Protecting health care and pensions, preventing subcontracting and ending supervisor harassment are priorities that the UPS and UPS Freight National Negotiating Committees are fighting for as negotiations resume.
“UPS and UPS Freight are successful companies which, thanks to the hard work of Teamsters, have weathered the recession in good shape,” said General Secretary-Treasurer Ken Hall, Package Division Director, Co-Chair of the negotiating committees and lead negotiator. “Teamsters should share in that success.”
The UPS contract is the largest collective bargaining agreement in the country, and all eyes are watching developments, including Wall Street analysts, CEOs, politicians and others. The contracts cover about 250,000 Teamsters. The current five-year agreements expire July 31. Preparations for negotiations took place for much of last year and included surveys to UPS and UPS Freight members and member focus groups.
The first meeting held to prepare for negotiations involved both UPS and UPS Freight Teamsters from all over the country who perform various jobs at both companies, including package delivery drivers, feeder drivers, loaders, unloaders and sorters at UPS, as well as road drivers, city drivers, dockworkers and clerks at UPS Freight.
Hall and Hoffa also put the company on notice that no tentative agreement would be reached with UPS until supervisor harassment is addressed and there is consensus on restrictions on the use of the U.S. Postal Service. And at UPS Freight, there will be no agreement without addressing subcontracting, they said.
“We will not tolerate UPS Freight subcontracting our work,” Hall said. “Until this issue is resolved, this contract will not be resolved either.”