The Teamsters and UPS Inc. came to terms on all noneconomic issues during national contract negotiations on Tuesday, the union said.
“We have reached tentative agreement on well over 40 noneconomic issues that affect all our members at UPS, and we did it as a team. The Teamsters haven’t sacrificed a single concession in these negotiations,” said Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman in a statement on the union’s Facebook page.
“Very soon we will review the language, changes and improvements in all articles with the entire membership. Plus, the fun part now begins to fight for significant wage increases for everyone — full-timers, part-timers, long-timers, everyone,” he said.
Zuckerman and Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien will review and discuss all noneconomic tentative agreements live with members during a webinar on Wednesday. Other union representatives and UPS Teamster rank-and-filers will also share their thoughts during the call, the Teamsters said.
The Teamsters National Negotiating Committee expects to exchange its full economic package with UPS negotiators on Wednesday morning. All remaining top issues affecting a tentative new contract, protecting more than 340,000 UPS Teamsters, are economic. These are the highest-profile issues and ones that are historically the most contentious.
The two sides are negotiating a new master contract to replace the existing 5-year pact, which expires July 31. The union has warned it will pull the 340,000 UPS Teamsters off their jobs if an agreement isn’t reached by Aug. 1.
The biggest issues left include full- and part-time wage increases for all; health and welfare benefit protections and enhancements; pension increases; rewards for longtime UPS Teamsters across classifications; elimination of personal vehicle drivers; and more conversion of part-time jobs to full time.
The elimination of a two-tier “22.4” job classification, which the Teamsters said penalizes junior workers who perform the same functions as senior workers, will be dealt with as part of the Teamsters’ economic package, the union said. The 22.4 refers to the number of the language in the master contract.
“Putting an end to this 22.4 classification is one of our biggest strike issues at UPS, and it will be eradicated during our economic negotiations. The Teamsters’ entire committee and our full membership are committed to making this happen,” O’Brien said. “It’s thrilling to announce that our team — representing so many hardworking Teamsters at UPS and their families — have reached tentative agreement on all of our noneconomic issues.
“Not only did we achieve this without concessions, we negotiated each of these issues favorably and to their finality for our members. Big money issues will be tackled next, so keep those chin straps buckled tight,” he said.
Rick Little
Please stand by your leadership and hold up to your demands. The company will not give you anything until you MAKE them share in the rewards of your hard work each and everyday!!
Best to you all!!!
Stand your ground
Scott M
I hope the Teamsters makes them pay “back pay” with a penalty for refusing to give us hazard pay during Covid. I’ve worked for UPS for 34 years and never experienced anything like 2020-2021. Wearing a mask in a hot UPS metal building with few fans and most of them were broken. I thought I would have to quit or retire. It was miserable and I live in the South with high heat indexes. People were coming to work sick and not telling anyone. No appreciation shown from the company. People were sitting at home ordering junk from Amazon out of boredom with their stimulus checks. Our building was filled with damaged bookcases, treadmills, furniture from Amazon torn open, Clorox and cleaning supplies leaking on other packages. The constant smell of leaking cleaning supplies and Clorox with no ventilation during the Summer heat was bad while Carol Tome sits in her air conditioned office far removed from the chaos. She needs to be removed or voted out. She has never touched a dirty box in any capacity at UPS but she has out sourced our customer service and Human Resource departments to people in Asia who know nothing about the operations. She’s trimming the fat everywhere except for her bonus and salary.
I’m article 22.3 and a full time inside worker who despises Amazon and the way they have changed this company. I refuse to buy their junk.
I made it through 97 and ready to strike again if I have too. David Abney, you are missed a lot.
Donald Hall
25 years of hard honest work deserves honest compensation. I have always lived by a reputation of integrity, honest days work for a honest days pay. It’s a hard job that we do and YES we need the UNiON to protect our job and rights.
Joseph Bannon
Be careful what you wish for. There’s many outfits like FedEx, DHL , Ontrac and many others that can step up to the bat. No one can handle the UPS volume but a decrease would affect the driver’s.
Average Joe
This is the problem with outsiders looking in. People like Harris Nelson do not know the culture and environment UPS workers endure. Sure we get a great wage. The reason is, UPS knows how hard our jobs are. They would not compensate us if this wasn’t true. Something most working within the UPS company, management, will NEVER acknowledge or admit. Most all the jobs are physically laborious. Most long term workers have beaten their body for decades. What I make is such a trickle from the flood of profit that is made in the end result.
I really appreciate talking to people who have been drivers helpers during the holiday season. Most will stop me and share their experience as a helper. I appreciate them being able to empathize and understand first hand of what my job requires. These people have experienced a 10, 11, or 12 hour day of the physically and mentally exhausting reality of my job. These people truly understand what happens during one of our “normal” days of hard and honest work.
My job is not only physical, but is very mental. There is such a high degree of perfection that is placed on me everyday to be 100% in a world of chaos. This is the world most outsiders would never understand or know about. As the company I work for uses numbers, harassment, and intimidation against me as it’s leverage. For those who are in my world know about this common abusive environment that is created. The companies expectations are mostly unrealistic. And yet we return the next day because in the end. The union protects me when my company threatens to fire me for their mistakes they’ve create based on their unrealistic expectations.
I’ve witnessed and experienced the shift of the company’s operations since we have become become public. Yes I was with UPS when were privately held. Each year UPS takes it to another level. I get that the CEO, executives, and shareholders have come to expect profits and the wealth generated from it, but what I/we have seen for the past two decades, moreso the last three years. I have zero respect for those who could care less of my safety and wellness because they are so greedy in their wealth and profitability that has been generated from me and my co-workers in the harsh and brutal conditions. And that disparity continues by a great margin in the more recent years of Covid. Not to forgot during Covid our work load was similar to that of peak, Christmas time. Yet I didnt have a helperwith me with increased stop counts. UPS was given large grant monies from our government to keep this essential company going for American’s medications, test results, their needs, and their wants while quarantined at home. So not only were me and my coworkers being worked to death. The first two months UPS did nothing to protect me from being exposed to Covid! Yet UPS gladly accepted government money to hire more employees, which they didn’t even do in the first several months of Covid, nor did they improve the environment for me to be protected from being exposed to Covid. God forbid them trickling any of the HUGE profits they were pocketing during this time. We were locked into our contract and they definitely let us know about that.
Now it’s time to negotiate. I think Sean Obrien’s fire and exposing, enlightening, UPS to the financial numbers the CEO, the executives, and the share holders were pocketing during Covid times. Those numbers do not lie! The conditions we as workers endured for three years, now is the time UPS will have to negotiate fairly and appropriately. As Sean Obrien shows our company their stock value and the giant leap of profitbility during this three year spread.
So until people like Harris work in my job and environment. His opinion is really irrelevant and carries little weight! My job is not easy. I stay, well because of the obvious. Also, the retention of newer employees is not a great one. It is a number I would love to see, or at least a honest breakdown of how many left after only a few months or weeks.
I received my undergrad. I worked in education and in insurance after graduating college. I got into UPS part time, three hour shift, strictly for the benefits. After six years of moonlighting as a part timer. I had a huge shift in my life and decided to give driving a shot. Almost three decades later, I expect to have great pay, expect to have great benifits, expect to have plenty of vacation time to recover, and lastly expect a rewarding pension and retirement. I say this because I work for a company that profits in the tens of billions of dollars after everthing is paid out to employees and operation costs. I work for a multi-billion dollar company that can compensate me accordingly! In the decades I have banged up my body to make my company 250,000 fold of what I made in comparison to my financial compensation. Yes I do deserve all of what is being negotiated from the union! As do all the dedicated, honest, hard working workers I have had the privilege of working with.
I am glad to be in a period of time with a strong union that is able to bargin what is fair compensation on my behalf. A leader like Obrien who will not tolerate the B.S., let’s call it what it is, of Carol Tome and the UPS executives. The hiding in the shadows and hiding the money doesn’t work when numbers and profitability are presented to them. Remember UPS lives by and uses numbers on us to justify their fuzzy logic. I’m not sure how they don’t ever equate that we look at our companies quarterly profits? As it’s pretty black and red. Especially because most of us buy into UPS stock.
And Carol isn’t UPS. This company has always been grassroots. She is the first outsider to infiltrate within UPS. Let’s be honest. We are all scratching our heads of the how and why this move even took place? She is an outsider. We all seen how she operates and skeletonized Home Depot for her generous profits and her like minded friends, executives and shareholders.
I am fortunate for Sean Obrien, and thank God Hoffa is gone! As I didn’t even mention the 22.4 driver or the 70 hour work week during peak, Christmas time, that was lumped into our last contract thanks to Hoffa! It is crazy how much he bent over and allowed UPS to move forward with these inhumane agreements. The reality is he became complacent in time, and UPS rewarded him greatly in monetary compensation for decisions that were not in favor for the worker?
Now is the time for fairness. Now is the time we need to be protected! I have no issue walking out on August 1st if our contract hasn’t been met! I would welcome all these number and algorithm pushers sitting behind desks and computers jumping into my world of reality. They need to get out of their bubble world of theory! It won’t be until this time that they will experience what I have physically and mentally endured for too long with no empathy on their end! There is a reason they have become management, and it wasn’t for the accolades!
Raymond Fundora
Please help FEDEX when your done..Company is a mess..Going backwards..Been there 31years..Please help us.