Teamsters secure big, historic wins in tentative contract agreement with UPS

The Inter­na­tion­al Broth­er­hood of Team­sters and UPS have struck a deal on a ten­ta­tive con­tract that pro­vides big wins for the com­pa­ny’s work­force and will, if rat­i­fied by the mem­ber­ship, avert a strike that would have been very dam­ag­ing for the com­pa­ny, which is union­ized, unlike its rival FedEx.

“Rank-and-file UPS Team­sters sac­ri­ficed every­thing to get this coun­try through a pan­dem­ic and enabled UPS to reap record-set­ting prof­its. Team­ster labor moves Amer­i­ca. The union went into this fight com­mit­ted to win­ning for our mem­bers. We demand­ed the best con­tract in the his­to­ry of UPS, and we got it,” said Team­sters Gen­er­al Pres­i­dent Sean M. O’Brien in a state­ment.

“UPS has put $30 bil­lion in new mon­ey on the table as a direct result of these nego­ti­a­tions. We’ve changed the game, bat­tling it out day and night to make sure our mem­bers won an agree­ment that pays strong wages, rewards their labor, and doesn’t require a sin­gle con­ces­sion. This con­tract sets a new stan­dard in the labor move­ment and rais­es the bar for all workers.”

“Togeth­er we reached a win-win-win agree­ment on the issues that are impor­tant to Team­sters lead­er­ship, our employ­ees and to UPS and our cus­tomers,” said Car­ol Tomé, UPS chief exec­u­tive offi­cer, in a state­ment released to the pub­lic and the press. “This agree­ment con­tin­ues to reward UPS’s full- and part-time employ­ees with indus­try-lead­ing pay and ben­e­fits while retain­ing the flex­i­bil­i­ty we need to stay com­pet­i­tive, serve our cus­tomers and keep our busi­ness strong.”

“Tomé has donat­ed over $70,000 in the past decade to nation­al politi­cians and com­mit­tees set on rolling back union pro­tec­tions, accord­ing to records filed with the Fed­er­al Elec­tion Com­mis­sion,” The Inter­cept report­ed on July 14th.

“Rank-and-file mem­bers served on the com­mit­tee for the first time, so we got to show up every day to sup­port our fel­low Team­sters and share their sto­ries,” said Brandy Har­ris, a part-time UPS Team­ster with Local 174 in Seat­tle and a mem­ber of the Team­sters Nation­al Nego­ti­at­ing Com­mit­tee, in a statement.

“Our hard work has paid off — from those mem­bers and lead­ers nego­ti­at­ing for more at the table to my sis­ters and broth­ers build­ing a cred­i­ble strike threat around the coun­try. Our union was orga­nized and we were relent­less. We’ve hit every goal that UPS Team­ster mem­bers want­ed and asked for with this agree­ment. It’s a ‘yes’ vote for the most his­toric con­tract we’ve ever had.”

“I applaud the Team­sters and UPS for com­ing togeth­er, nego­ti­at­ing in good faith, and reach­ing a ten­ta­tive agree­ment today that will avoid a shut­down at UPS,” said Pres­i­dent Joe Biden in a state­ment issued by the White House.

“While this agree­ment still awaits final rat­i­fi­ca­tion by Team­sters mem­bers, today’s announce­ment moves us clos­er to a bet­ter deal for work­ers that will also add to our eco­nom­ic momen­tum. I’ve always said that col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing works by pro­vid­ing work­ers a seat at the table and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to improve their lives while con­tribut­ing ful­ly to their employer’s success.”

“This agree­ment is a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of employ­ers and employ­ees com­ing togeth­er to work out their dif­fer­ences at the bar­gain­ing table in a man­ner that helps busi­ness­es suc­ceed while help­ing work­ers secure pay and ben­e­fits they can raise a fam­i­ly on and retire with dig­ni­ty and respect.”

The union cit­ed the fol­low­ing pro­vi­sions as high­lights of the deal:

• His­toric wage increas­es. Exist­ing full- and part-time UPS Team­sters will get $2.75 more per hour in 2023, and $7.50 more per hour over the length of the contract.
• Exist­ing part-timers will be raised up to no less than $21 per hour imme­di­ate­ly, and part-time senior­i­ty work­ers earn­ing more under a mar­ket rate adjust­ment would still receive all new gen­er­al wage increases.
• Gen­er­al wage increas­es for part-time work­ers will be dou­ble the amount obtained in the pre­vi­ous UPS Team­sters con­tract — and exist­ing part-time work­ers will receive a 48 per­cent aver­age total wage increase over the next five years.
• Wage increas­es for full-timers will keep UPS Team­sters the high­est paid deliv­ery dri­vers in the nation, improv­ing their aver­age top rate to $49 per hour.
• Cur­rent UPS Team­sters work­ing part-time would receive longevi­ty wage increas­es of up to $1.50 per hour on top of new hourly rais­es, com­pound­ing their earnings.
• New part-time hires at UPS would start at $21 per hour and advance to $23 per hour.
• All UPS Team­ster dri­vers clas­si­fied as 22.4s would be reclas­si­fied imme­di­ate­ly to Reg­u­lar Pack­age Car Dri­vers and placed into senior­i­ty, end­ing the unfair two-tier wage sys­tem at UPS.
• Safe­ty and health pro­tec­tions, includ­ing vehi­cle air con­di­tion­ing and car­go ven­ti­la­tion. UPS will equip in-cab A/C in all larg­er deliv­ery vehi­cles, sprint­er vans, and pack­age cars pur­chased after Jan. 1, 2024. All cars get two fans and air induc­tion vents in the car­go compartments.
• All UPS Team­sters would receive Mar­tin Luther King Day as a full hol­i­day for the first time.
• No more forced over­time on Team­ster dri­vers’ days off. Dri­vers would keep one of two work­week sched­ules and could not be forced into over­time on sched­uled off-days.
• UPS Team­ster part-timers will have pri­or­i­ty to per­form all sea­son­al sup­port work using their own vehi­cles with a locked-in eight-hour guar­an­tee. For the first time, sea­son­al work will be con­tained to five weeks only from November-December.
• The cre­ation of 7,500 new full-time Team­ster jobs at UPS and the ful­fill­ment of 22,500 open posi­tions, estab­lish­ing more oppor­tu­ni­ties through the life of the agree­ment for part-timers to tran­si­tion to full-time work.
• More than 60 total changes and improve­ments to the Nation­al Mas­ter Agree­ment — more than any oth­er time in Team­sters his­to­ry — and zero con­ces­sions from the rank-and-file.

The union empha­sized that the agree­ment with UPS is the “sin­gle largest pri­vate-sec­tor col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment in North Amer­i­ca.” It cov­ers about 330,000 pack­age deliv­ery dri­vers and pack­age sorters.

Next week, Team­ster mem­bers will get an oppor­tu­ni­ty to start eval­u­at­ing the deal. “Locals will con­duct mem­ber meet­ings and Team­sters will have sev­er­al weeks to vote on the offer elec­tron­i­cal­ly,” the union says. “Mem­ber vot­ing begins August 3rd and con­cludes August 22nd.” The nego­ti­at­ing team is rec­om­mend­ing approval of the agree­ment. If rat­i­fied, it would be in place for five years.

The con­sult­ing firm Ander­son Eco­nom­ic Group cal­cu­lat­ed ear­li­est this month that even a ten-day strike would be extreme­ly cost­ly. It “would like­ly fur­lough 340,000 work­ers, who are cur­rent­ly earn­ing annu­al wages of approx­i­mate­ly $90,000 per year (exclud­ing ben­e­fits), result­ing in wage loss­es of $1.1 bil­lion.” Addi­tion­al­ly, the firm esti­mat­ed that UPS cus­tomers might incur loss­es exceed­ing $4 billion.

The Team­sters had pre­vi­ous­ly warned that a strike “now appears inevitable” after an “appalling coun­ter­pro­pos­al” from UPS. UPS lead­er­ship and com­mu­ni­ca­tions per­son­nel respond­ing by stress­ing that they were still com­mit­ted to reach­ing an agree­ment. And now, a deal has been struck. The details mat­ter, of course, and the actu­al agree­ment text has not been pro­vid­ed, but the above key wins seem like­ly to be favor­ably received by Team­sters mem­bers. As the union points out, there’s no big con­ces­sions being made to the com­pa­ny, and the new con­tract will pro­vide for safer and bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions along with increased pay.

It’s good to hear that new trucks will have to have air con­di­tion­ing begin­ning in Jan­u­ary, and exist­ing trucks retro­fit­ted with more fans and ven­ti­la­tion systems.

Twen­ty-eight Demo­c­ra­t­ic or inde­pen­dent sen­a­tors and one hun­dred and sev­en­ty-two Demo­c­ra­t­ic House mem­bers had pledged in open let­ters not to inter­vene if the nego­ti­a­tions failed and a strike began. Among the sig­na­to­ries were Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden of Ore­gon, along with Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Val Hoyle, Adam Smith, Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Andrea Sali­nas, Suzan Del­Bene, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Rick Larsen, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Mary Pel­to­la, and Derek Kilmer, rep­re­sent­ing the states of Ore­gon, Wash­ing­ton, and Alaska.

“We are hope­ful that both sides can nego­ti­ate in good faith and reach a con­sen­sus agree­ment that address­es basic human needs and allows work­ers to do their jobs safe­ly and with dig­ni­ty,” the let­ter said.

“How­ev­er, in the event a fair and equi­table col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment can­not be reached, we com­mit to respect our con­stituents’ statu­to­ry and con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to with­hold their labor and ini­ti­ate and par­tic­i­pate in a strike.”

NPI con­grat­u­lates the Team­sters on the suc­cess­ful nego­ti­a­tions. We wish the mem­ber­ship well as they study and vote on the pro­posed five year contract.