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TForce | Fired UPS Freight worker claims religious bias

Dockworker

Dockworker

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After being hired as a driver for UPS Freight, Nieland B., a Rastafarian, attended an orientation meeting last year and was told that he would have to shave his beard and cut off his dreadlocks to comply with the companys grooming policy.
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Fired UPS Freight worker claims religious bias Read comments.

Fired worker's suit claims religious bias Full Story

I know a few others that have dreadlocks and beards.
Certain ones were grandfathered in while the new ones are not. This is definitely a touchy issue.
 
Nothing surprises me anymore, nowadays, they want you to be just like a robot. Look clean, don't talk, as matter of fact, don't do anything but deliver and pick up freight. If they could only get us to not even take lunch and work for free...

Why does it matter how I look, 99% of people (read customers) I deal with on the docks are illegal immigrants that at times, looks 10 times worse then I do. Let's not even factor in language barrier..

And they complain my hair is too long ? How about us complaining to the customer we want English speaking person to sign for our freight and answer a question or two we might have for them regarding a delivery instead of giving each other hand signals and trying to communicate through head waving yes/no.
 
45 years as a city driver.
I was almost fired once for my religious beliefs.
One of my TM's was cooking the production reports and I wouldn't go along with his shady practise.
He even called me into his office,and told me to get on board with him.
I said you know I'm an Apostolic Christian,and I don't lie,for anybody,and I'm not about to go along with you.
You have the rest of the drivers just leave me out of it.
I said once you start being dishonest you can't stop,so I'm not going to start.

Well wouldn't you know this guy did everything he could think of to get me booted.
I finally had my church pray for me,and him,then I called HR,and was surprised to see this issue got almost all the way up to Leo S.

Within a day there was a meeting which I wasn't invited to,and the TM was told to stop his shady practises,then the TM had to tell the rest of my co-workers to also stop helping him with that issue.

Yes I was still on somewhat slippery ground,but here I am now retired from UPS Freight,so it all worked out,in the long run.
 
I hear you "HeavyBrown", I was told I wasn't main stream enough for UPS, I didn't fit the clean cut look, I told my TM I didn't want to look like everybody else up there...UPS took all the individuality out of the employees. I was told I couldn't wear an American flag patch on the uniform shirts, which was pretty important to me when we were issued our new uniforms. I had flag patches on my "O" shirts. Like you said, its not like were in the public as much as the small parcel folks, I don't think anyone cares about my appearance down at the local chemical plant, train yard, or manufacturing facility...Those folks just want their freight delivered/picked up on time! My appearance doesn't affect my service!
 
Its all about their coveted UPS brand.
UPS management will move anyone out of the way thats not on the same page with them to protect their famous brand.
 
Apostolic said:
Its all about their coveted UPS brand.
UPS management will move anyone out of the way thats not on the same page with them to protect their famous brand.
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If that's the case, why don't they move all the junk with Overnite logo on it out of our yards. That's a nice start right there.
 
Oh my now thats a very good point Heavy Brown.
If we knew the answer to that mystery,we might be able to come up with the winning lotto numbers.
 
The only way .......

Roadrunner73 said:
I pray he gets lots and I do mean lots of $$$$$
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..... that a company learns a hard lesson, is for them to lose a bunch of money over a nonsense issue. A lesson learned the hard way is never forgotten - get into the pocketbook, that closes the latch realllllyyyy good!

If you remember back (for those of us that have memories of that time *BG*), "O" once started this same argument about clothes and long hair, beards, etc. Several road drivers got into "O's pocketbook real good, that stopped the issue dead in it's tracks. As long as a driver is in clean decent clothing, neatly groomed, can put two words together for a sentence, understands the customer, the customer understands him/her, why mess with success?

Darkstar
 
Playing Devils advocate here, I don't know. Except for religious considerations (Sikhs, Rastafarians, etc), UPS has had it's grooming and dress code "taken to court" time after time after time....and I don't RECALL (which doesn't mean that it hasn't happened, I'll admit) over the last 35-40 years that they ever lost a single time. The courts traditionally have held that companies have a vested interest in the grooming of employees that come into contact with the public in the course of their employment...and even a freight driver is going to have a hard time arguing that his job doesn't at some time or another entail dealing with the public. They've also held to same when it involved safety issues (extremely long hair or earrings, for example, while working around conveyor belts or heavy equipment) In any case, I personally know of a few UPS employees who decided to "test the waters" strongly, so to speak, who's discharges stuck. Don't know any that got money out of UPS over the affair.

Maybe times have changed. And whether past practice at OVNT in that area might hold sway, I can't say. But I'm not sure it's something I'd want to bet my job on.
 
I know Yellow came up with a company golf shirt they wanted their drivers to wear.
I'm not sure if they are strickly enforcing any dress codes at Yellow?
They have been union for a lot of years,but I think if a company sets a policy the union can't do anything about it.

I could be wrong,but you could ask a Yellow driver if their company is forcing them to wear their company shirts or not.
 
I feel all the grandfathered in beards and fancy mustaches will be going away sometime in the next contract.

You should see how some of us look like sloppy thugs.
 
The Yellow city guys I see wear the polo shirt, I'm not sure if its required though. I know Roadway doesn't have a uniform policy for city drivers...
 
Wilbur said:
Playing Devils advocate here, I don't know. Except for religious considerations (Sikhs, Rastafarians, etc), UPS has had it's grooming and dress code "taken to court" time after time after time....and I don't RECALL (which doesn't mean that it hasn't happened, I'll admit) over the last 35-40 years that they ever lost a single time.

I know of 1 driver out of Harrisburg that works for Brown. He has a full beard because of religious reasons. We talked, and he said he had to jump thru the hoops. The local terminal made it hard on him. Once he got to corperate HR, it became much easier. Perhaps Freight should have taken the time to see what the laws are. Unless there are laws about this, I could not see Brown waiving the policy.
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Oh, I think there was probably some case law concerning it because I, like you, can't conceive of UPS waiving its policy voluntarily. And, in the case of the Rastafarians, I presume that the company probably has fought the issue on the basis of its not being a bona fide religious issue. Can't say definitively, however.

Personally, I think the company has to maintain some consistency company wide....and it's hard to argue that the policies they've had in place haven't been successful. After all, there are a lot of scruffy past drivers today who's companies have gone out of business, yet their pensions are SOMEWHAT secure (whether because of, or in spite of, the CSPF bail-out) by virute of being supported by "hard nosed" UPS. As much as people disparage the firm, it must have done SOMETHING right. After all, I can remember a time when UPS was WIDELY referred to as the firm that "took the freight no one else wanted"...and it was literally the truth.
 
After all, I can remember a time when UPS was WIDELY referred to as the firm that "took the freight no one else wanted"...and it was literally the truth.

I worked for a couple of other companies just like that lol.
 
This can't be true. I know that in Farmingdale when I run there, there is a Rastafarian mechanic, He has his full beard and dreadlocks to his ankles that he keeps up while working. He told me that he was hired after the dress code policy and that when he stated it was his religion, they never bothered him with it again. I doubt the HRS guy is telling the truth since it is the same region as Farmingdale.
 
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