The possibility of a major disruptive event, such as the Yellow Freight bankruptcy and a potential UPS strike, brought to light the vulnerability of the nation’s supply chain. From COVID-19 to ongoing issues with transportation and labor shortages, the supply chain had been on thin ice. Such scenarios emphasizes the importance of moving beyond a risky, overexposed single carrier approach.
A Department of Transportation program that aggregates forward-looking supply chain data from various stakeholders to help identify volume and capacity issues, including shippers, carriers, chassis and drayage and port operators, will begin providing insights to participants this summer. The FLOW program uses booking information 60-90 days out, helping improve planning and forecasting.
After a strike authorization vote, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters said it reached agreement on a couple key points with UPS, including increasing the number of grievance arbitrators and the amount due in penalties for errors in pay, according to a report in Scripps News. Meanwhile, a separate 8-1 U.S. Supreme Court ruling against the Teamsters was seen as weakening the right to strike.
UPS continues to see volume declines impacting results, as it steps up automation and finds other ways to drive greater efficiency in order to offset the decline, which helped boost revenue per piece in the first quarter even with the volume falloff. The company also remains confident of a Teamsters settlement, while working overtime to retain business and keeping a contingency plan at hand.
FedEx Ground plans to cut back Sunday delivery from 80% U.S. coverage to 50% starting in March, as it faces lower volume and the high cost of service on a light day. The company initially cut back Ground service on Sunday to 50% coverage from 95% in August, citing a focus on “improving efficiency and reducing costs,”
Amazon lost another skirmish in its ongoing multi-front labor war, as a federal regulator ruled Wednesday against its petition to have a successful union vote in Staten Island, NY vacated. At the same time, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters is heating up rhetoric ahead of the expiration of its contract with UPS on July 31.
The three major parcel carriers had a decent peak holiday season in terms of on-time performance, with service levels comparable to 2019, according to ShipMatrix, not surprising as volumes were lighter even though holiday sales increased, as many shoppers returned to stores. FedEx saw a significant improvement over its 2021 showing.
UPS for the first time is extending its peak surcharges for residential delivery beyond the usual mid-January cutoff, referring to them as by the new designation of “demand surcharges” which will be in place until further notice, while FedEx is not following suit but letting them lapse.
A freight consortium made up of J.B. Hunt, Uber Freight and Convoy is looking to create an industry standard for using application programming interface (API) connections to share data among partners in order to solve freight scheduling challenges, initially addressing full truckload (TL).
After making a lot of noise this year with a list of grievances including poor management practices and bad peak season forecasting leading to the brink of insolvency for many, an association of FedEx Ground contractors has disbanded, taking a shot at the founder on the way out the door.