Full-Time Package Car Driver at UPS: Pay, Hours & Your Rights

The full-time package car driver — the brown-uniformed RPCD behind the wheel of the famous brown truck — is the backbone of UPS. Generally speaking, package car drivers start their day at a UPS facility, load up, and run a pre-determined route delivering and picking up packages while interacting with customers and the community along the way ^[9]. This article walks through what your contract says about the package car driver job: your workday and workweek, overtime and the right to be relieved of it, bidding into combination jobs, training areas, and how protections around technology and supervision apply to you.

Because UPS Teamsters are covered by a National Master Agreement plus a Supplement, Rider, or Addendum for your area, the exact rules depend on your local contract. The examples below are drawn from several supplements (Western Region, Local 705, Local 710, Local 89, and the Southwest Riders). Always check the agreement that covers your building.

Your Workday and Workweek

Under the Western Region Supplement, the regular scheduled workday for package car drivers is eight (8) consecutive hours with an established start time, excluding an unpaid meal period of either a half-hour or one hour, as set in your area Addendum or Rider ^[2]. The regular scheduled workweek is five consecutive eight-hour days, Monday through Friday or Tuesday through Saturday ^[2].

That same supplement protects more senior drivers from being forced onto a Saturday schedule: no employee with a seniority date prior to August 1, 2019 can be forced onto a Tuesday-through-Saturday workweek unless they mutually agree or they bid that schedule through the proper bidding procedures ^[2].

Start times matter, and your contract pegs pay penalties to them:

• Start times must be posted on the prior Friday for the coming week ^[2].
• If you're ordered to report earlier than your scheduled start time, you get time and one-half for all hours worked before your regular start ^[2].
• If you're ordered to report later, you get time and one-half for the number of hours equal to how late you were called in ^[2].

Different supplements word these schedule rules differently, so confirm the specifics for your area.

Overtime and the 8-Hour Request

Generally, package car drivers earn overtime for hours worked beyond their daily and weekly guarantees, and the National Master gives drivers a structured way to ask for an eight-hour day.

Under Article 37 of the National Master Agreement, a driver who wants to be relieved of overtime on a particular day must submit a written request on a company-furnished form no later than the start of their shift on the third workday before the day requested ^[3]. A signed copy showing approval or denial must come back to you by the end of your next working day ^[3]. Key protections:

• If your request is wrongly denied, you're owed a two-hour penalty payment at double time ^[3].
• If your request is granted but management fails to adjust your dispatch by your start time, and you end up working more than 8.5 hours, you get the two-hour double-time penalty and keep the 8-hour request for later use ^[3].
• Once granted, you cannot be required to work more than eight hours that day ^[3].
• You must notify management no later than 1:00 P.M. if you can't finish in eight hours ^[3].
• No employee shall be threatened, harassed, or disciplined for exercising this right ^[3].

Local 705's supplement runs its own version: package car drivers requesting relief from overtime submit a written request at least 24 hours in advance, the Center Manager and Steward process requests by seniority, and if dispatch isn't adjusted to a reasonable eight-hour day, the driver gets the two-hour double-time penalty ^[8]. Local 705 also guarantees that a minimum of 10% of package car drivers worked in any center can be off daily, caps requests at two per month, and blacks out the period from November 15 through the first two full weeks of January ^[8].

Some supplements also limit excessive forced overtime. The Western Region Supplement lets an employee file a grievance if the Company has continually caused them to work over nine and one-half (9½) hours per day, except during peak season in November and December ^[4].

Becoming a Full-Time Package Car Driver

Many full-time package car drivers come up from the part-time ranks. Generally, part-time employees who qualify for full-time driving get placed on the appropriate full-time seniority list with a seniority date as of their first day of full-time work, while keeping their seniority for fringe-benefit purposes per their area Addendum or Rider ^[7].

The Western Region Supplement adds a member-friendly protection: a part-timer trying to qualify as a full-time package car driver shall not be automatically disqualified for a minor accident during the training period ^[7]. If a driver does disqualify themselves, that supplement also addresses how long before they can place their name back on the full-time list ^[7].

In Local 705's jurisdiction, the contract spells out a six-for-one rule — part-time employees get the chance to fill full-time jobs before outside hiring, on a basis of six part-timers moved up for every one outside hire ^[5].

Training Areas

When you bid in as a full-time package car driver, the company designates training areas in each center for new employees. Under the Western Region Supplement, the number of training areas scales with the number of package car drivers ^[7]:

• 1–15 drivers: 1 training area
• 16–30 drivers: 2 training areas
• 31–45 drivers: 3 training areas
• 46–60 drivers: 4 training areas
• 61+ drivers: 5 training areas

These areas are subject to job bidding, and employees who bid training areas are removed from them in inverse seniority order within a center when training becomes necessary — though that can be waived by mutual written agreement ^[7]. The parties intend that part-timers who accept full-time package car jobs stay on a given training area for the duration of training ^[7].

Bidding Into Combination (22.3) Jobs

Full-time package car drivers in some areas can bid into full-time combination jobs. Under the Southwest Package & Sort Riders, newly established or permanently vacated full-time combo jobs are posted within five days, for five working days, and bid by seniority in a set order ^[1]:

1. First to current full-time combination job employees;
2. Then to package car drivers with at least 15 years of company seniority who put their name on a request list — a driver who takes a combo job is paid the appropriate top combo rate and afterward can only bid into other combo jobs ^[1];
3. Then to employees on the part-time-to-full-time list in company seniority order ^[1].

The successful qualified bidder is awarded the job the Monday after the five-day posting period ends ^[1].

Local 705 handles its Article 22.3 combination jobs through an intent list: part-timers with at least three years of seniority can sign the 22.3 combination job intent list; declining a third full-time offer removes you from the list for one year; and 22.3 employees are limited to one successful bid per calendar year ^[5].

Pay

General-knowledge background: under the 2023–2028 National Master, full-time package car drivers are top-rate Teamster jobs with negotiated raises across the life of the contract; part-time wages also rose significantly. The part-time wage schedule in Article 22 shows general wage increases of $2.75 (2023), $0.75 (2024), $0.75 (2025), $1.00 (2026), and $2.25 (2027), with a $21.00 minimum and longevity bumps for senior part-timers ^[6][5].

Public job sites describe UPS package car driver pay as among the better delivery-driving jobs. ZipRecruiter pegs UPS package car drivers at an average of $20 to $30 an hour, with experienced drivers making more ^[10], and UPS markets full-time driving as "excellent pay + great benefits" ^[11]. Note these are public/recruiting figures, not your contract's negotiated top rate — your actual rate comes from the Master and your supplement, so confirm with your steward.

Protections on the Job

Local 705's supplement contains strong management-relations and technology protections that many drivers care about. The Employer must treat employees with dignity and respect and may not intimidate, harass, coerce, bully, or over-supervise ^[8]. That supplement also provides:

• No discipline for exceeding personal time based on DIAD/IVIS, Telematics, GPS, or other technology ^[8];
• No inward-facing cameras, no in-cab audio/video recording, and forward-facing camera capability cannot be used for discipline ^[8];
• A monetary penalty of up to five times the employee's daily guarantee for proven Article 37 harassment/over-supervision violations ^[8].

Again, technology and harassment language varies by supplement — check yours.

What To Do Next

If you have a question about your start time, an 8-hour request that got denied, a combo-job bid, or how training areas work in your building, talk to your shop steward first — they know how the language is applied locally. Have your specific contract handy, because the workday rules, overtime penalties, and bidding procedures differ between supplements and riders. You can also ask TeamstersGPT with your supplement selected to get answers tied to the exact agreement that covers you.