2023-06-16 07:12:36
The union representing hundreds of thousands of employees of the carrier UPS, which delivers letters and parcels to homes and offices, is to announce on Friday whether or not they have authorized a possible strike.
If the walkout were to be confirmed, it might shake up the American economy.
The powerful Teamsters organization is currently negotiating the next collective agreement with management and they theoretically only have six weeks left, until July 31, to reach an agreement for its 340,000 members.
The threat of a strike would give the organization and its president, Sean O’Brien, a powerful weapon in the negotiations, given the impact it might have: UPS estimates that its trucks carry around 6% of the Gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States every day.
The uncertainty over the outcome of the talks represents a new challenge for the country’s economy, which benefits from a solid labor market but suffers from high inflation. To step into his role in 2021, Sean O’Brien has pledged to stand firm with UPS and other large corporations.
“This company owes you a lot and we are going to get it,” he reiterated on June 7 in a message to the employees of the carrier. UPS boss Carol Tome regularly says she hopes to get a deal in time. ‘We told you from the start that it would be hectic and it bears out,’ she said in April.
Experts in the transport sector generally expect a rise in wages, although it will probably not be as high as that demanded by the union, notes Anthony DeRuijter of the Third Bridge consultancy. But ‘there shouldn’t be a strike,’ he argues, because the Teamsters have an interest in showing they can make progress if they want to convince workers at other companies like Amazon to unionize.
‘Up to the limit’
The two parties have already reached an agreement on the installation of air conditioning and new fans in the trucks, a crucial aspect for drivers who can suffer from high temperatures in the rear. The union also won that management not use drones and other new transport technologies without consulting it, as well as restrictions on the use of cameras monitoring drivers.
But Sean O’Brien, who did not give quantified salary targets, warned that many points remained under discussion. These negotiations come at a special time for the labor movement in the United States. Since 2021, small groups have for the first time succeeded in creating sections in large companies such as Starbucks, Amazon and Apple. But the unionization rate in the private sector has fallen further in 2022, to just 6%.
However, trade unions in the transport sector have benefited from a certain momentum since the pandemic, which has highlighted the essential role of logistics. On Wednesday, an agreement was reached between the association representing 29 ports on the west coast and the union representing dockers following months of discussions and two weeks of slow work that affected port activity.
Terms of the contract have not been made public but according to Sal Mercogliano, a history professor at Campbell University who follows the shipping industry closely, the dockworkers got a substantial raise. In a joint statement, the ports and the union hailed Labor Minister Julie Su’s ‘key role’ in the negotiations.
President Joe Biden, who regularly defends the importance of trade unions, himself intervened at the end of 2022 to avoid a strike in the rail sector. For Sal Mercogliano, it is possible that the US government will work once more ‘behind the scenes’ to avoid a strike by UPS drivers and handlers.
If business activity has slowed down a bit since the peak of the pandemic, the union can invoke high inflation, says the expert, according to whom the Teamsters “will push to the limit”.
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