He went on, “That’s great news, because they’re a solvent company—your jobs are secure. But here’s the bad news. A couple weeks ago, a brother, Esteban Chavez, died, twenty-four years old. From the heat!” (Chavez, a UPS driver, was reportedly found unconscious in his package car while on his route near Pasadena. The medical examiner has not yet determined the cause of death.)
Last summer, UPS drivers around the country were using thermometers to check the heat in the back of their vehicles; on social media, photos were circulating of temperature readings above a hundred and twenty degrees. Drivers had been demanding that UPS install air-conditioning in its package cars. The company—which had claimed that A.C. would be “ineffective,” because drivers get in and out of their vehicles so often—said that, among other measures, it was “accelerating the installation of fans” in package cars, and providing drivers with water bottles, cooling towels, electrolyte drinks, and freeze pops.
Teamsters leaders have said that UPS’s measures are not enough. Perrone mentioned another UPS driver who had recently made the news: “There was a kid in Arizona. I don’t know if you guys saw, the video went viral, where he collapsed—on the doorstep.” A doorbell camera had caught the moment, and the customer, who was not home at the time, was so disturbed by the footage that he made it public. In the video, the UPS driver stumbles toward the door with a parcel in hand, then falls to the ground, where he remains for a few moments, legs askew. The incident had occurred on a day when the temperature exceeded a hundred degrees.
“This is what I took from that video,” Perrone said. “They indoctrinate you so much that this kid got up after fainting from the heat in Arizona and rang the customer’s bell! ”
(UPS said in a statement to The New Yorker, “We have strong reasons to believe that this employee was not properly rested and hydrated prior to work that day and there may have been extenuating circumstances which resulted in the collapse.” In addition, the company said, “While there has recently been media attention on heat issues, we have always been faced with operating on hot days, especially in warmer climates. We believe that by training our people to be prepared—and by providing ample resources for support and hydration—we can continue to keep them safe.”)
Perrone told the c
