Samuel Messidor
Photo: IBT, Teamsters President O’brien at a practice picket in New York
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters representing 340,000 UPS workers have voted in a new, 5-year contract with the corporation. This averts the potential for a strike that would have been the largest single-employer strike ever in the country. With 58% voter turnout, the tentative agreement passed with 86% voting yes, which means about 50% of UPS workers voted for the agreement.
While Teamsters President Sean O’Brien has said he has made UPS pay, citing a “historic” $30 billion cost for the new contract over its 5-year span, UPS has called the deal a win for itself, its employees, and its customers, and says it will be able to gain back all the business it lost due to the strike threat.
The UPS CEO and O’Brien have been joined by a chorus of voices from the pseudo–leftist press praising the ratification of the contract for raising wages and potentially inspiring Amazon workers to organize. Biden also praised the deal for averting a potentially economy-crippling nationwide strike.
Meanwhile, arecentNewsweek article written by a Teamsters negotiation committee member claimed that the “militant left” was infiltrating the union to undermine a contract that would benefit both the bosses and the workers. Capitalist profits come from the exploitation of workers—ina society divided between the exploited and exploiters, there is nothing mutual in a victory.
The contract eliminates the two-tier system for drivers, but institutes one for the part-time warehouse workers. Only 7,500 full-time positions will be created over the life of the contract despite one of the Teamster leadership’s main talking points being against the expansion of lower-paid, labor-intensive part-time positions. The new contract does not increase guaranteed hours for part-timers and their pay raise falls short of the demanded $25 per hour. There is also no language against tempo increases or automation. And while the contract secures A/C for drivers, it leaves the roll-out of air-conditioned vehicles largely to the company’s discretion. New vehicle purchases will be equipped with A/C while old vehicles will be retrofitted with fans and vents described by workers as largely useless for cooling. Forced overtime will still be allowed in the contract and there will be no Cost of Living Adjustment for pensions, effectively reducing real wages over time.
In statements released on their website, Teamsters Mobilize denounced the union bureaucracy spending workers’ dues on media consultants to promote the “yes” vote. New Day at UPS, another rank-and-file organization of UPS Teamsters, published statements condemning the union bureaucrats for failing to organize debates and studies of the contract to make sure the membership was informed and could speak their minds fully before voting.
Teamsters Mobilize further claims that Vote No campaigners were targeted jointly by UPS management and Teamsters officials, with some campaigners threatened with firing and having the police called on them for agitating at their own facilities.
This is the second potential national strike recently averted in the country—the first being the rail worker’s potential strike, which the Biden administration made illegal in 2022 with the support of “progressive” Democrats and O’Brien himself.
