UPS Teamsters could have won more
By Workers Strike Back. Published August 23, 2023
350,000 Teamsters were prepared for a historic showdown with UPS. A successful strike could have brought UPS to its knees, and shown workers everywhere that when we fight, we can win. UPS reported record profits of $13 billion on sales of $100 billion last year. Workers there move 6% of the US GDP everyday. “Practice pickets” across the country drew thousands of workers and community supporters; this showed that workers were ready to fight.
Democratic Party politicians like Joe Biden piled pressure on the Teamsters to avoid a strike that could threaten the fragile economic “recovery” in an election year. In the end, Biden didn’t have to intervene as a strikebreaker, like he did with railroad workers, because Sean O’Brien signed a weak deal to avoid a strike.
O’Brien and the Teamster leadership hailed this as a “historic” contract, and the “best contract in the history of UPS.” But it is not that.
The contract offer, which Teamsters voted to approve on August 22, contains some potentially enormous concessions, such as freezing pension payments outside of the two geographical areas where the pensions were underfunded. This contract is historic in another way, in the wrong direction: it gives up the union’s right to bargain over any future introduction of Sunday deliveries.
The contract also contains new language that fosters divisions between full-time and part-time workers. The TA does not create 10,000 new full-time jobs – a strategic victory for UPS executives. It’s true that the TA eliminated the hated 22.4 job classification, but it opens the door to creating a new low-paid tier of part-time workers forced to use their own vehicles to get more hours.
The wage gains within the contract will get eaten by inflation. There is also no clear language to force UPS to actually install air conditioning in vans that regularly reach 120 degrees, except in new vehicles that won’t be purchased until 2024.
For all these reasons, Workers Strike Back called for a “no” vote on the new contract, as did Socialist Alternative and newly formed rank-and-file groups like Teamsters Mobilize. Unfortunately, the former opposition caucus Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) energetically campaigned for a “yes” vote, parroting the talking points of union leadership. This left workers who were ready to strike for more with no national organization to coordinate their efforts, though there are lots of examples of isolated efforts to expose the realities of the new contract.
Workers Strike Back organized multiple “Vote No” meetings which brought out rank-and-file UPS Teamsters from dozens of union locals around the country who were ready to fight for more. Workers Strike Back activists collected hundreds of signatures by setting up tables at UPS hubs, discussing the contract with workers, and circulating a “Vote No” petition online. If TDU or any section of the union leadership had done the same, thousands more could have been mobilized to reject this offer and win a truly historic contract.
A union contract is like a temporary ceasefire in the ongoing struggle between workers and bosses. It should reflect the actual strength of workers in relation to the boss. At UPS, there was a mood among workers to fight, they were well-organized to win, and the newly elected “reform” leadership of the Teamsters had a mandate to go into battle.
Instead the union leadership resorted to PR stunts, softball interviews from mainstream media, and misleading statements to get the deal through. Teamster leaders also borrowed from the bosses’ playbook, fear-mongering about how a strike would ruin workers, and how UPS may follow mismanaged companies like Yellow Freight into bankruptcy. Teamsters leadership handed out misleading flyers only pointing out the wins in the contract. Workers had to read all the fine print, often on social media pages, to find the concessions that would impact their lives. When UPS workers started speaking up, pointing out concessions in the deal, Teamster President Sean O’Brien called them “liars.”
If it was really as good a deal as they say it is, these tactics from the leadership would not have been necessary. Every worker understands that we can’t win all of our demands at once. Tactical retreats are sometimes needed to prepare for the next fight. This contract does not do that. On the contrary, as UPS moves forward with plans to increase the use of gig workers and to impose Sunday deliveries, and as rising temperatures make working conditions harder, workers’ faith in the union’s power can be weakened.
UPS will not play nice, empowered as they are now with a five year contract that contains a no-strike clause. Workers will need to confront the daily injustices of the boss on the shop floor and the politicians of both parties controlled by big business. They will also have to overcome local union officials who in many cases seem more concerned with helping the company stay profitable than with defending members who are being worn down by a brutal pace of work under increasingly difficult conditions.
We need to rebuild a fighting opposition movement in the Teamsters, both through debates in TDU and discussions on forming a new grouping within the union that struggles consistently against management, even when union leaders refuse to. More than 21,000 UPS Teamsters voted “No” on this contract. We need to get organized to fight for what UPS workers deserve, not settle for what the bosses will accept.
Help us get organized to build a fighting workers movement, including a new militant movement in the Teamsters. Donate $25, $50, or $100 now to Workers Strike Back!
And tune in Thursday, September 14 for the first episode of our new video broadcast On Strike with Kshama Sawant and Bia Lacombe, for news and analysis to beat the bosses. Find a watch party near you or email solidarity@workersstrikeback.org to organize one of your own!
