UPS plans layoffs at New Stanton facility

Global shipper UPS plans to eliminate the full daylight shift that sorts packages at its New Stanton facility April 15, the company said Tuesday.

Teamsters Local 30 in Jeannette will meet with its members Wednesday to discuss the company’s plans to cut the local workforce, said Eugene “Geno” Bosetti, president of Teamsters Local 30, which represents about 1,000 workers at the New Stanton hub.

The company is reducing its package sorting operations at New Stanton and other UPS facilities to “meet volume demands” while remaining competitive in its pricing, said a UPS spokeswoman for the Atlanta-based global company who requested anonymity.

UPS, the world’s largest package delivery company with revenues of $91 billion in 2023, said it will work with those who might be impacted throughout the process to provide support. The company declined to reveal how many jobs would be cut when those daylight sorting operations are eliminated.

The number of UPS workers in New Stanton who would be impacted by the pending layoffs has yet to be determined, Bosetti said. Union members have seniority rights that would allow them to replace evening shift workers with less seniority, he added.

The loss of the daylight shift, however, is not a temporary move, Bosetti said.

“That is not coming back,” he said.

UPS officials will not be attending the union meeting, he said.

Bosetti said the New Stanton hub had about 1,300 to 1,400 workers during the covid pandemic, when consumers were buying products online and not going to stores. The volume of packages has dropped since the pandemic ended, he said.

“That building is not as busy,” Bosetti said.

UPS is moving some work from the New Stanton facility to automated hubs, he added.

The news of the pending layoffs at New Stanton comes three weeks after UPS officials told analysts it was cutting its global workforce of 495,000 employees by about 2.4%. Most of those cuts are expected to come in the first half of this year.

Brian Newman, the company’s chief financial officer, said that even as the volume of its packaging business returns, it will not recall workers because the company is making changes to how it operates.

UPS said its revenue from U.S. operations fell in the fourth quarter last year to $16.9 billion, from $18.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Revenue dropped as the average daily volume of packages it moved declined by 7.4%, the company said.