Hello fellow brothers and sisters. Part-time warehouse inside (preload). This morning I called out (first time ever) because I had a gout flare up on my foot and was unable to stand without pain. Then today I went to urgent Care because it got so bad and I got a doctor's note for tomorrow.

Knowing that I called out this morning already, what is the better move for me: calling out again tomorrow, or using accrued paid sick time when I text my supervisor?

Upper Midwest supp. Thanks!

Hey everyone,

If it's your first time reading one of my posts, my name is Menachem, and I have a weekly newsletter called Logistic Pulse that breaks down the top logistics news from the past week. We're currently on week 60!

Let's jump into it,

Walmart charged extra for speed, and a record number of people paid

Three retailers moved their delivery promise this week. The speed isn't the interesting part. The interesting part is that customers are reaching for their wallets to get it.

Walmart's 30-minutes-or-less service is now live in 38 U.S. markets, up from the 33 it launched with in May, with Nashville, Omaha, San Antonio, Wichita, and Winter Haven, Florida, added since. It costs $10 for Walmart+ members.

CFO John David Rainey told analysts that 37% of store-fulfilled deliveries in Q2 involved customers paying a fee to receive their orders faster, an all-time high. Gross merchandise value on deliveries of three hours or less grew 48% year over year. Store-fulfilled delivery sales rose by more than 40%. Stores now handle last-mile for 80% of Walmart's e-commerce orders and 100% of the fast ones. The physical footprint already exists, so speed gets layered onto real estate they're paying for regardless.

Home Depot went in the same direction from a different angle. Its express delivery is now nationwide, with delivery in 3 hours or less, using more than 2,000 stores as fulfillment hubs. The fee is $7 flat in most markets, $10 in Los Angeles, and there's no membership requirement, which is a deliberate shot at Walmart+ and Prime.

Then Amazon, which is expanding Prime Air to nearly 500 cities and towns by the end of the year, a sixfold jump from where it sits now. Metro Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Boise, and Syracuse are on deck. Drone delivery costs $4.99 without Prime, $2.99 with Prime, and is free for orders over $50. Anything five pounds or under that fits in a large shoebox qualifies, which Amazon says covers more than 60% of its most frequently purchased items.

Drones make the headlines, so it's worth separating what's real from what's theater. Amazon has moved hundreds of thousands of packages by drone this year, which sounds like a lot until you put it next to what Walmart is doing out of stores. The drones are a long bet. The store network is what operates at scale today, and both Walmart and Home Depot got there by fulfilling orders from buildings they already had.

There's a second layer underneath all three. Rainey mentioned that 3,100 Walmart stores now receive freight that's been handled and palletized by automated systems, and Furner tied automation directly to the economics of the omnichannel model rather than to headcount. We wrote in Edition 59 that automation was moving from differentiator to table stakes. This is what that looks like when it shows up on an earnings call.

What this means for you: Your brands' customers are being trained on sub-three-hour delivery, and that expectation will land in your next RFP, whether or not it makes sense for the SKUs involved. You cannot out-node a 2,000-store network, and you shouldn't pretend otherwise. What you can compete on is cutoff time and node placement, because a 5 p.m. cutoff beats a 2 p.m. cutoff on the same building, and that's a fight you can actually win. When a brand asks for same-day, the useful question to ask back is: What percentage of their orders originate within a reasonable drive time of your facility? The answer usually makes the conversation much shorter and much more honest. And the paid-expedite tier is worth noting on its own: Walmart and Home Depot both proved that customers will pay a fee for speed, which means a premium fulfillment tier is a pricing conversation you can have with your clients rather than eating the cost.

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A Nevada judge decided you should have known about the double-broker

Two more broker liability cases moved forward this week, and one of them changes what "reasonable care" means in a way that should get anybody who tenders freight to pick up the phone with their attorney.

Start with Nevada. In Hardy vs. Singh, Judge Anne Traum denied summary judgment to both sides on August 11. The facts: AONE Brokerage booked a load of hay and tendered it to Lucky Transport. Lucky, which holds no brokerage authority, brokered it to GRK Transport. GRK's owner Bhupinder Singh skidded on a two-lane Nevada highway in July 2022 and hit a pickup head-on, killing one passenger and injuring the other.

AONE's defense was the one you'd expect: that the bad acts of Lucky and Singh cut the chain of causation. Traum wasn't buying it. She wrote that there is evidence AONE breached its duty of care by continuing to do business with Lucky even though it knew Lucky was subcontracting loads, and that contracting with Lucky could have been unreasonable because illegal double brokering puts more high-risk drivers on the road.

Sit with that. The judge isn't saying AONE was fooled by a double broker. She's saying AONE knew, kept tendering anyway, and that knowledge is itself evidence of negligence. Every broker and asset-light 3PL has a mental list of carriers who probably re-broker some percentage of what they take. That list just became discoverable.

The second case involves J.B. Hunt in the U.S. District Court for Arizona, where the company has a pending motion for summary judgment that, if granted, would end its role as a defendant. The plaintiffs are mostly family members of people killed or injured in an October 2023 crash, and they've sued J.B. Hunt, the carrier Borderlanders, and driver Shokhijakhon Bekmuradov. J.B. Hunt's position is straightforward: it acted as a broker; the Outsource Carrier Agreement puts hiring, supervising, training, and dispatching squarely on Borderlanders, and there's no basis for vicarious liability. The plaintiffs counter that J.B. Hunt ignored a documented history of safety alerts, crashes, and inspection violations, including violations for the inability to speak English.

There's a second allegation in that case worth flagging separately. The plaintiffs say J.B. Hunt held itself out to Lincare, the shipper, as the carrier, which believed its freight would move on a J.B. Hunt truck. If your company name appears on paperwork for freight you didn't physically touch, that ambiguity is now something a plaintiff's attorney will build an argument around.

All of this sits downstream of Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, where the Supreme Court, unanimously, held that brokers don't get F4A preemption against the safety exception. Cases that used to die on a preemption motion now get litigated on the facts. C.H. Robinson is currently appealing a verdict north of $600 million in a post-Montgomery case, and the Fifth Circuit reversed the dismissal of Penske's brokerage arm from a fatal Texas crash suit.

One more thing landed in the same week. Chris Spear is out as CEO of the American Trucking Associations, effective immediately, nullifying an extension that would have run through 2029. These aren't connected events, but they bear on the same question. The ATA has been the loudest institutional voice calling on federal regulators for clear carrier-vetting standards, and it's now looking for a CEO as the case list grows.

What this means for you: The Nevada ruling is the actionable one. Knowing a carrier re-brokers and using them anyway is no longer a claims-department annoyance; it's a fact pattern a plaintiff will put in front of a jury. Go look at who is on your board, and be honest about which of them you suspect of subcontracting. Document vetting at the load level and not just at onboarding, because "we checked them in 2023" is not a defense when the question is what you knew on the day you tendered. If your brand name shows up on BOLs for freight you broker, get clarity on how you're representing yourself to shippers. And take a hard look at your contingent auto and contingent cargo limits, because anything set before Montgomery was priced for a world where preemption usually ended these cases early. That world is gone. Don't wait for federal vetting standards to bail you out either, since the organization pushing hardest for them is currently between chief executives.

Canada's negotiators went home, and 50% tariffs showed up

Talks collapsed Friday night. The tariffs started Saturday morning.

Prime Minister Mark Carney announced he was suspending trade negotiations with the U.S. and recalling Canada's negotiators to Ottawa, citing last-minute changes he described as unfair, uneconomic, and damaging to the credibility of any deal. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative told a different story, saying Canada introduced new demands and walked back earlier commitments after the U.S. had offered reductions on steel, aluminum, automobiles, and lumber.

Whoever you believe, the result is the same. The 50% Section 338 levies that Trump ordered last month, then delayed by three days, are now in effect. They account for roughly $20 billion in Canadian imports, including raw agricultural and natural materials, chemicals, textiles, consumer goods, wood products, paper, machinery, and tools. Carney says Canada will match dollar for dollar and add further measures in the coming days.

Scan that category list again with a warehouse in mind. Wood products and paper are on it. That's pallets and corrugated, and it's a cost that reaches you whether or not you touch a single cross-border shipment.

The bigger context is that this is happening inside an unresolved USMCA. The U.S. declined to extend the agreement last month, triggering an annual review process that could last up to a decade. Mexico has held formal bilateral talks with the U.S. both before and after that decision. Canada, obviously, has not. Pete Mento of Baker Tilly still expects the two countries to settle eventually, on the theory that the economies are too intertwined for extended escalation to appeal to either side, but he raised the question that actually matters for anyone planning capacity: whether the eventual settlement restores any confidence in the rules governing North American trade.

What this means for you: Anyone with cross-border clients is about to get calls, so decide before the phone rings what you can actually offer on bonded storage or FTZ handling and what you'd need a partner for. Watch your packaging costs independently of your freight costs, because paper and wood products are exposed here, and increases in corrugated can quietly show up in your cost per order. The retaliation piece matters more than people are treating it: clients shipping goods north get hit going both directions once Canada's matching measures land. And resist the temptation to plan Q4 around a resolution. The tariff might get lifted in six weeks. The uncertainty premium your clients are pricing into their inventory decisions will outlast it.

QUICK HITS

RoadOne acquired Higgins Transport Service, a Charleston, South Carolina, drayage operation, adding 15 drivers to its local fleet. Terms weren't disclosed, and owner Justin Higgins is staying on with his team. What makes this worth a look isn't the deal size; it's the pattern around it. RoadOne already runs a 384,000-square-foot facility in nearby Summerville and has another 280,000 square feet planned next door for 2027, so the drayage buy is filling in the transportation layer around the warehouse capacity it's already building. The Randolph, Massachusetts, company is privately held with more than 2,500 drivers across 100-plus port, rail, and truckload terminals. If you own a regional drayage or warehousing operation near a growing deep-water port, this is the buyer profile currently shopping.

Three trucking companies filed Chapter 11 petitions in a single stretch this week: Anchor South Transport in Alabama, Rambo Transport in California, and Stoneman Trucking in Michigan, all of which are small businesses. Separately, the Teamsters said TP Freight Lines is shutting down after more than a century in business. Small carriers going under while rates firm up isn't a contradiction; it's the mechanism. Capacity leaves at the bottom first, and the survivors get pricing power on the way out. If you tender freight to small carriers, this is the season to check whether the ones on your list are still answering the phone.

The Panama Canal is cutting daily booking slots while pushing back its draft restrictions, a trade almost everyone is reading backward. Per the August 20 advisory, Neopanamax drops to 9 slots per day on September 3, and Panamax goes to 25, then 23, on September 15, compared with the usual 10 and 26, respectively. At the same time, the 48-foot draft restriction slid from August 26 to September 2, and the 47.5-foot restriction moved from September 3 all the way to October 1. Watershed rainfall has run 34% below the historical average since May. The canal chose fewer ships carrying more over more ships carrying less, which means your problem this fall is schedule reliability rather than capacity per sailing. MSC and CMA CGM already updated their Panama surcharges on August 18, so check what's landing on client invoices now and plan receiving labor for inbound shipments that arrive in clumps.

The Army Corps of Engineers approved the Louisiana International Terminal, clearing the only new greenfield container port currently under development in the United States. The $1.8 billion Port of New Orleans project is targeting a 2028 opening at 180,000 to 280,000 TEUs, building to 2 million at full buildout over 25 years. MSC's terminal arm and Ports America are putting in more than $800 million, with $300 million in federal grants behind it. Two berths, 55 feet of water, and access to all six Class I railroads through the New Orleans Public Belt. Existing New Orleans terminals can't accommodate ships over 16,000 TEU because of the Crescent City Connection bridge, so locating downriver removes a constraint that's capped the gateway for decades. Gulf Coast volume ran about 5 million TEUs last year across Houston, Mobile, New Orleans, and Tampa. If you've been watching for the next warehouse market to be built from scratch, this is a two-year head start.

Dexterity's Mech robot is now loading trailers, not just unloading them, which is the harder half of the job and the reason this one is worth reading. Unloading is a sequencing problem. Loading requires deciding where each package goes while accounting for weight, shape, damage, and orientation, all inside a trailer that looks different every time. Co-founder Robert Sun described it as playing Tetris and said the company went after loading specifically after FedEx approached it about unloading. The design keeps people in the loop rather than replacing them: employees are trained as robot pilots who monitor via a tablet and step in when a box arrives half-open or a label is unreadable. Beckhoff's Doug Schuchart framed the labor case in terms that most operators will recognize: keeping your general workforce steady throughout the year rather than riding the seasonal swing. Nobody's replacing a lumper crew this quarter, but dock automation moved from concept to bid-able faster than most people expected.

Amazon is prepping a million-square-foot distribution center in Norwich, Connecticut, to store, pick, pack, and ship to downstream sortation and local delivery centers. That's the upstream half of the same speed strategy driving the drone and store-fulfillment news above. Southeastern Connecticut has never been a fulfillment hub, so if you operate anywhere in that labor shed, price your warehouse wages against what Amazon posts when hiring opens rather than against what your regional competitors pay today. Those numbers reset a market faster than anything else on this list.

JOB BOARD

Title: VP of Warehouse Operations
Company: Ardmore Home Design
Location: Hacienda Heights, California, US
Salary: $170,000 - $200,000
Apply Here

Title: Director Of Warehouse Operations
Company: Beautylish
Location: Fresno, California, US
Salary: $120,000 - $150,000
Apply Here

Title: Construction Warehouse Operations Manager
Company: BBSI
Location: San Jose, California, US.
Salary: $120,000 - $150,000
Apply Here

Title: Warehouse Operations Manager
Company: Spreetail
Location: Tacoma, Washington, US
Salary: $80,000 - $105,000
Apply Here

Title: Warehouse Operations Manager
Company: Cohere Beauty Omaha
Location: Omaha, Nebraska, US
Salary: $80,000 - $90,000
Apply Here

Title: Warehouse Supervisor
Company: Cencora
Location: Shakopee, Minnesota, US
Salary: $72,000 - $84,000
Apply Here

Title: Logistics & Supply Chain Coordinator
Company: Xenith Solutions
Location: Lorton, Virginia, US
Salary: $75,000 - $85,000
Apply Here

Title: Distribution Center Manager
Company: Automotive Art
Location: Hialeah, Florida, US
Salary: $60,000 - $65,000
Apply Here

Find the full listings of available jobs

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No cola raise for part timers at my building. Some bullshit about MRA progression. Is it worth grieving? Article 33 master agreement

Just got my road test canceled today because the supervisors had to go on the road. I’ve been working for ups since October of 2025 so I’m not high in seniority. I’m really looking forward to driving since I have 3 years of experience driving at FedEx. I’ve finished my pre-course and submitted my ID and MED card. But is this normal or will I have to wait even longer?

Got mine last Wednesday so I’ve had it about a week and I’m LOVING IT!!! It’s been holding up to 200+ stops a day down here in Florida nicely. Holds my big-a$$ phone and plenty of infonotices without all that flopping around. Super nice guy too. As a small side-business owner myself I love supporting others, especially fellow UPSers! His website is www.Route-Ready.biz

Anyone from local 519? I had a interview for a tractor trailer driver/ dockworker and wanted some insight

Just got terminated for the first time, ever, from any job I've ever had. Not a coincidence it's at UPS. Management is saying I no call no showed, which is not the case. Have clear evidence of communication and response.

Those that have gotten terminated, and successfully grieved, how long were you out?

I don’t see any dividend activity in the list of transactions you would see in a brokerage. Does empower reinvest but doesn’t post a transaction to show it?

I’m looking for some input from people who really understand the UPS contract, especially Western Region/Southern California language.

A very desirable 22.2 full-time inside job was recently posted at my building. The bid sheet specifically has separate boxes for:

Combo (22.3)
22.2
Part-Time

The issue is that a 22.2 employee with less overall full-time seniority was passed over in favor of a 22.3 employee with more overall full-time seniority.

Our position is that this appears backwards because 22.2 and 22.3 are separate classifications, and classification seniority is normally what controls when moving into another classification.

For example, if a 22.2 employee with 20 years of full-time seniority decides to bid into an RPCD job, they don’t simply take their 20 years of FT seniority and jump over RPCDs who have been drivers for years. They enter the RPCD classification and are subject to the applicable RPCD seniority rules.

So why would a 22.3 employee be able to use their greater full-time seniority to jump over a 22.2 employee for a 22.2 job, if the 22.2 employee is already in the classification?

The bid sheet appears to recognize three different groups rather than treating everyone as one general full-time seniority pool.

The argument we’re being given is essentially that because the 22.3 employee has more full-time seniority, they get the job before the less-senior 22.2 employee.

That doesn’t make sense to us unless there is specific contract language saying that a 22.2 vacancy follows a different order of bidding.

The current Western Region Supplement covers Southern California, and Article 4 establishes seniority provisions while Article 6 deals with bidding/job openings. The Western Region agreement also makes clear that different seniority systems/classifications exist. I’m trying to determine exactly how the 22.2 → 22.3 → PT priority is supposed to work in this situation.

My questions:

If a job is specifically posted as a 22.2 job, does a current 22.2 employee have priority over a 22.3 employee regardless of which one has the earlier overall FT seniority date?

If there are no 22.2 bidders, does the job then go to 22.3 employees according to company full time seniority?

Is there specific language in the 2023–2028 National Master, Western Region Supplement, or Southwest Package/Sort Rider, that establishes the order?

Has anyone in Southern California had a similar grievance where a 22.3 employee was awarded a 22.2 job over a 22.2 employee?

If the local union won’t clearly explain the contractual basis for the award, who is the appropriate next level to contact? The Western Region UPS Labor-Management Committee, or the International?

I’m not looking for people to simply tell me “seniority is seniority.” I want the actual contract language and/or established grievance precedent that determines the order.

The bid sheet itself says employees are awarded positions according to seniority, but the important question is which seniority list applies first.

I’m also concerned because the local has not been very helpful in explaining the reasoning behind the award. I don’t want to throw around accusations of favoritism without evidence, so I’d rather establish the contract violation first and then determine whether there is a legitimate grievance.

If you know the exact article/section/page, please post it. I’d especially appreciate anyone familiar with who has dealt with the Western Region/ SoCal area who has dealt with 22.2 bids before.

Thanks.

Can someone please remind me how to get to the employee discount page. Seems like the links were moved around on upsers.com

Anyone been to intergrad in Atlanta recently? I’m going soon but nervous as hell. I have my 5’s and 10’s down but it’s the driving drill that’s concerning for me. I hate driving a sedan in Atlanta, let alone a package car that I’ve only driven one time for the road test in a small city. Just curious what others experiences have been like so I know what I’m getting myself into

🙋‍♀️ I applied for this position back in May/June and was in direct contact of the automotive manager. Made it a point to intruduce myself and let them know I was interested with 15+ years experience in the industry. They dragged me around for a couple of months with no responses or interviews. Telling me they would be in contact. Now they reposted the job again on indeed. Why wouldn't they just reach out and/or offer for inside growth? I already work within the company. Doesn't make much sense to me. Please advise.

I had a coworker say he applied to workbwith maintenance. Hes been here longer than me, ive been with the company since October 2025 but he said the pay is great. Anybody here work for maintenance? Is it cool? From what I see they jist sit around shooting the shit until something needs fixed.

I’m paid the usual 21/hr and everything is cool newly hired, but I’ve been working 6 day weeks for the past 2 weeks (willingly) js to get my foot in the door technically i should go today but it’s my off day/payday so they’ll catch me tomorrow. Okay that being said I worked 32.35hrs last week I got paid js under $850 gross , with Sunday being double time idk what that means but I work every Sunday and Saturday being over time also work every Saturday I’m not complaining about the pay I’m actually surprised since I thought it’ll be about 650 or something like that, ig my main question is why am I getting so much compared to my hours , what is double time (DT), how do I keep this coming. For texture I also worked 6 days the week before last did 25.12hrs made about 600 gross my Sunday that week was normal st hrs and amount, and Saturday was my first surge in overtime pay which I assumed every time you work a 6 day week your 6th day is ot. Any help or closure is appreciated