deal<\/a> through August 22.<\/p>\n\u201cAfter 25 years of [former Teamsters president James P.] Hoffa and his givebacks, we came out ahead,\u201d said Eugene Braswell, a delivery driver and Local 804 steward. \u201cThis is the first time in all those years that I have a national contract that I can vote yes on.\u201d<\/p>\n
How are UPSers making sense of their gains at the table? I spoke with two dozen rank and filers. Some were relieved they didn\u2019t have to strike. Others had been excited for a strike \u2014 both to hit back at corporate management and to command respect from the supervisors who dish out daily abuse.<\/p>\n
In the tentative deal, UPS Teamsters have won their biggest wage boost in decades: at least $7.50 an hour over five years for every current UPSer, and more for the lowest-paid. Even the 1997 strike only boosted part-time wages 50 cents (equivalent to 95 cents today) over five years.<\/p>\n
The agreement would also end the forced sixth workday for drivers, create seventy-five hundred new full-time inside jobs, and eliminate the second tier of drivers \u2014 reversing the infamous concession in the 2018 contract.<\/p>\n
This will be Braswell\u2019s final contract before he retires \u2014 after putting in decades of work helping build the reform movement that made it possible. \u201cThe company should be on notice now: no more cost-neutral contracts,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we come to the table they should expect that if the company\u2019s doing well, we deserve to do well also.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s clear the organizing over the past year has encouraged members to set their sights higher than ever before. While longtime activists like Braswell see this deal as a sea change, there are also some, especially newer Teamsters, who are looking at what the union won without a strike and concluding it should have demanded even more. Members are already brainstorming higher demands for the next contract fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re seeing workers debate whether the best tentative agreement they\u2019ve seen in decades \u2014 better even than one won through a strike [in 1997] \u2014 is acceptable, then that\u2019s a good thing,\u201d said delivery driver Sean Orr, a Local 705 steward and cochair of the rank-and-file movement Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good for our union, the labor movement, and all working people. It means that workers have higher expectations than ever in their lives, and aren\u2019t willing to settle for less.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nRaised Expectations<\/h2>\n Negotiations broke down in July over part-time pay, before the looming strike deadline forced UPS back to the table. Currently part-timers start at $15.50.<\/p>\n
Under the tentative agreement, the starting rate for new hires will rise to $21 right away, and $23 by the end of the contract \u2014 an overall increase of $7.50 an hour from the current level.<\/p>\n
Existing workers, part-time and full-time, will also get a raise of at least $7.50 over the five-year contract. It\u2019s front-loaded, starting with an immediate raise of $2.75 or up to $21, whichever is more, so the lowest-paid workers will get more than $7.50. There\u2019s an additional longevity raise for those with five, ten, or fifteen years in.<\/p>\n
In certain high cost-of-living areas including Chicago, Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, UPS boosts pay with market-rate adjustments (MRAs), in some cases as high as $23. The tentative deal adds the raises for current workers on top of any existing MRAs.<\/p>\n
Citing concerns that the language isn\u2019t clear enough to prevent UPS from taking the MRAs away, Local 89 in Louisville, Kentucky, was the only local whose representatives voted against endorsing the tentative agreement. The local leadership has since reversed itself, saying those concerns are assuaged, and recommends a yes vote.<\/p>\n
Nathan Olney hired in as a preloader in Spokane, Washington, at $17 an hour under a market rate adjustment, then dropped to $15.50 in February 2022. He stayed on because he wanted to make UPS a career \u2014 but it wasn\u2019t easy. \u201cI lost 45 pounds my first month on the preload just because of the intensity of the workload,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Olney\u2019s last job was in insurance, so he has a mind for contract details. His top priority going into bargaining was part-time wages. In the tentative deal, \u201cthe wages are not as high as I wanted to see for our part-timers,\u201d said Olney, who is now a backup feeder driver. \u201cBut it\u2019s a huge step in the right direction. I would have preferred to see a starting range closer to $24 with a progression to upwards of $27 or $28 an hour by the end of the contract.\u201d<\/p>\nThis is the biggest raise that any UPS contract has ever had, by a large margin.<\/q><\/aside>\nStill, after poring over old UPS pacts, his assessment is, \u201cThis is the biggest raise that any UPS contract has ever had, by a large margin.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the next contract cycle, he\u2019d like to push for equal pay. \u201cUp until the 1981 contract, all part-timers and full-timers made the exact same rate,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd adjusted for inflation, that is basically the rate that drivers make today. I really wish we could get back to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to keep in mind not only that this separation between part-time and full-time has existed for forty-one years now, but it grew worse over time,\u201d said Barry Eidlin, a sociologist at McGill University and a former TDU organizer.<\/p>\n
He points out the starting wage for part-timers increased by just $7.50 over the last forty-one years, from $8 in 1982 to $15.50 today. \u201cWith the current tentative agreement under consideration, the part-time starting wage will go up another $7.50 an hour in five years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving longevity raises in the contract for part-timers for the first time is very significant,\u201d said Corey Levesque, who started as a part-timer at $9.50 and didn\u2019t see a raise for eight years. \u201cOne thing I\u2019m telling part-timers is, this is a building block. Now that we have longevity raises in the contract, we could organize and make those higher in the next contract.\u201d<\/p>\n
After twenty-five years of \u201cdormant leadership\u201c at the top of the union, \u201cyou can\u2019t undo all the wrongs overnight,\u201d said Levesque, now a delivery driver and steward in Local 251 in Rhode Island.<\/p>\n
But he estimates nine out of ten people in his hub are enthusiastic about the deal. \u201cOverall I think it\u2019s pretty damn good.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nAngry at UPS<\/h2>\n UPSers across the workforce are passionate about another issue that\u2019s not so straightforward to fix in bargaining: the company\u2019s routine disrespect and abuse of workers, manifested as surveillance, speedup, yelling, threats, and discipline.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur members, they really want revenge for what UPS has done to them,\u201d said Richard Hooker, principal officer of Local 623 in Philadelphia, interviewed on Georgia Teamster David Allen\u2019s YouTube channel. \u201cThey want something more than money can give them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part-timer Misty Baker, a steward in Lexington, Kentucky, favors the agreement. But \u201cI would forfeit any pay raise to stop the harassment and the nonsense and be able to go to work and do my job and be left alone and go home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy supervisor is tracking me,\u201d Baker said. \u201cHe\u2019s making the case against me for stealing time. You go to the bathroom, you come out, they\u2019re standing there: \u2018What are you doing?\u2019 What do you think I was doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
Harassment was already a top concern \u2014 and then COVID came along, throwing into relief how little regard the company had for workers\u2019 well-being.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can still vividly remember getting my drivers together outside the building when the pandemic first started and the fear on their faces that somehow they could bring the virus to their children,\u201d said delivery driver Greg Kerwood, a steward in Somerville, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile the company was thinking, \u201cWe\u2019re going to squeeze this for all the profit we can,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd if we lose some people along the way, who cares? We\u2019ll replace them with someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grueling hours were compounded by the weight of heavier packages, as customers set up home offices and home gyms. \u201cIt was just all day every day, furniture and tables and desks and weight sets,\u201d Kerwood said. \u201cI can remember walking into my house on a Friday night and literally just collapsing in the middle of the living room and not moving for hours. . . . Just the sheer indifference to the humanity of the workers.\u201d<\/p>\n
He believes a strike would have sent managers an unmistakable message that workers would no longer tolerate mistreatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of what happened when people got out there with the practice pickets was they started to feel a sense of their own power,\u201d Kerwood said. \u201cThe shackles were beginning to break. And they were starting to stand up and hold their shoulders straight and put their heads high and start to take some pride in their own self-respect in the workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nTwo-Tier and Forced Overtime<\/h2>\n Driver Gage Lacharite of Local 79 in Tampa, Florida, is most excited that this contract eliminates the second tier of drivers, known as 22.4s. \u201cThey tried to sell it as, \u201822.4s are going to work in the warehouse sometimes and then they\u2019re gonna drive sometimes,\u2019\u201d he said. “But in reality it was just driving all the time for lower pay.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the tentative agreement, all those drivers will be immediately converted into regular delivery drivers. \u201cI was amazed we actually got it,\u201d Braswell said. \u201cOnce you give away a tier, it\u2019s hard to get those back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another major issue for drivers was forced overtime. On this too, the deal contains a big step forward: no driver can be forced to work a sixth day in a week. \u201cI never thought I would see that,\u201d Levesque said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy biggest issue was the forced sixth-day punch,\u201d said steward and delivery driver Tyler Condo in Denver. \u201cI\u2019ve been working my ass off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Condo started at UPS three years ago as a personal vehicle driver \u2014 part of a contingent workforce of temps without benefits who deliver packages from their own cars during the busy season Uber-style. The deal limits this outsourcing to five weeks of the year and gives part-timers priority access to those jobs.<\/p>\n
Condo is \u201cpretty satisfied\u201d with the tentative agreement. He cited a $1,000 increase in the monthly pension payout for sixty thousand Teamsters in the central and southern regions: \u201cI know that all of these guys that are about to retire have really built this company to be what it is today.\u201d<\/p>\n
The deal also increases the financial penalty the employer will pay on excessive forced daily overtime; ten- and eleven-hour days are normal. But UPS routinely pays out these penalties and persists in violating the contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe battle at UPS is about power,\u201d Kerwood said. \u201cThe company has gobs of money, and they have no problem throwing that money at a contract or at a grievance as long as they can maintain control.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the existing language, delivery drivers have the chance to sign onto the \u201c9.5 list,\u201d which allows them to grieve for penalty pay if they\u2019re made to work more than 9.5 hours three times in a week. In some UPS centers, many drivers are on the list, stewards routinely grieve excess overtime, and drivers get big penalty checks. But none of that gives you back your time.<\/p>\nNow the challenge will be for workers to enforce the contract wins \u2014 because ‘they\u2019ve seen the company walk on them for years.’<\/q><\/aside>\n\u201cWhat we want up here is for practices to change,\u201d said Andy Groat, a delivery driver in Sandpoint, Idaho. \u201cWe want to use the grievance process not as a way to make extra money but as a way to be heard and have core business practices change.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Williston, Vermont, the hub is so understaffed that \u201cwe actually have drivers going in for extra work and helping on the preload,\u201d said driver and steward Steve Dumont. \u201cOverall, I think it\u2019s a good contract,\u201d he said, but he\u2019s worried that even with increased penalties, UPS will exploit every loophole.<\/p>\n
In Presque Isle, Maine, delivery driver and steward Lendell Buckingham says the international ran a great contract campaign. Now the challenge will be for workers to enforce the contract wins \u2014 because \u201cthey\u2019ve seen the company walk on them for years,\u201d he said, \u201cand it just doesn\u2019t seem to ever be strong enough language to stop the company from forcing overtime on us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nStick It to Them?<\/h2>\n Christopher Paiva, a Local 639 steward in Maryland, thinks that shift in power would have come from a strike.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people were eager to stick it to UPS to show them that we are worth something. I myself was a little eager for it,\u201d he said, days after his baby girl was born. \u201cI definitely put money away for it. . . . Everybody really got behind the campaign because we were going to hold UPS accountable for the abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we had gone on strike for five days and came back with this contract, I think people would feel very different about it, even if it was exactly the same,\u201d Kerwood said. \u201c[Not striking] changes the pronouns from\u00a0we<\/i>\u00a0as a union to\u00a0you<\/i>\u00a0as a leadership. We did this. We fought for it. We won.\u201d<\/p>\n
UPS preloader Simon Roe in Tampa was ready to strike, too. \u201cPeople were talking about bringing out the grill to have a big cookout on the picket line,\u201d they said. \u201cI was getting emails from random companies about what a potential UPS strike would mean. If regular businesses and regular people were asking me about it and getting scared, then UPS was definitely scared.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roe\u2019s top issue was part-time wages; they currently earn $16.65 an hour. \u201cWe got as much as we could without going on strike, but obviously, who knows what we could have gotten if we had gone on strike?\u201d they said. \u201cWe deserve the stars and the moon. But at this point, we got a pretty good contract compared to every single one we\u2019ve had before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond the core activist layer of the union, though, the sentiment in favor of striking wasn\u2019t as broadly shared as it might appear on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cStriking would have been an absolute disaster,\u201d said Baker. She worried about customers who rely on medication delivery, since FedEx and the Postal Service could only have absorbed a fraction of UPS\u2019s package volume.<\/p>\n
News of the tentative deal was also a relief to Groat and his coworkers in Idaho, who were concerned about layoffs after a strike.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re happy to be behind a steering wheel, while the membership is processing what direction they\u2019re going to vote over the next three weeks,\u201d Groat said. \u201cWe would prefer not to strike. We would prefer to work in and within this contract and continue to gain momentum moving forward for the next contract.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nHeat Relief<\/h2>\n The tentative deal will put air-conditioning in one-third of the delivery fleet by the end of five years, with the hottest parts of the country getting first dibs. Existing trucks will be retrofitted with two new fans in the cab, induction vents to pull hot air out of the cargo area, and heat shields to cool the cab floor by insulating it from the engine.<\/p>\n
Tampa is in one of the priority zones for air-conditioning. But \u201cI\u2019m super excited for the ventilation system in the back,\u201d Lacharite said. \u201cThat\u2019s an even bigger deal, as it gets really hot in there.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Local 804 delivery driver I met in Queens, New York, was more skeptical how much difference the heat relief measures will make. He didn\u2019t want his name used, but he let me lean into his cab to see two metal fans already mounted above the driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s metal,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to get as hot as the truck and blow hot air. They\u2019re off. I don\u2019t even bother with them.\u201d<\/p>\nThe fact that some people are unhappy that the tentative agreement didn\u2019t get a $25 minimum for part-timers really speaks to the new mood of militancy in parts of the labor movement.<\/q><\/aside>\nNo unifying issue has emerged among those dissatisfied. Some argue the union should have held out for the demand for a $25 minimum for newly hired part-timers. Then again, \u201cyou have some people that feel like the gap between them and newer people needs to be higher,\u201d said part-timer Damian Kungle in Canton, Ohio. \u201cOther people don\u2019t care about that but think the $1.50 [longevity boost] as a catch-up raise was insulting and not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that some people are unhappy that the tentative agreement didn\u2019t get a $25 minimum for part-timers or some other things really speaks to the new mood of militancy in parts of the labor movement,\u201d said John Logan, a professor of labor studies at San Francisco State University.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy any recent standard, it\u2019s a great contract. As you know, since the Great Recession (and for a couple decades preceding it, but especially since then) part-time poverty and expendable workers has been the business model of far too much of corporate America. The UPS contract really does challenge this model.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nOnward to Amazon<\/h2>\n UPS Teamster activists are already thinking about their next organizing goals. Many are interested in helping Amazon workers unionize. \u201cMake every Teamster an organizer should be our goal,\u201d said Elbe Lieb, a part-timer from Local 135 in Indiana.<\/p>\n
The other unifying theme is training up a network of shop floor leaders to go toe-to-toe with management to enforce the contract. \u201cI\u2019m going to keep trying to bring people together, educate them,\u201d said Paiva, \u201cand not make it just one activist in the building or local, but create a foundation, so everyone can look out and defend themselves and the person next to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fired up by the practice pickets, UPSers outside Boston last month backed off an abusive supervisor with a shop floor action \u2014 they all turned their backs on him<\/a> during a morning briefing. Coming off the contract campaign, there\u2019s plenty of new energy for this kind of activity, which is what it will take to translate many of the wins from paper to reality.<\/p>\nAmazon workers are already\u00a0taking note<\/a>\u00a0of the wage gains and demanding wage parity with UPS Teamsters. Next they\u2019ll see union democracy in action when the voting concludes August 22.<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some 323,000 US workers have struck so far this year. Another 340,000 were in gear to strike, until their nationwide mobilization forced the company to concede. United Parcel Service (UPS) Teamsters are voting on the deal through August 22. \u201cAfter 25 years of [former Teamsters president James P.] Hoffa and his givebacks, we came out [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":737,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/737"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1182126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1182430,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182126\/revisions\/1182430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1182126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1182126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1182126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}