Posted on 07/25/23
| News Source: The Hill
UPS and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced Wednesday a tentative collective bargaining agreement — just days before their current contract was set to lapse.
“Together we reached a win-win-win agreement on the issues that are important to Teamsters leadership, our employees and to UPS and our customers,” UPS CEO Carol Tomé said in a statement.
“This agreement continues to reward UPS’s full- and part-time employees with industry-leading pay and benefits while retaining the flexibility we need to stay competitive, serve our customers and keep our business strong.”
The company said the five-year agreement would cover “Teamsters-represented employees in small-package roles.” It is still subject to approval by union members.
The new deal includes higher wages for Teamsters workers, air conditioning in trucks and an agreement to hire 30,000 new drivers.
Teamsters threatened to strike starting next Tuesday, as the contract covering 340,000 workers expires on July 31. With a tentative agreement in place, work will continue as the contract is voted on by union members next month.
“Rank-and-file UPS Teamsters sacrificed everything to get this country through a pandemic and enabled UPS to reap record-setting profits. Teamster labor moves America. The union went into this fight committed to winning for our members. We demanded the best contract in the history of UPS, and we got it,” Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien said in a statement.
A Teamsters UPS strike would have been the largest private sector strike in U.S. history and could have upended national supply chains, experts said.