by Andrew Grossman
Despite promises from both the company and the union, UPS has bought a grand total of zero new, air-conditioned delivery vehicles in 2024 as the summer months roll through, bringing record-breaking and dangerous heat to workers. The Teamsters union (IBT) says the lack of action is unacceptable, but have yet to state what they will do about it, if anything.
Rather than upgrading the existing fleet with A/C, the company promised to replace old vehicles with new, air-conditioned vehicles at their discretion. Delivery vehicles can last decades, and no capitalist would replace old machinery while it can still squeeze out value. Only workers’ struggle or economic crisis forces technological advancement on the bosses.
In fact, there are technological changes coming to UPS: the company is carrying out massive layoffs while bragging about instituting new warehousing tech requiring fewer workers. Meanwhile, according to monopoly media, the company says they have no current plans to purchase new vehicles, as package volume is down.
Leaving the roll-out of A/C to the company’s good graces did not stop the union chiefs from trumpeting their supposed victory. “Air conditioning is coming to UPS, and Teamster members in these vehicles will get the relief and protection they’ve been fighting for,” said IBT President O’Brien when the news of the A/C deal as part of the 2023 UPS/IBT contract first broke. It is unclear what fight he means, as the Teamsters bureaucracy did not allow the 2023 strike and instead forced a sell-out contract down the workers’ throats while praising it as “historic”.
The vast majority of the company’s nearly 100,000 delivery vehicles have no air conditioning. Instead, the company brags of installing fans and ventilation in the existing vehicles, which delivery works in touch with The Worker say are wholly inadequate, and feel like working inside a convection oven. Temperatures in the cargo area of UPS trucks regularly surpass 120 degrees in the summer months.
The UPS/IBT sell-out contract included paltry pay raises for part-timers, who are the majority of UPS Teamsters, betrayed promises of mass conversion of part-timers to full-timers, no work tempo controls, and no protections from automation. One UPS warehouse worker in touch with The Worker said he wanted to strike not just for better conditions, but also to “hit the management in the teeth”. Instead, the UPS workers got speeches from the union chiefs and a still-growing list of broken promises.
Photo: UPS workers protest for heat protections at their worksite in Brooklyn, NY in 2022. Teamsters.
