![]() The company has also agreed to add new heat shields and fans in delivery vehicles. UPS said it will send the new vehicles to the hottest parts of the U.S. UPS and the Teamsters union, which represents 340,000 UPS workers, negotiated a tentative heat safety agreement in June to install air conditioning systems in all of the company's small package delivery vehicles purchased after Jan. And we're human – we don't know what our body is going to take."Ĭonditions are set to change for UPS delivery drivers nationwide. "We are putting our lives at risk by delivering in these hot weather conditions. ![]() "What would've happened to him if I had died in the back of the truck?" Gonzalez said. Gonzalez often thinks of her 18-year-old son when she's out driving. ![]() His family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against UPS and ultimately settled with the company. Temperatures exceeded 90 degrees that day, and his family believes his heart failure was due to the heat.Īnother driver, 23-year-old José Cruz Rodriguez, died from a heat-related illness, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, during his UPS delivery shift in Waco, Texas, in August 2021. Chavez died of sudden cardiac dysfunction, according to the medical examiner's report. Last June, a 24-year-old Palmdale UPS driver named Esteban Chavez was found unconscious in his truck while on his delivery route in Pasadena. ![]() Sometimes, Gonzalez calls her friends for support while she's on her delivery route, in case her health takes a turn for the worse. ![]() "We're out there for hours, so you can only think about how much stress we're putting on our bodies," Gonzalez said.ĭelivering packages is a solo task. Gonzalez has come to expect waves of nausea and weakness throughout the day. Her only relief is a fan that blows hot air into her face. For nearly a decade, Viviana Gonzalez has spent her summers delivering packages for United Parcel Service under sweltering sun in Palmdale, California – in a truck without air conditioning.Ī typical work day means at least 10 hours in and out of one of UPS' brown delivery vehicles, where temperatures in the back, Gonzalez said, at times surpass 150 degrees. ![]()
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