To Whom It May Concern,
My name is Kathleen Baber. I have been a newspaper carrier at the Springfield Distribution Center since late August 2013. I am writing to express my frustration and concern regarding the delivery times we are experiencing at our distribution center. I actually composed a letter back in December to address these concerns but just as I was about to send it out the situation seemed to rectify itself. Delivery times became more consistent and quite a bit earlier. Because I didn’t want to risk retribution I kept my thoughts to myself. This “better, more consistent” delivery scenario continued through much of January even during the worst of the bitter cold weather. But then something changed in February and we were back to the same old, same old as we’d experienced in October and November.
Here’s what I’ve observed: I can count on early delivery on Monday and Tuesday. I set my alarm earlier, arrive and depart earlier with decent looking papers in hand. Wednesday is often slightly later but still within a respectable timeframe. But then Thursday arrives and all bets are off for the remainder of the week. I understand there are more papers that must be printed and multiple ads that must be inserted therefore production time must increase. What I don’t understand is the lack of coordinating logistical planning. If you know production takes an extra hour or more, why isn’t press time moved up to compensate for that? If I had a problem with my vehicle every Thursday and Sunday morning…you’d tell me to fix my car or lose my job… that our customers deserve consistent delivery times…I’m telling you to fix your car or lose your business… our customers deserve consistent delivery times.
Generally speaking, I wake at midnight, leave my home by 12:30 and arrive at the distribution center by 12:45. I have a very low complaint rate; feel free to verify this with John Patton. This morning, March 6th I allowed myself an extra half hour of sleep, I arrived at the Sun New building at 1:30 a.m. and was told the truck had left the Franklin plant at 1:10 a.m. about ten minutes later the time was removed from the computer screen and we were left to wonder when the truck would arrive. Over two hours later it pulled in. If this were an isolated incident this letter would be pointless. If this were merely an annoyance this would again be pointless but the consequences of a late truck are many and I think as an organization Cox Media has decided to categorically disregard them because they happen to carriers. Carrier problems are beneath consideration…at least that is the feeling within the distribution center. Please allow me to elaborate.
As business people I assume you want your business to succeed. I assume you care about your subscribers and advertisers. They are your external customers, the source of your revenue. But as an organization you have internal customers that need and deserve your consideration as well. They are your hourly and salaried employees and that should also include your contractors, such as the carriers and distributors. We are your newspaper and as the carriers we are the face of your newspaper to your ever-shrinking subscriber base. How you treat me is reflected in how I can in turn treat our subscriber. If the paper is late to me, it’s late to our subscriber. If the paper comes torn, crumpled and in general disarray, that’s how it is presented to our subscriber. If the paper is incomplete with missing sections or ads…that’s how it’s presented to our subscriber. These are the biggest issues we face in terms of production … but they are production issues…yet as a carrier I am hit with the complaint. I have no control over production but I take the hit when the subscriber either 1) complains or 2) cancels their subscription. Both of these consequences affect my paycheck far more directly than they do the press operator or truck driver.
Let’s take a look at the pay set up and tell me just how fair it is. When the presses run late or the truck runs late…they’re compensated for their time. In fact, they’re rewarded. Don’t think that fact was lost on any of the carriers when we sat for hours on Christmas morning waiting for the promised “early” delivery. Those employees were probably paid “holiday” pay while we didn’t even get a Sunday rate for the larger than normal Wednesday delivery. Do press operators or truck drivers work 7 days a week, 365 days a year? No? Carriers do. Do truck drivers have to maintain their own rigs, carry their own insurance or purchase the fuel for their trucks? Probably not, but carriers do. Are the press operators charged for the baling supplies used to bundle the papers, charged for the damaged papers or any other supplies associated with their jobs? No, but carriers must purchase everything from rubber bands to plastic sleeves and if a paper is wet or damaged we pay a punitive fee three to five times the retail cost of the paper. So tell me again how this is a fair and equitable partnership between all parties involved when those with the most control over the product and its delivery time suffer the least consequence for their failures and those of us assuming the most cost and risk are treated like naughty school children who must be punished when a customer is unhappy.
I could go further into the economic feasibility of being a carrier but I’ll save that for another letter. Let me just say that it has taken me six months to finally be in a position with my route that it makes some money. I was truly working for pennies and it was barely a break even proposition up until three weeks ago. But I have yet to have a successful Sunday delivery that didn’t take until 10 a.m. or later, directly contributable to late truck deliveries, awful weather or both. My grievance is truly about being compensated for my time. If you had to pay me hourly from 1 a.m. until I could leave and start my deliveries each day, don’t you think I’d have my papers on time? How would it be if Cox Media had to pay me and all the other carriers to sit on our rears for 2+ hours a night? I think the company would be sure that I had the paper in hand, on time so our customers had their papers in hand, on time. If the press operators and truck drivers weren’t paid hourly do you think production time would increase or decrease? I believe they’d be on time, every time if not for the financial reward of overtime, a benefit I am not afforded. The reality is my pay is set, it doesn’t go up whether I show up at 1 a.m. or 3 a.m. it can only go down with punitive complaint penalties. And you wonder why you can’t find and keep reliable carriers? It’s a lose/lose proposition for us. If you want to cultivate a better customer service culture then start with how you treat the carriers – stop looking at complaint fees as an alternative source of revenue. If you take care of your people they’ll take care of you – it’s still true! Come down to the distribution center, talk to the carriers, better yet, walk a downed route especially in -25 degree wind chills like so many of us did this winter…where’s our thank you, our pat on the back? WHIO did plenty of stories about garbage truck guys out in the cold, but none about newspaper carriers. I wonder if Cox Media was a little afraid of what the carriers would say on camera.
At the end of the day all I really want is to be treated fairly. I’m not a hobo you’ve rescued from skid row by giving me a thankless, poor paying job. I think we’ve been lumped together as a group of uneducated, unskilled, unthinking people. We are mothers, fathers, students, retirees, vets, educators, some of us have degrees, most of us have other jobs we go to after this part-time gig and others work as couples to get their routes large enough to actually scrape a living. The point is we're not a homogeneous group, our backgrounds, education levels and reasons for running a route are varied but we are your internal customer. We deserve to be treated with as much consideration as your hourly and salaried employees, maybe even more since we assume more cost and risk than they do. You put us in peril every hour that truck is late as our safety factor decreases exponentially particularly for those on motor routes. I have to contend with a busy highway and a High School, both are huge safety risks and just one hour makes an enormous difference to me. It takes me four hours to run my route. When the papers aren’t even in the building until 3:40 a.m. and I have to still assemble Dayton Daily News sections that means I don’t start until 4 a.m. and won’t be finished until 8 a.m. How does that work for Guaranteed Delivery Time? I shudder to think what my galley will look like tomorrow. And not one bit of that is within my control to change as I sit for two hours waiting on the truck. How is that for a fair and equitable partnership? Happens every week like clockwork. Fix your problems…our customers deserve better!
One last thought: John Patton is doing a great job. He is level headed even when he takes the brunt of our frustrations, and also suffers considerable financial consequences for the late deliveries, not to mention the shorted deliveries and the mad scramble to provide papers to all the carriers. He does all he can to mitigate the punitive aspects of the current situation. He and his family have shown time and again that they care about the carriers. If not for that, I would probably have already resigned. We have not seen much in consideration from Cox. Even with this past weekend’s bad weather the promised early delivery for Sunday was merely on time. I couldn’t exceed 25 miles per hour for my entire 65+ mile route due to the road conditions, that extra hour would have meant a lot. It's time that a spirit of cooperation was engendered and fostered. This a partnership between all parties but it sure doesn't feel like one when one group penalizes the other for their own failure to provide the resources that will let the partnership succeed.
Sincerely,
K. Kathleen Baber
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