Pandemic slowing UPS hub’s deliveries
Some packages moving through a major UPS Oakland distribution center are seeing significant delays, according to customers and a union that represents some UPS workers there.
The problem appears to stem from the pandemic, which has meant huge numbers of packages going to residential areas, causing drivers to make more stops than usual.
The Oakland hub serves Oakland, San Leandro, Alameda and San Lorenzo and is one of the largest for UPS in the Bay Area.
Michael Nguyen, who lives in Oakland, said he was expecting car parts from Minnesota and a box of clothing from Los Angeles. Both were delayed.
“I got a notification saying it was shipped on June 2 and got to Oakland on the 5th, but once it arrived there, it sat there for a week and a
half,” Nguyen said.
According to the UPS tracking system, he said, the packages kept going out for delivery, but then they would go back to Oakland every night for 12 days straight. “It just repeated that message over and over again,” said Nguyen, who said he was finally able to pick up his goods in person on June 16.
When asked about the problems in Oakland, UPS spokesman Matthew O’Connor said by email that “the vast majority of our services continue with the same time commitments our customers have come to expect.”
He added that the company has hired more employees in the Bay Area to deal with increased demand, though he declined to say how many.
Media reports suggest that similar UPS problems are occurring in Cape Cod, Mass., and Warwick, R.I.
Lisa Silva, a resident of Salinas, said she waited five days for a package she had expected to receive overnight. When she checked the tracking feature the day after placing the order, it said her package was at the Oakland distribution center and was pending distribution, she said.
But it didn’t move, and after several days of frustration, she tweeted about her experience and finally got her box of clothing.
“The most irritating part about this is I paid so much money for overnight shipping,” she said.
Part of the problem is that drivers are being asked to make many more stops as delivery demand has shifted from highdensity business areas to more spreadout residential addresses, according to Marty Frates, who is the secretary and treasurer of the Teamsters Local 70 union, which represents some UPS employees at the company’s Oakland depot.
Frates said that in some cases, drivers are being asked to make twice the normal number of stops in order to keep up with the demand, but there is only so much they can do in a 12hour shift.
Packages are scanned onto trucks and show up on a customer’s account as out for delivery, but many are returned to the depot when a driver runs out of time to make the extra stops, Frates said. Packages that don’t get delivered are sent back through the same process or lost, he said.
“I’ve told the company, ‘You’re filling up a glass of water. When the glass gets full, you turn off the faucet,’ ” Frates said. “Wait until the glass gets empty and turn the faucet back on.”
O’Connor acknowledged the change in the type of deliveries. About 70% of the company’s deliveries are headed to residential addresses, up from 50% normally, he said.
Another factor nationwide, he noted, is that protests have sometimes closed roads, causing delays.
Frates also voiced concern about the ongoing threat of the coronavirus, saying one of his union’s members at the Oakland center had contracted the disease, although not necessarily at work.
O’Connor declined to say if any employees in the Bay Area have contracted the coronavirus but said that UPS has implemented physical distancing and other safety protocols, like providing masks and gloves, to protect workers.