time drivers have it supposedly written and signed that they get to keep theirs, plus general wage increases is frustrating,” In fact, while the union is claiming workers will not have their MRAs reduced to offset pay increases, this is far from certain. “We feel like we’ve been left behind and forgotten again. So much for ‘leave no man behind.’ So much for ‘no concessions.’”
In response to the quarterly financial results, a member of the UPS Worker Rank-and-File Committee, which is organizing workers to fight against the corrupt Teamsters bureaucracy, had this to say:
“This is a call to action. The decision before us is monumental. It sets the course of our lives for the next five years. We know what’s on the table, but not what lies ahead. We have persevered through 20-plus years of sellouts. This is no different, they are just playing with numbers.
“They say that this is the largest contract ever. Well, no wonder! We have 70,000 more workers and online shopping continues to increase every year. It will continue to do so. The economy might tighten up for a time, but the trend will continue to change the landscape of global trade in regards to the retail space. In other words, we are in a good position to win major increases!
“Now is our time to reap the fruits of our labor. To be compensated, to be rewarded. We did our job and we delivered to the whole world. It’s time we deliver to ourselves and to our families. They walked through it with us!
“Never take the first deal and beware of the consensus that endorses it! If they [the bureaucracy] won’t stand up, then we will! The time is now. The time is ours. The time has come. Without us, the whole world stops spinning. Remember that. The real strength lies in our numbers. Not theirs.”
A Modest Proposal to Defeat the Political Class
It’s time for a do-over.
Like you, I am tired of unkept promises and rampant special interests. Faith in government has never been lower. Patriotism is in short supply. I hear a countdown clock ticking off the remaining days of our grand experiment before it becomes ancient history.
Our political process has had the pungent stench of partisanship and self-dealing for too long. From the Chicago political machine to the White House Plumbers, from election shenanigans to measures undertaken in the name of a Covid-19 “emergency,” most Americans realize our political processes have been corrupted. Marxist policies and progressivism are layered over our old politics, further suppressing two of the most important identities Americans, regardless of political beliefs, have historically had in common—a strong sense of national unity, and a belief in the sacredness of the election process. (The death of free and fair elections comes with endless long voting).
Can’t we all agree that it is in our national interest to count the vote on election day? Who could be against that? (Massive voting by mail could be tied to the undoing of our country.) If they have nothing to hide, then why not fix this unnecessary and divisive fear for millions of us for the sake of national unity? This is the nexus for many conservatives who rightfully don’t trust Democrat marionettes, because we know there’s a puppet master behind the curtain.
But what are we going to do about our conclusions? Nothing? So where’s the deterrence for the next time, by another enemy? Mass murderers and those that deliberately weaken our country must face the consequences. Bidenomics is a sham; who is going to call him out on it? The MSM?
As previously discussed, the government no longer exists to serve we, the people, but rather itself. Unfortunately, the fox runs the hen house in D.C. So, as an American Thinker, I present to you a modest proposal: Let’s dump the Deep State. Let’s gut it and save our Republic. Such dramatic action would signal to all Americans that we have an irreconcilable crisis requiring drastic measures to fix. But how?
First, a couple of quick facts should remind us that America isn’t quite so familiar anymore, and there are American subversives afoot:
About seven million people have died globally from Covid-19, with almost 700 million more sickened. Given the broad debate on the origins of Covid, it grows increasingly clearer that the Wuhan Lab, and the Chinese military with support from our own country, are complicit.
The American middle class shrank due to government policies following the takeover of the economy during the pandemic era. This is entirely different than the issue of the disease itself and flies in the face of Biden’s claim that Bidenomics triumph—nearly half of Americans would have trouble coming up with $500 for an emergency.
On an average day, about 140 people die in the U.S. from fentanyl, more than from any other drug in history. Not limited to viral agents, China is also a culprit behind our fentanyl crisis. Precursor chemicals are made in China and sent to Mexican labs to be manufactured into fentanyl. The penalty for manufacturing and distributing most illicit drugs in China is death, while here, you get a clean needle or a shot of Narcan. China exports this killer to America to disrupt and distract our country. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, engaging in meaningless negotiations with China and somehow expecting our enemy to change its ways, is another symptom of our weakness. How many ministerial-level Chinese have ventured here, compared to the wave of high-level officials we have dispatched, hats in hand? Isn’t it obvious our strategy is wrong?
The Civil War saw “only” 500,000 dead. But, because it was a virus this time, we seem to treat this differently. Covid-19 was likely weaponized. Whether through accident or intent, it was an attack on our country. Try to prove me wrong. You can’t. Why? The Chinese won’t cooperate. In a civil trial, you only have to prove that the preponderance of evidence would make a reasonable person believe the assertion was true. I think we have exceeded that bar in the Covid-19 contention. China is responsible, just as President Trump stated.
Our government’s now almost complete control of our economy has led to the introduction of initiatives impossible without the extraordinary power it granted itself during the still ongoing pandemic emergency that unofficially continues. Unprecedented concepts such as the Green New Deal encompass everything from energy, population control, transfers of wealth, universal government, and even more Wokeness (if you can believe it). Through the coercion of financial institutions, major corporations, and local governments, and the initiation of a selected winners-and-losers economy have reordered our country without anyone voting to do so. We’ve seemingly been overthrown in a bloodless revolution. How many truly understand this? Worse, how many care enough to take ownership over the state of the nation?
Perhaps the most significant limitation any free country has is the ability to efficiently and reliably share an understanding of what’s true and what’s not. Our country is confused on a fundamental level as this or that authoritative-sounding person or group uses highly scripted and tested language to influence you to adopt their position. Freedom of speech is under attack in a manner and means few can fully comprehend. We must understand who is behind that speech, particularly when the government is said to be the assailant.
The answer is decentralization.
Why not move large parts of the government out of Washington, D.C.? We should demand from our federal legislators that entire departments be disbanded, such as the Department of Education, which interferes with how states decide to educate your children. We outgrew Washington, D.C., years ago—250 years of the Potomac two-step has mainly delivered a better-paid political class that considers itself superior to the rest of us. Mockingjay anyone?
Technology has eliminated the need for centralized government. Although many nominally work in D.C., many are still at home. That is all the proof you need. Time to spread around some of the largesse of working for the U.S. Career Civil Service, where the average employee makes $117,228 a year! That’s more money than the average entrepreneur earns who takes on risk and invests hard work, all without guarantees. Yet, many (not all) federal workers take their jobs as a right.
The numbers are overwhelming: 364,000 federal employees “work” in the District of Columbia. Hundreds of thousands more lawyers, lobbyists, contractors, and others there aim to figure out how to game the system in a client’s favor; frequently successfully!
Countless minds have attempted to figure out how to undo this abomination, and yet, here we are. But, things can be done to limit federal influence, and that starts with decentralization, just as the Founders envisioned. Restricting the revolving door arrangement between government and the bureaucratic political employment that fosters out-of-control spending and minimizes the value we receive for our money, must happen.
There’s nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. What’s your favorite way to save the Republic?
God Bless America!
Allan J. Feifer—Patriot, Author, Businessman, and Thinker. Read more about Allan, his background, and his ideas to create a better tomorrow at www.1plus1equals2.com.
Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.
