Jolene Stotler

“I’m primarily a stay-at-home mom. I have six kids, but financially we were pushed into a bind until I started working for UPS.”

“To work for UPS in Illinois, it’s mandatory to be a part of the Teamsters union. After being there for about four-and-a-half years, the Teamsters just created a very toxic environment, especially for a female to work in, so I quit.”

“They took just under $10 per paycheck. It was a percentage of my hourly rate. In the last contract, we got like a $0.75 per hour raise, but they took more than that. Almost all my raise went to the union dues. I paid over $300 per year in dues, and I was only working part-time.”

“There were times that I wouldn’t even have a shift because I would come in and they’d say, ‘Well, it’s your day to go home. We don’t have enough work to give you.’”

“They make it sound nice. They say, ‘We’re covering your medical benefits,’ and you could have a retirement if you could last 10 years with them no cost to you! But then they cut off your benefits if you can’t work.”

“I missed a week of work because I had COVID-19. And at the time, my daughter had a check-up appointment in Peoria with her specialist. I was a responsible person. I was running a fever. I didn’t go to work. And because I did not have a clock-in for those five calendar days, they pulled my health insurance benefits.”

“No one told me that could happen. Neither the union rep nor the management told me that if I did not have a physical clock-in for that week, Sunday through Saturday, that I had no health insurance for that week.”

“So we had to cover her whole entire specialist bill, and all of my doctor’s appointments that week, because they reversed my health care coverage just for those days.”

“Even the doctors were shocked. The insurance people at the doctor’s office had never heard of it being done that way before.”

“Before I was offloading the trucks, so a lot of heavy lifting. Now I’m in the office environment at FedEx Freight. Here I’m guaranteed six hours. So, I go in, work my six hours, and I go home. I don’t have to worry about losing my health coverage.”

“Basically the competitor to UPS, but non-union and the environment is completely different, much more relaxed, higher wages and respectful coworkers.”

Jolene Stotler
FedEx Freight worker
Colona, Illinois