NEW YORK (AP) — The clock is ticking. As the deadline to succeed in a brand new contract nears, a possible UPS strike feels nearer than ever.
Negotiations broke down earlier this month and unionized employees have been holding rallies and apply pickets throughout the nation. The Teamsters, which symbolize greater than half of the corporate’s workforce, will resume talks with UPS on Tuesday.
That leaves lower than every week to return to an settlement earlier than the present contract expires on the finish of the day on Monday, July 31. The union has licensed a strike and Sean M. O’Brien, a fiery chief elected final 12 months to steer the union, has vowed to take action if their calls for aren’t met.
“We’re sending a message… all 340,000 of our members are united and ready to fight,” O’Brien instructed The Associated Press at a apply picket Friday in Atlanta, the place UPS relies.
UPS’ unionized employees nonetheless seethe a few contract they really feel was pressured on them in 2018, and say that the corporate delivers hundreds of thousands extra packages every single day than it did simply 5 years in the past. The Teamsters are calling for higher pay, significantly for part-time staff, and improved working situations.
UPS has maintained that it already affords “industry-leading pay and benefits,” however says it’s ready to extend that compensation. In a Friday replace, the corporate mentioned it aimed “quickly to finalize a fair deal that provides certainty for our customers, our employees and businesses across the country.”
If negotiations are unsuccessful the deliveries that Americans have come to depend on, significantly because the pandemic started in 2020, might be vastly disrupted. Such an deadlock hasn’t been seen since 1997, properly earlier than supply of on a regular basis gadgets from pet food to pharmaceuticals grew to become the norm, when a walkout by 185,000 employees crippled UPS. Here’s what it’s worthwhile to know.
WHAT ARE THE TEAMSTERS ASKING FOR?
Much on the union’s calls for comes down to higher pay and improved working situations.
Annual earnings at UPS prior to now two years are shut to a few instances what they have been earlier than the pandemic. The firm returned about $8.6 billion to shareholders within the type of dividends and inventory buybacks in 2022, and forecast one other $8.4 billion for shareholders this 12 months.
The Teamsters say frontline UPS employees deserve a few of that windfall. A sticking level in negotiations has been wage will increase for part-time employees, who make a minimal of $16.20 an hour.
“People want their packages yesterday with the emergence of the e-commerce. So it’s a very demanding job,” O’Brien mentioned, pushing again on the wage statistics that UPS shares. “Everybody doesn’t realize what it takes to get these packages on the truck. And a lot of our part timers… work for poverty wages.”
In addition to addressing part-time pay, the union desires to remove a contract provision that created two separate hierarchies of employees with totally different pay scales, hours and advantages. Driver security, significantly the shortage of air-con in supply vehicles, can be within the combine.
HAS UPS AGREED TO ANY DEMANDS?
Before contract talks broke down on July 5, with each side blaming one another for strolling away from the bargaining desk, tentative agreements have been made on a number of points — together with putting in air-con in additional vehicles. UPS mentioned it could add air-con to U.S. small supply automobiles bought after January 1, 2024. Existing automobiles wouldn’t get that improve, however the union mentioned they may produce other additions like followers and air vents.
The union additionally mentioned it has reached tentative agreements to ascertain Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a full vacation for the primary time, finish undesirable additional time on drivers’ days off and eliminate the two-tier wage system for drivers who work weekends and earn much less cash.
COULD A STRIKE BE AVOIDED? CAN THE GOVERNMENT INTERVENE?
The strike may be averted if UPS and the Teamsters comply with a brand new contract earlier than the July 31 deadline. There’s additionally a chance of presidency intervention.
O’Brien mentioned Sunday that he has requested the White House on quite a few events to not intervene if employees find yourself occurring strike. Last 12 months, President Joe Biden intervened to avert a railroad strike to keep away from disrupting the nation’s provide chain, and employees had settle for an settlement that wasn’t broadly supported by union members.
WHAT IMPACT WOULD A STRIKE HAVE?
The 24 million packages UPS ships on a mean day quantities to a few quarter of all U.S. parcel quantity, in accordance with the worldwide delivery and logistics agency Pitney Bowes. As UPS places it, that’s the equal of about 6% of nation’s gross home product.
Higher costs and lengthy wait instances are all however sure if there’s an deadlock. A strike additionally threatens to increase lingering provide chain troubles.
“Something’s got to give,” Thomas Goldsby, logistics chairman within the Supply Chain Management Department on the University of Tennessee, instructed The Associated Press. “The python can’t swallow the alligator, and that’s going to be felt by all of us.”
UPS mentioned this month that it’ll quickly start coaching nonunion staff within the U.S. to step in ought to there be a strike.
Beyond delivery and provide implications, a union win at UPS may have significance for organized labor throughout industries. UPS’s contract talks arrive amid different outstanding labor campaigns at Apple, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s and different firms — in addition to the present writers and actors’ strikes seen in Hollywood.
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Videojournalist Sharon Johnson contributed from Atlanta
Content Source: www.washingtontimes.com