‘Referred to as inmates by managers’: DHL workers push to unionize US hub
A former manager at one of DHL’s largest facilities claims fellow managers referred to workers as “inmates” and themselves as “wardens” of a prison in conversations about how to stop a union organizing drive at the site.
The revelations come as DHL is at loggerheads with the Teamsters over a union election to represent workers at the site.
Ryan Doyen has worked at DHL for about five years and was promoted to a manager position as a ramp lead on the DHL Express Ramp. He said he resigned from management at the logistics company’s super hub at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky international airport (CVG) and returned to an hourly position after hearing the responses and attitudes of other managers toward his co-workers once a union organizing drive ramped up at the site.
“I kept hearing ill speaking of the hourly employees,” said Doyen. “Then one day I overheard a conversation between two managers that they needed to take back the hub, that they referred to as a prison, and that they are the ‘wardens’ taking back the prison from the ‘inmates’. On that note, I did not want to be a part of management any more because I couldn’t idly sit by and allow managers to speak ill of the people I called my friends and colleagues. It didn’t sit right with me as a human.”
After the incident, Doyen wrote a resignation letter from his managerial position. Afterward, he started speaking with union organizers and getting involved in the union effort, which he had not initially supported.
DHL employs about 3,000 workers at the CVG Global Hub, with 900 workers currently seeking to form a union with Teamsters Local 100. DHL and the union are still disputing the size and scope of the bargaining unit and an election date has yet to be determined by the
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