Over the past few years, especially since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve become increasingly reliant on fast shipping for our online purchases. Still, there’s a human cost behind all those cardboard boxes showing up at your door every day, and with record-breaking heat waves around the globe, package delivery drivers are suffering through inhumane working conditions.
UPS is unusual in the package-delivery industry; most competitors have air-conditioned delivery vehicles. Retrofitting the familiar company-owned brown trucks with A/C would be time-consuming and expensive, but it’s something UPS employees and their union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Package Division, have been requesting for years.
Currently, the company has no plans to install A/C in its delivery vehicles, and drivers have to individually submit a request to have a fan installed.
