Hands up, Don't ship, CONTINUED...

In order to highlight what the company was producing and UPS

relationship to it, a group of about a dozen workers decided to post up
photos of them holding signs saying Hands Up, Dont Ship--an echo
of the Hands Up Dont Shoot motto adopted by protesters in
Ferguson. We posted the story to our facebook page (ScrewUps
NewsWire, you should check it out) and it quickly went viral, with over
300 people sharing the pictures. A publication covering social issues
and the labor movement, LaborNotes, published the story and it
reached thousands. Meanwhile, more people at the hub were cluing in, with our email being sent
photos of people placing the packages outside of their trailers or holding signs.
Pretty soon, a few of us noticed we werent seeing Law Enforcement Targets Inc packages anymore.
We confirmed what we thought when an artist who had emailed us letting us know that they were
using a target for a piece of art about police violence sent us the tracking info showing that their
packages were now being sent through the Maple Grove hub. While this is hardly the result anyone
wouldve wanted, it shows that we have a lot more power than we think: because of a few workers
standing up, both LET and UPS had to switch things up out of fear of further bad press.
For us, the moral is clear: when we care about something, we should stand up and do something
about it. If a dozen workers holding signs can get UPS and another company to change their
operations--even if its just a minor inconvenience--imagine what we can do if more of us stand
together and fight for what we believe in and what we need!

Don't get boxed in: a word about egress and not tripping and dying and stuff.
Egress. Its one of those words that a lot of us wouldnt ever use if we didnt
work here. But we do, so we all know that its supposed to be a clear route
between you and the end of the trailer or work area wide enough to safely
walk in and out. And we all know that its pretty much expected that well just
ignore the fact that for many of us, its almost never the case that were
actually able to do our work and have a trailer with the sides clean throughout
the night.
We all know why its important: everyones had to catch their balance tripping
over a package, or struggled to make their way out of a trailer, or wondered
how the hell wed get out quickly if there was an emergency. But its always
the same story: our supervisors pressure us to work faster while ignoring anything else, expecting us
to just deal with it and focus on loading/unloading/etc while the boxes pile up all around us.
But heres the deal: Egress is a health and safety issue according to not just
UPS, but also federal law (OSHA, specifically), meaning that we have the
right to prioritize it above production, and cannot legally be disciplined for
doing so. They will play the usual blame game that if you were working
fast enough or well enough, packages wouldnt be falling off the sides, but
the responsibility for maintaining a safe work environment is the companys,
not ours. If they wanted to, they could easily hire enough people to keep all
work areas clear with the amount of volume we have. Instead, they staff the
hub with as few people as possible, and expect us to put their profits over
our own safety. We cant expect them to somehow change their ways on
this--running unsafe is profitable, after all--in order to ensure our safety at
work, we have to exercise our right to keep our workplace safe before
worrying about how much money theyre making off an hour of our time. When enough people do
this, they dont really have a choice but to hire up so that they can get their sorts done in the time they
want without us working in unsafe conditions. So do what you got to: work safe first!

SCREW UPS Across America: Minneapolis, Portland, Duluth, and Beyond!

When a group of UPS workers first got together to publish Screw Ups last year, we just hoped some
of our coworkers would read it. But with each new issue that came out, we were excited to hear
people talking about what we had written, agreeing that we face common problems at work, problems
that we can do something about. From these conversations, we learned two important lessons: we
need to back up our words with actions if we want things to change, and those actions need to involve
as many of us as possible if we want them to succeed.
With the increasing positive feedback, Screw Ups got ambitious, and
started printing more copies that we were able to hand out to our
coworkers, and were left with stacks of newsletters. We all wanted to
see more and more people to get talking about our common problems.
So, some folks got the clever idea to take advantage of UPSs industryleading logistics network by dumping old Screw Ups by the handful into
outbound trailers, scattering them across the country. Finally, UPS can
say they did something to benefit their workers!!
Sometime in May, we got an email (screwups@riseup.net) from a UPS worker in Portland. Hed seen
a copy that had eventually arrived at his hub, and said it had started a buzz with some of his
coworkers. They were experiencing the same harassment by management, the same grueling work
conditions, and they were sick of it. We stayed in touch with this worker, and started planning with
him to start a new Screw Ups in Portland. We got help from the Portland branch of the Industrial
Workers of the World, a rank and file-lead workers organization and union, that some of the Screw
Ups writers in Minneapolis are also a part of. They, like us, believe that workers should organize
together and fight for a better life, whether they work at a non-union fast food chain or a big
warehouse with a big bureaucratic union like ours. On September 11th, UPS workers in the Portland
hub got their first taste of their very own rank-and-file newsletter, with content written by part-timers,
just like the original project here in Minneapolis.
One new friend says that people responded
positively to the newsletter. One of my coworkers
was saying that she agreed with what people were
saying in Screw Ups, and wanted to know more
about it. Like us, they have remained anonymous
to avoid retaliation, but clearly the articles have
started the kinds of conversations on the shop
floor that are the beginning of something bigger.
Now, the message of Screw Ups is spreading
further and further.
Just after the release of Screw Ups Portland, one
of our writers who works in the Minneapolis hub
handed out a bunch of copies to workers in the Duluth center. Their facility is much smaller, and he
reported that almost every single worker got at least one copy. People were immediately interested,
he reported. Some people had arrived early, and read a few articles before work. They asked for
more copies to share with their coworkers who were already in the building. A few days later, we
heard from some of the workers about their reaction to Screw Ups. It was nice to know that we arent
the only ones who feel like were getting screwed over all the time. I heard lots of people talking about
the shitty conditions in our center, and what it might take to change them, said *******.
The more we hear from UPS workers across the country, the more obvious it becomes that we share
many of the same grievances. All sorts of people work at UPS, but when you boil it down, UPS sees
just one thing: a worker to be used for their profit no matter the cost. They may not realize it, but
were all smart enough to see this treatment for what it is. It is wrong. As more and more people start
talking about it, it becomes obvious that were ready for it to end. Rank and file workers at UPS want
to do something about their conditions at work. This is one thing weve learned from the nationwide
responses to this newsletter. Weve learned something else, something youve no doubt experienced
just by talking about your issues with your coworkers. When you stand up and raise your voice about
problems in the workplace, people listen to you. As more people get pissed off, our influence grows,
and we gain the power to make real changes. Weve grown a pretty big circle here in Minneapolis,

connecting workers from multiple shifts and different work areas. Weve already begun to use that
power to improve our lives at work. Just imagine what we can do if that same attitude spreads to
Duluth, Portland, and beyond?
Want to be a part of the action? We want you to help us fight for better conditions and respect in the
workplace! Contact us at screwups@riseup.net to join in.

Hands Up, Don't Ship! How UPSers took a stand on the company's role in ferguson
Before last month, few of us knew of the town of Ferguson, Missouri, a town right outside of St. Louis.
On August 8th, that changed with the shooting of Mike Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black man by a
Ferguson cop named Darren Wilson in broad daylight. A dozen witnesses told the same story: Brown
running after a shot was fired, then turning around with his hands up, at which point Wilson fired
multiple shots, killing him, then leaving his body lying in the street for hours before unceremoniously
dumping it in the back of a police SUV. Despite ongoing attempts by the police to cover up and claim
that Wilson was being attacked, video has been released showing two construction workers on the
same street watching it all go down and yelling, Why are you shooting?! Hes got his fucking hands
up!
The story is all too common. Young, unarmed black men and women are targeted by police at a much
higher rate than whites, and the level of violence involved in straight-up disgusting. The cops involved-the bad apples people like talking about--are rarely disciplined. And for a lot of UPS workers,
especially those of us who arent white, it was clear that this
couldve just as easily happened to one of us or one of our friends
or coworkers. Hell, the same thing happened in Minneapolis just a
year and a half ago with the unjust killing of Terrence Mookie
Franklin by MPD officers.
In Ferguson, Browns family and friends erected a memorial at the
site of his death, which was vandalized by police that night in front
of the gathering crowd, sparking ongoing protests throughout the
city. People objecting to the violence against young black people
were greeted with riot police, teargas, and the National Guard
arriving in military vehicles, but they didnt back down. Videos from
the scene consistently showed riot police and guardsmen beating
people indiscriminately, threatening to shoot protesters and
journalists alike, and other acts of brutality. For weeks, the streets
of Ferguson looked like a scene out of Egypts Tahrir square.
And it became increasingly clear that UPS was helping it happen. Of
course, this shouldnt be surprising, UPS helps a lot of horrible things
happen. But in this case, a few loaders looked in to it and realized that
one of the contracts that went through our twilight shift was being sent to
law enforcement agencies all throughout Missouri, a company called Law
Enforcement Targets, Inc. This company, headquartered in Blaine, makes
targets for the firing range. The targets have representations of real-life
human figures to help desensitize the officers when shooting actual
victims. They have lines of products with titiles like Urban Street
Violence featuring sterotypical thugs, and even No More Hesitation,
featuring pictures of pregant women, children, and elderly people with
guns. The message seems to be that officers should shoot first and ask
questions later, and should always view someone as a violent threat to
use lethal force on: the exact mentality that leads to murders such as
Michael Brown and countless others.
A group of package handlers started talking about what they had
discovered. It was clear there were plenty of us who were deeply
opposed to the idea of helping train cops to be more aggressive, less compassionate, and more willing
to use their weapons without provocation. And we definitely objected to the idea that in order to get our
paychecks, we should be forced to be a part of a pattern of injustice and police violence.