UPS said the strike was imminent and asked the union to come up with a better contract on Friday.
A United Parcel Service driver loaded his truck Monday, adjacent to a UPS Store in New York, May 11, 2023. The head of UPS union, Frustrated by what he called an appalling counterproposal earlier this week, said a strike now appears inevitable and gave the shipping giant a Friday deadline to improve its offer. Frustrated by an appalling counterproposal earlier this week, the head of the union representing 340,000 UPS workers said a strike would be imminent and gave the shipping giant a Friday deadline to improve its offer.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters walked away from negotiations Wednesday, demanding that UPS give its last, best, and final offer no later than June 30.
Teamsters officials did not say what time the Friday deadline was or what actions it might take if it is not met.
The largest single-employer strike in American history appears imminent, said Teamsters General President Sean O Brien, who accused UPS executives of hoarding profits instead of sharing them with workers.
Executives at UPS, some of whom make up to 10 million dollars a year, do not care about the hundreds of thousands of American workers who make this company run, he said.
United Parcel Service said it has offered significant changes to its initial financial proposal and that reaching consensus requires time and serious, detailed discussion, but it also requires give-and-take from both sides. In April, talks on the national contract began. The Teamsters said 97% of workers voted for a strike authorization, which the union urged to give it more leverage during talks with the company.
The Teamsters are the largest private sector contract in North America with more than half of the company's workforce. If a strike occurs, it would be the first since a 15-day walkout by 185,000 workers crippled the company a quarter century ago.
UPS has been pushing back on these claims by saying that it provides workers with industry-leading pay and benefits.
Unionized UPS employees are still upset by the current contract, which they say was forced on them in 2018 due to a technicality. The contract created two hierarchies of workers with different pay scales, hours and benefits. Two weeks ago, the union and the company announced they reached a tentative agreement to equip more trucks with air conditioning equipment, a major sticking point. UPS said it will add air conditioning to U.S. small delivery vehicles purchased after January 1, 2024.
UPS delivers around 25 million packages a day, about a quarter of all U.S. parcels, according to Pitney Bowes, the global shipping and logistics firm. The pandemic has resulted in about 10 million packages being delivered each day in the years leading up to it.
UPS profits have surged since the pandemic began in 2020, as millions of Americans grew to depend on delivery to their doorstops.
UPS' annual profits in the past two years are close to three times what they were before the pandemic. The Atlanta company returned about 8.6 billion to shareholders in dividends and stock buybacks in 2022, and forecasts another $8.4 billion for shareholders this year.