{"id":1182126,"date":"2023-08-16T11:30:06","date_gmt":"2023-08-16T11:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2023\/08\/ups-teamsters-tentative-agreement-gains-workers-labor-movement\/"},"modified":"2023-08-16T11:30:06","modified_gmt":"2023-08-16T11:30:06","slug":"ups-teamsters-have-won-big-but-for-some-workers-raised-expectations-have-outpaced-gains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/08\/16\/ups-teamsters-have-won-big-but-for-some-workers-raised-expectations-have-outpaced-gains\/","title":{"rendered":"UPS Teamsters Have Won Big. But for Some Workers, Raised Expectations Have Outpaced Gains."},"content":{"rendered":"

At UPS, Teamsters just won a historic tentative agreement. Some workers are looking at what the union won without a strike and concluding it should have demanded even more \u2014 and creating demands for the next contract fight.<\/h3>\n\n
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\n UPS workers and Teamsters members practice picket outside a UPS distribution facility in Madison Heights, Michigan, on July 18, 2023. (Jeff Kowalsky \/ Bloomberg<\/cite> via Getty Images)
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Some 323,000 US workers have struck so far this year. Another 340,000 were in gear to strike<\/a>, until their nationwide mobilization forced the company to concede. United Parcel Service (UPS) Teamsters are voting on the 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\n

Raised 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>\n