HOW UPS WORKERS ARE DEALING WITH COVID-19
Workers seeing increased workloads and uncertainty
Editor’s note: “The Essentials” is a series depicting the stories of the workers on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis, in their own words. This includes first responders and health care workers, but also the cashiers, day care employees, plumbers, delivery drivers and others who keep Hampton Roads up and running while many are keeping safe at home. If you are an essential worker with a story to tell, we’d love to hear from you. E-mail matthew.korfhage@pilotonline.com with the subject line, ESSENTIALS. Please provide your name, age, city of residence, and a little bit about yourself and the job you do.
Paul Trujillo, 37, Yorktown
Worker at the UPS distribution facility in Newport News
We work 4 a.m. till it’s done. I’m one of the people who sorts the belts. I also am one of the people who loads the cars. The packages are unloaded from the trucks, and they get sorted to different areas of the building. When they come down the belt to my area, they get sorted as to which side of the belt they’re on.
Business seems to be increasing, but there’s been a shift in the materials we carry. We went from business-centric to residential customers. If I have to load one more box of toilet paper, I’m going to lose my mind. Everyone and their grandma is sending toilet paper. It’s light, but it takes up a lot of room in that truck.
Initially when the quarantine started it was video games and video game systems: home entertainment items. Starting three weeks ago, it’s toilet paper and hand sanitizers.
Last week it was home gyms, weight equipment. We see a lot of treadmills. We’re seeing a lot of beauty supplies now. But it looks like people ordering weight sets is done. That wasn’t a pleasant time.
The biggest thing has been that co-workers have been very much afraid. They’re afraid of what’s to come, afraid of the unknown, afraid of getting sick. Most of our inside employees are part time, whether for the short term, or the majority of us who are there for decades at part time.
We’re represented by a Teamsters union. And the union has done a good job making sure UPS puts in cleaning procedures, bringing people through to sterilize the package cars before people go in.
In the beginning it was definitely a lot of anxiety, but no one was prepared for this. When the shortages started hitting, we didn’t have any major stockpiles of surface cleaners and disinfectants. They have an outside person that comes through who does the job of disinfecting. We got help from the union: The union bought 55 gallon drums of cleaning solution for the facilities.
The company put out a memo so that people stay 6 feet apart. There was some concern initially, because people who work trucks get doubled up and people are close together. Now weeks and even months in, people typically stay 6 feet apart.
But it’s hard sometimes. I work about 4 feet from somebody. In
this case, there’s a belt across from me. We work to sort and split the belts, and we find ourselves across from each other.
UPS is giving 10 days of pay to people told to quarantine. I can’t confirm any positive cases. But there have been some suspected cases, some presumptive cases. And then there are a lot of rumors: “Oh, so-and-so called out sick. Maybe they’re sick! Maybe they have the coronavirus!”
Then they come back in and it’s an emergency tooth extraction. There’s a lot of overreaction.
I think one thing that’s made people more comfortable: The union came in and gave out cloth masks. They aren’t effective in preventing you from getting sick, but they affect the spread to someone else. That visible reminder has helped calm some people.
The drivers are obviously more worried than the rest of us. They come into contact with far more people than anybody else. They initially said there wasn’t enough PPE; there weren’t masks or gloves. They weren’t sure what levels of cleaning were being put into place. It’s gotten a lot better. The company started putting out stations with hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, bleach mixtures. So their individual package car cleanliness is good.
The problem that the most drivers have voiced? Finding places that they can go to the bathroom.
Convenience stores have closed their insides. They used to go into restaurants. Now (the drivers) have to plan their days to find places to wash their hands. It’s a small thing, but it definitely affects their day. It’s not something most people think about. We also see this nationwide with our semi-truck drivers, because restaurants are closed. They’ve converted weigh stations so truck drivers could use a restroom. Things we’ve taken for granted are now a problem.
We’ve been busy. We’re using everybody we have, getting more hours than we want at the moment. It’s not as bad as our peak season during Christmas. For a lot of people, it’s their primary source of income, and it’s a relief to say you’ve got that paycheck coming in.
But it’s exhausting. This is usually a refractory period where our vacations are picking up. We didn’t get that this year. When this is all done, I’ve got an older grandmother who lives in Baltimore I’d like to see.