The Courier-Journal (Louisville)
UPS Centennial Hub in Louisville to see layoffs
Action is related to economic conditions
Louisville’s UPS Centennial Hub will see layoffs starting Feb. 16, UPS spokesperson Mechelle Stanchfield confirmed via email to the Courier Journal Thursday afternoon.
Centennial Hub, 8100 Air Commerce Drive, is ending its Day Sort package sorting shift, but maintaining the Twighlight Sort. Stanchfield shared that the layoffs come as a result of fewer packages in the UPS network. All employees on the Day Sort shift will be impacted, with Stanchfield sharing it is a “relatively small portion of our overall workforce in Louisville.” In Louisville, UPS has more than 10,000 workers between its two metro area facilities.
“In our industry, packages equal jobs, and we need to match capacity and the number of jobs with current package volume. Our employees are extremely important to us, and we understand the impact this may have on their families. We are working to minimize the impact to our people wherever we can,” Stanchfield said.
Earlier this month UPS Centennial Hub was in the spotlight when about 35 administrator and specialist workers who had recently voted to join Teamsters were laid off. The company claimed these layoffs were related to “the needs of our business” and not related to the unionization effort.
The union threatened to strike at UPS, claiming the layoffs were an unfair labor practice. One day after the strike threat on Dec. 8, the company and union reached a deal and reinstated the 35 workers, ending the strike threat.
Stanchfield said the upcoming layoffs at Centennial Hub in February are not related to unionization efforts but are solely related to economic conditions and package volume decline. Part-time employees, administrative employees, and management will all be impacted by the layoffs. Drivers are not part of the Centennial Hub layoffs.
At this time, UPS does not have definitive answers on whether future layoffs will occur in Louisville.
“We regularly evaluate our workforce needs but we do not speculate about the future,” Stanchfield said. “We have closed sorts at some of our other facilities across the country as we adjust to changing customer demand.”
Avral Thompson, president of Teamsters Local 89, the union representing roughly 10,000 Louisville area rankand-file UPS workers said, “UPS has been trying for years to turn without a Day Sort at Louisville Centennial Hub. It appears they will take advantage of low volume to try it, I’m being told it will affect around 150 people.”
According to Thompson, these workers impacted by the layoffs may be eligible to use their seniority and claim a role sorting on the remaining shift.
“We have closed sorts at some of our other facilities across the country as we adjust to changing customer demand.”
Mechelle Stanchfield
UPS spokesperson
Previous 2023 changes at Louisville UPS facilities
This change at Centennial Hub comes on the cusp of a year full of operation changes and package volume decline for the global shipping company.
Following the historic contract negotiations between Teamsters, the union representing 340,000 UPS rank-andfile members, and UPS earlier this year, UPS CEO Carol Tomé and other executives shared during the second quarter investor call that in the U.S., UPS saw a nearly 10% decrease in average daily package volume as customers transferred their business to FedEx, the
U.S. Postal Service and other regional carriers as they prepared for what would have been the largest single employer strike in U.S. history had the Teamsters walked off the job during the summer, the Courier Journal previously reported.
At that time, the decrease in daily volume also contributed to a roughly 7% decrease in revenue for the quarter.
Teamsters and UPS eventually ratified a new contract on Aug. 22. But just days after voting on a new contract, UPS of“operational fered a “voluntary separation benefit” for some of its pilots who meet specific criteria, prompted by a decline in volume, UPS spokesperson Laura Holmberg previously told the Courier Journal.
In May UPS made an adjustment” at its Louisville Worldport facility, the largest sorting and logistics facility in the U.S., moving package sorting operations to a primarily nighttime operation. Then in July, the company eliminated its Friday shifts at
Worldport, also on the note of volume decline.
In the third quarter, ending on Sept. 30, UPS experienced a 10.8% decline in package volume, causing a nearly 13% drop in company revenue when compared to the same period of 2022, according to the company’s Securities and Exchange Commission quarterly filings.
“Revenue and average daily package volume in our global small package operations decreased for both the quarter and year to date, with declines in both commercial and residential shipments across all of our products,” the SEC filing states.