Teamsters to vote on ‘the best contract in the history of UPS’

Each time this century that the Teamsters reached tentative agreements with UPS on a nationwide contract, Eugene Braswell, like most members of Local 804 in Queens, didn’t hesitate before voting against the deals. 

James Hoffa Jr. was president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters during those negotiations and Braswell, now in his 33rd year at UPS, said that during that union boss' 23-year tenure, “all we did was get ready to vote the contract down because Hoffa wouldn’t get us anything and we knew that we would never strike.” 

That outlook began to change in November 2021, when the Teamsters elected Sean O’Brien as their new president over Hoffa’s chosen successor. With O’Brien, the union assumed a more militant stance, pledging to strike the logistics giant if UPS failed to reach a deal with the union by Aug. 1. 

As contract talks heated up, then broke off, and a strike became ever more likely, UPS workers nationwide collaborated with community organizations, knocked on doors to get petitions of support signed and held practice pickets, adding up to what Braswell said was the strongest and most organized contract campaign he could remember.  

Then, on the morning of July 25, O’Brien triumphantly announced that a deal with UPS had been reached and a strike, for the time being, was averted.  

And for the first time in 26 years, Braswell plans to vote yes on a national agreement “I’m happy with the deal,” Braswell told The Chief last week. “Sean O’Brien did a hell of a job.”

If approved by the 340,000-member union, wages of both full and part-time workers would immediately climb $2.75 per hour. Package-car drivers such as Braswell would get a $7.50 per-hour raise over the lifetime of the 5-year contract, bumping top pay for these drivers to $49 an hour. 

The agreement includes longevity raises of varying amounts for workers with five, 10 and 15 or more years. It also sets the minimum wage for UPS workers at $21 an hour.  

“Rank and file UPS Teamsters sacrificed everything to get this country through a pandemic and enabled UPS to reap record setting profits,” O’Brien said in a statement after announcing the agreement. “We demanded the best contract in the history of UPS & we got it. UPS has put $30 billion in new money on the table as a direct result of these negotiations.”

The contract vote begins Thursday and concludes Aug. 22. 

The deal would also fulfill O’Brien’s promise of eliminating the so-called “22.4 position,” a classification of package-car drivers created in 2018 for those who do similar work as regular package car drivers but for half as much pay. And it would mandate that UPS provide drinking water, ice machines, 18,000 new fans and 2,500 new water fountains in warehouses. It would also call for the company to include air conditioning in all package-delivery trucks purchased after this year.  

Matt Leichenger, a soon-to-be-reclassified 22.4 driver who works out of Brooklyn, said that the elimination of the position would be “evidence of the fact that our union is moving in a new direction.” 

Some feel shortchanged

But some part-time warehouse workers are arguing that, once again, their union has negotiated a deal that neglects to address their concerns, and they’re urging their coworkers to vote the contract down. 

“This tentative agreement shows that the Teamsters presented empty demands,” Audrey Johnson, a part-time worker in Secaucus, said last week. “I feel totally betrayed." 

During the contract campaign, Johnson and some other part-time workers across the country had advocated for the union not to accept a deal that would pay part-time workers less than $25 an hour. Now that a deal has been reached that will start new part-timers at $21 an hour, Johnson and some of her colleagues are calling to reject the contract. 

“A lot of people feel that the union let us down,” said Anna, a 25-year part-timer who works with Johnson in Secaucus. “The way the union had us worked up, the long-timers like me were looking for more.” 

Although she plans to vote down the contract, Anna, who did not want her last name used, thinks it will be ratified. She also acknowledged that the deal is far better than any she received during Hoffa’s tenure  — the $7.50 per-hour raise part-timers will get over the course of the contract is the same amount they’ve received altogether in the last 40 years. But given the energy, momentum and leverage that the Teamsters were building, she feels that more could have been accomplished if they struck. "We thought we would have UPS by the neck,” Anna added.  

Leichenger also wonders if the Teamsters could have extracted more concessions from UPS if they had walked out on strike, but he still feels that the contract campaign created new leaders within the union and brought much needed attention to organized labor nationwide. “There’s still a lot of organizing that needs to happen so we can win more in the future,” Leichenger added.

UPS’s stock price dropped somewhat after the agreement was announced, but has since recovered. 

“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,” Carol Tomé, UPS’ chief executive officer, 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.” 

‘It’s very very different now’ 

Tyeem Lythcott, a part-time warehouse worker and shop steward in Queens, acknowledged that some warehouse workers, especially those who have been with UPS for longer, are somewhat disappointed by the contract. But he said the contract “is a good start” after decades of concessions. And, he added, “you can't get everything you want in one contract.” 

Phil Martorana, a 28-year warehouse worker in the same facility as Lythcott, thought that, overall, the tentative agreement was “pretty good,” but also noted that it would take more than one agreement to rectify years of give-backs. Martorana, like many other longtime UPS workers, noted the difference between his union now and when Hoffa was in charge, when strike threats were never taken seriously.  

“Back in the day leadership didn’t even want to hear the word strike. They took away our biggest leverage every time,” Martorana said. “But it's very very different now and without that [strike] leverage I’m not sure we would have had an opportunity to gain momentum and get concessions from UPS.” 

Under the agreement, 15,000 part-time warehouse positions will be turned into 7,500 full-time jobs. The deal also increases the penalties that UPS has to pay if supervisors are caught editing workers’ time sheets or docking workers pay in other ways. Local 804 members will also be covered by a local supplemental contract negotiated by local leadership and rank-and-file members that includes two more sick days a year, gives part-time workers more opportunity to take full-time jobs, improves contract enforcement and expands vacation and bereavement leave benefits. 

Braswell was a part of the negotiating committee for the supplemental contract and thinks that deal, and the national one, are evidence of his union’s power and the strength of solidarity. 

“This is what happens when we all stick together,” he said. “This is contract number one of this new era and membership just has to stay engaged and hold the company’s feet to the fire.”

dfreeman@thechiefleader.com