UPS Teamsters: Vote No on the Tentative Agreement!

On Tuesday July 25th, the Teamsters union leadership announced a tentative agreement (TA) with UPS, calling off the potential strike of 350,000 workers that was set to begin on August 1st. Workers have until August 22nd to vote for or against the TA. 

Independent Socialist Group (ISG) members, including Teamster members at UPS, have launched labor-community solidarity committees in Worcester and Boston MA, Portland ME, and Providence RI to actively support the contract negotiations and a possible strike. We organized union and non-union workers for standouts, information tables, and public meetings before the TA was announced. 

The Independent Socialist Group urges rank-and-file Teamsters to vote no. The union should re-start preparing for a strike and fight for a better contract. While the TA is an improvement compared to concessionary UPS contracts going back decades, it has problems that need to be resolved:

1. All UPS Teamsters need safe working conditions. Air conditioning will only be for Regular Package Car Drivers (RPCDs) and installed in new trucks, which delays implementation. Further life-saving cooling measures are necessary and should cover all workers.
2. Wages for all UPS Teamsters are not increasing enough. The proposed 5-year contract is too long to wait for the limited raises. Inflation is still driving up the cost of living, and UPS raked in record profits of $11.3 billion in 2022, made from the work of UPS Teamsters.
3. Part-timer (PT) pay increases are not enough. Four decades of concessionary contracts have reduced part-time starting pay to $15.50/hr. Before 1982, part-time wages were the equivalent of $38/hr in today’s money. All part-timers should earn at least $25/hr to start regaining lost ground.
4. Accepting a two-tier system for part-time workers hurts both current and future part-timers and weakens the union. It will take until the end of the 5-year contract for new PT workers to reach $23/hr and current PT workers $25.75/hr (or above depending on seniority). 63% of UPS Teamsters are part-timers. It’s good that the TA ends the “22.4” second-tier position for full-time drivers but any tiered systems should be rejected. 
5. Workers should reject the four-year wage and benefit progression for new full-timers. Full-time pay for full-time work. 
6. Workers need schedule protection. In the TA, only RPCDs, basically the top tier of delivery drivers, would be exempt from being forced to work a 6th day of the week. Drivers can still be forced to work more than 8 hrs/day. Make overtime voluntary for all workers. Minimum guaranteed hours for PTs equal to half of full-time hours (4hrs/day or 20hrs/week).
7. The TA adds only 7,500 more full-time jobs out of around 350,000 UPS Teamster positions. Tens of thousands of part-timers want to move to full-time, and UPS has the money to afford it! 10,000 new full-time jobs were won in the 1997 strike, when the union had 160,000 fewer members at UPS.
8. Personal Vehicle Drivers (PVDs), a non-union subcontracted seasonal job, are not fully eliminated, but reorganized as Seasonal Support Drivers (SSDs). SSDs will be union positions offered first to current UPS workers, but UPS needs more full-time RPCD positions year-round and should be responsible for providing and maintaining vehicles. 
9. Only 25% of workers could be forced into the Tuesday-Saturday schedule in the previous contract. That 25% cap has now been eliminated. Former 22.4 drivers will be forced onto the Tuesday-Saturday schedule, since previously existing RPCDs will have priority for Monday-Friday bids, regardless of seniority.
10. Pension payments are not enough to keep up with inflation.
11. Driver-facing cameras are allowed in the trucks, and contradictory language in the TA does not provide strong protection against them being used against drivers.

UPS Teamsters can win much more. There’s no excuse for a tiered wage system for part-timers. UPS has the money to immediately install AC in all trucks. They need to be stopped from skimping on the pension. UPS called this agreement a “win-win”. They think they got a bargain.

Teamsters at UPS showed strength with the 97% strike authorization vote, practice pickets, and rallies. UPS is afraid of a strike. Just the threat of a strike pressured the corporation to increase its economic offer. Public support for unions is at the highest level in over 50 years. Many working people would be in solidarity with a strike. Union members have the final say. A no vote on the TA will be the first step to winning a stronger contract.