Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien’s old stomping ground in Boston was the site of the first major union rally for a new contract with UPS just 15 days before bargaining is set to begin in Washington.
Most of Sunday’s rally came down to heated rhetoric. General Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman, the union’s second in command, warned that if a contract isn’t reached by July 31 at 11:59 p.m., the current pact’s expiration date, there will be “no UPS Teamsters working” come Aug. 1.
Tom Mori, head of Boston’s Local 25 where O’Brien made his name as longtime president, said the sweat equity and sacrifice will be rewarded only with a strong, concession-free contract. “It’s time for UPS to pay up” for all the work that drivers and other union personnel have put in over the past four years, Mori said.
Many issues are on the table, as always when a contract this important is negotiated. For the union, probably the most important is to eliminate the so-called 22.4 worker classification in which full-time workers are considered — by the union at least — as second-tier workers with inferior rights and benefits. O’Brien has wanted to do away with the language long before he took office last year, and he is just as adamant about it today.
UPS has taken a low-key attitude about the events, at least so far. It expects talks to get noisy, but it also expects a deal to be reached well before the July 31 deadline. Working in UPS’ behalf is a slow economy and tougher competition for future business that makes a work stoppage a bigger risk for the company and its employees than at any time in other contract cycles.
Most shippers are still in a wait-and-see mode, with few willing to upend long-term relationships for something that might not pan out. Most observers believe there will be no strike this year.
Additional rallies will kick off nationwide following the Boston event, the union said.
West coast
No combination of couriers has the capacity to handle UPS volume. USPS, is largely only capable of handling small envelope to shoe box size packages weighing 5lbs or less. Amazon is largely the same model and hand all their large packages to UPS, and only delivers their own packages. The only company that has an actual model to handle the packages UPS ships is fed ex and they are going through some rough times.. shrinking capacity. No management at any of the shipping competitors would take the claim they could handle the influx of volume. Only people with 0 to little knowledge on the industry make these wild claims
Big Brown
UPS is delivering packages for both Amazon and USPS already because the two can’t handle the work. there’s no way in hell the will be able to handle 20 million more packages a day…period!!
13.9 billion in profits and estimated 15 billion by 2026. 18 years there and I work unsafe every single day and as soon as I mention safety… called in the office and harassed. They talk a good game but it’s a “Do what I say” company that needs to be held accountable for and treat employees with dignity and practice what they preach.. Pay us or we walk!!!
Christina Phoenix
UPS treats their employees like garbage. 14 hour days, forced 6th punches, disciplined for calling in with covid, disciplined for utilizing sick days that you’ve accrued and the list goes on and on. The buildings and trucks are filthy and workers are not treated humanely as adults. UPS has some serious reckoning or us Teamsters will not work come August 1st. We’ve made this company boatloads in profits and we’re tired of being treated with such contempt. Carol Tome has turned UPS into a company that hates its employees.
Shifterknob
There have been numerous articles posted and lots of ancillary evidence that FedEx and the USPS nor other smaller regional carriers—let alone Amazon—have the capacity to handle even a quarter of the daily volume UPS handles, a volume equivalent to about 6% of the nation’s GDP. Wishful thinking by some aside, the leverage here is on the side of the Teamsters Union and everyone pretty much understands that, even if they do not want to admit it. So any prediction of the demise of the Teamsters Union at UPS is pretty laughable and definitely not supported by the evidence… unless one is walking through life with a paper bag over one’s head.
Freight Zippy
A strike will be fine, Fed Ex Ground and others can absorb most of the work.
For the first time we may see Amazon use their fleet for wok other than their own deliveries.
Any strike will be the end of UPS Parcel as the Teamster strike in 1994 ended scores of union LTL Carriers.
Years ago there were no alternatives to Teamster Carriers, now we have many choices.
A strike will be the death blow to UPS