By DON McINTOSH
UPS workers nationwide are voting this month on a tentative contract agreement. The Teamsters and UPS negotiating teams shook hands on the deal July 25, one week before what would have been the biggest single-employer strike in U.S. history. If ratified, the contract will set wages, benefits, and working conditions for roughly 340,000 workers in 176 local unions for the next five years. It’s the largest private sector collective bargaining agreement in North America.
In a presentation to about 30,000 members via Zoom and YouTube on July 31, Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien called it the richest deal in 40 years for part-time UPS workers.
“We got the best possible deal we knew UPS can put on the table,” O’Brien said in the webinar. “I’m certain we squeezed every bit of juice out of this orange that we could.”
–Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien
The webinar took place the same day representatives from UPS locals voted 161-1 to endorse the agreement as presented by the union bargaining committee.
The agreement includes an immediate raise of $2.75 an hour, followed by annual raises of $0.75, $0.75, $1, and $2.25. Full-time delivery drivers who now earn $41.50 on average will earn $49.00 as of Aug. 1, 2027, maintaining their status as the highest paid delivery drivers in the nation.
Meanwhile, part-time workers will see their nationwide wage floor rise from $16.65 to $21 upon ratification, an increase of $4.35 an hour. O’Brien said more than 40,000 part-timers currently earn $16.65 or less. In expensive cities like Portland, part-time workers already earn more than the nationwide floor under the terms of “market rate adjustments,” but they’ll still see their hourly wages rise by the same $2.75 that full-time workers get upon ratification.
Other improvements include:
Responding to increasing concerns about working in heat, UPS will equip all new trucks with air conditioning starting Jan. 1, 2024;
- Martin Luther King Jr. Day will be a full holiday for the first time;
- UPS will no longer be allowed to require drivers to work overtime on their days off.
- The agreement also maintains core status quo benefits like a defined benefit pension and fully paid health insurance.
“Health care benefits in this contract are protected for another five years, with UPS paying 100% of the premium,” said Mark Davison, president of Portland-based Teamsters Local 162, on the Zoom session. “Most workers can’t say the same.”
O’Brien said the deal contains no givebacks and eliminates concessions that were made in the previous five-year deal. Most notably, it eliminates a two-tier wage system that paid some drivers less. The 2018 deal was negotiated by Jimmy Hoffa Jr. and took effect even though a majority of members voted to reject it.
This time it was UPS making concessions, likely because it faced a credible strike threat. As the Aug. 1 strike date neared, tens of thousands of workers turned out at UPS facilities all over the country for “practice pickets.”
But O’Brien acknowledged that the new agreement does include compromises, in that Teamsters dropped some demands and didn’t get everything they wanted. For example, Teamsters agreed to allow UPS to continue to use “personal vehicle drivers” to deliver packages in their own vehicles. UPS’s use of personal delivery drivers is now limited to a five-week high season in November and December; currently UPS can employ them from October to mid-January. Also, the temporary gigs will now have to be offered first to existing part-time workers.
The contract ratification vote is taking place by phone, mobile, and online, conducted by BallotPoint Election Services, an employee-owned and union-represented company based in Portland. Voting began Aug. 3 and will run through Aug. 22, at which point the results will be announced.
