Round 340,000 UPS Employees May Be Getting ready To Strike In US

United Parcel Service (UPS) staff are gearing up for a possible strike as they maintain contract negotiations with the corporate. Talks between the corporate and the union representing UPS staff, the Worldwide Brotherhood of Teamsters, opened on April 17. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien says that staff are able to stroll off the job if UPS fails to succeed in a deal on a robust contract earlier than the present one expires on July 31.

Employees are demanding higher pay, extra full-time work, higher job safety, and an finish to the two-tier “22.4” job classification. The deeply unpopular “22.4” provision creates a lower-paid tier of staff who basically carry out the identical work as senior drivers, however obtain decrease pay.

The employees are additionally demanding an finish to extreme extra time, higher protections in opposition to firm harassment, the elimination of driver-facing cameras, and safety from scorching climate. Drivers reported excessive temperatures inside their supply vehicles in posts that went viral final summer time, and staff, like 24-year-old Esteban Chavez Jr., have died because of excessive warmth.

A strike could have a formidable affect. UPS staff transfer 6 % of U.S. GDP day by day. The final time UPS Teamsters went on strike was in 1997 when 185,000 staff walked off the job in one of many largest strikes in U.S. historical past. The work stoppage value the corporate $850 million regardless of solely lasting for 15 days. There was no bigger work stoppage within the US since then.

Supply: The Peoples Dispatch / Globetrotter Information Service