Why UPS Will Likely Strike

Justin Alo of Teamsters Local 542 and Matt Leichenger of Teamsters Local 804 join to discuss UPS workers’ campaign for a new contract. UPS workers are holding contract negotiations with the company, and are threatening to go on strike if their demands are not met. Workers are demanding better pay, more full-time work, better job security, an end to the two-tier “22.4” job classification, an end to excessive overtime, better protections against company harassment, the elimination of driver-facing cameras, and protection from hot weather. If a strike were to happen, it would have a significant impact as UPS workers move 6% of the US GDP in their trucks every day. The last time UPS Teamsters went on strike was in 1997, and it cost the company USD 850 million despite only lasting for 15 days.

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The Teamsters General president Sean O'Brien you mentioned earlier has said that this strike could end up being much bigger than the union itself. Like what has changed sort of almost ideologically or in terms of the approach of not just the union but unionism broadly with this new regime? Yeah well, let me give a little context because Sean O'Brien was actually on the bargaining Committee in 2018 initially with the Hoffa leadership but he was actually fired off of the bargaining committee because he wanted to take a very militant approach. So Hoffa actually fired him. And I think that O'Brien's campaign and ultimately what his leadership is really pushing for now is a shift that's taking place I think more broadly in the labor movement where workers are fed up and want to go on the offensive. Hoffa's leadership I think was very okay, kind of just playing on the defensive. Giving concessions as long as he liked as long as he could remain in office and keep his job. But we're seeing not only in the teamsters like the election of O'Brien and this leadership which is representative of a rank and file who wants to fight. We were delivering packages delivering vaccines during the pandemic, right? Justin and I were both doing this you know as we're 350 000 other teamsters. And during this period you know like we were risking our safety while a lot of other people were just ordering things from home. and at the same time, inflation as we've seen in the last five years has increased at a rate that is higher than we've gotten raises. And so we've actually seen a decline in our purchasing power as workers at the same time that our conditions have gotten worse. Meanwhile, a company like UPS has seen historic profits of 13.9 billion dollars alone in the last year. And so there clearly is money to go around. It's just that the workers at UPS have seen a decline in working conditions. Decline in purchasing power. Whereas UPS is shelling out billions and billions of dollars in stock BuyBacks and dividends to shareholders. and so what O'Brien's leadership is really representing and showing not only to Teamsters but to workers across the whole country and you know hopefully the whole world is that we are just not okay with this wealth inequality anymore. We're not okay with these companies taking money off the backs of our hard labor especially coming out of the pandemic. And I think the movement that we're seeing in UAW as well with the election of Sean Fein which was supported by used which is a reform caucus that has I think learned a lot from TDU. We're seeing these reform movements emerge in other large unions like UAW. I believe there's a reform movement kind of emerging in UFCW as well. so in this time of intense wealth inequality, I think workers are just fed up and ready to take back what we deserve.