----Think maybe the entertainment industry will put the right pressure on UPS? The following is from Sonic Net's online entertainment news: UPS Walkout Hits Music Fans Where It Hurts SonicNet Daily Music News Reports: The United Parcel Service strike is sucking the very life out of Tim Cronin's record shop. With fewer new record shipments arriving each day, there's less new music to sell, he said. Less music means fewer customers and it's not hard to figure out what that means. "We've been really panicky since [last] Monday," store manager Cronin said, adding that about 95 percent of deliveries to Jack's Music, an independent record retailer in Red Bank, N.J., arrive via UPS. "We'll muddle through it if we have to. But our special orders and independent releases will definitely hurt. Our new releases have arrived through other services, but at least they eventually got here. It's killing us, but I also sympathize with the drivers." Cronin waits helplessly everyday as most of his orders for CDs, tapes and albums fail to arrive as they should, sending customers elsewhere for their music. >From record labels whose shipments have slowed or stalled to ticket retailers who have to turn to regular mail to record shops, both big and small, the music industry is facing a major challenge since UPS workers decided to walk last week. Most have tried to find quick solutions to the delivery problems yet, like Cronin, most worry that a prolonged UPS strike is going to take a major bite out of business. And even though Jack's Music is struggling now, Cronin is even more worried about the end of the strike. "We'll really be scrambling then," he said. "It'll be a shit storm of packages once they go back." For Fernando Rasario, head of the massive Tower Records' warehouse at their Broadway location in Manhattan, there's less reason to worry, but more to worry about. Only 25 percent of his stock arrives via UPS. Yet when you are a major retail outlet like Tower, even dealing without a quarter of your deliveries can lead to big problems. "Only a small amount of our product is missing," Rosario said. "But to put it in a nutshell, this is definitely not good. We get tons of product delivered here, and we really have to keep it organized. When the Teamsters do go back, we're going to get bombed." The Teamsters walked out of labor meetings with UPS officials on Monday, August 4 after reaching a deadlock in negotiations. Since then, UPS, the world's largest parcel delivery service, says it has only been able to deliver about 10 percent of its normal daily shipment. Federal Express, Airborne Express and the United States Postal Service have since placed limitations on its customers, including a four parcel limit at most local US post offices to handle the fallout. Elsewhere in the music trade, the UPS strike has threatened to halt promotions, tie up warehouses and leave record racks dry. For an industry dependent on the art of shipping and receiving, the UPS strike is an epic headache. And though the picket has already caused a hassle, the worst part -- an end to the boycott followed by an industry-wide bombardment of parcels -- has yet to come. "If this goes on much longer, it'll be a huge problem," said Kevin Hopper, shipping manager for the Rykodisc label in Salem, Mass. "Even though we don't use UPS that much, the strike has taken over Federal Express, Airborne and the postal service. We're getting hit all around." In the case of Airborne, Hopper said, Rykodisc's driver was told to use discretion in taking extra packages from his shipping-starved customers. "So I slipped him some insurance CDs so he'd come back on Monday," he said. Label promotion personnel are also feeling the effects of the UPS walkout. Bruce McDonald, national director of alternative promotion for Polydor Records, sent a shipment of Monaco CDs to a radio station 12 days ago. They still haven't arrived. "It makes it difficult for us," said McDonald, "because sending out posters, CDs and things like that is all a part of promoting a record. We can't even get items out to radio. We can't even deliver stuff to our bands on the road, because overnight delivery is virtually impossible at this point." As the largest and most-requested parcel delivery service in the world, UPS handles about 80 percent of the parcel industry in the United States while delivering a daily worldwide bundle of 12 million pieces. Some of those deliveries include concert tickets. For many of the 70,000 Phishheads expected at next weekend's Great Went concert in Limestone, Maine, chasing down the Vermont-based, Ben & Jerry's-endorsed band is a way of life. Trying to find their tickets isn't. This week's massive Teamsters strike against UPS has, in fact, forced J.Crew aficionados, JCPenney patrons and Phish fans alike to take note of the nation's largest walkout in recent history. "This has made everything crazy," says Matt McGlynn of Great Northeast Productions in Boston, the company in charge of promoting Phish's massive, two-day festival. Great Northeast, which originally had an agreement with Ticketmaster and UPS to sell and distribute tickets nationally, had hoped they could wait the strike out. But with no end in sight and thousands of Phishheads headed for Limestone, the company stopped shipping tickets earlier this week, fearing they'd go undelivered. On Friday, Great Northeast slowly -- but surely, McGlynn assures -- began mailing tickets again. "The tickets will get to the fans," said McGlynn, wary of the potential chaos that could ensue from 100,000 angry Phish fans. "Exactly how, I just don't know. But the problem is solved. Everyone who ordered tickets will get into the show."
