UPS and the Teamsters Union have had ongoing discussions in which they were trying to come together to write a new contract between the two parties. They were unable to reach an agreement by the time the Teamsters set an ultimatum, so a strike was imminent for the union employees. On July 25th, the two organizations reached an agreement that brought them a five-year contract. The deal will benefit the 340,000 union workers and allow UPS to remain in business successfully.
The contract still needs to be ratified by the Teamsters members before it is made official.
The Teamsters originally set a date in early July as their strike date if an agreement was not reached. They pushed that time frame back and were going to strike if an agreement was not made by the end of July. Since they were able to come up with a suitable contract with UPS, as long as the contract is ratified then strike will no longer be on the horizon.
The UPS CEO, Carol Tomé, called the agreed-upon contract “a win-win-win agreement.” She furthered this by saying that the contract works in favor of all involved, being the union, UPS, their employees, and their customers. The agreement meets the required factor in which the Teamsters demanded full and part-time employees earn even pay and benefits.
In the contract, full and part-time employees earn a raise of $2.74 per hour for the remainder of the year and will continue to receive a raise totaling $7.50 to be incurred throughout the duration of the current contract. With this, part-time employees will not be able to make less than $21. UPS was before and will continue to be the highest paying company for hourly part-time positions.
The agreement was reached hours after the two parties resumed negotiations.
The Teamsters’ negotiating unit voted unanimously in approval of the proposed contract. The President of the union said they were demanding the best contract in the history of the company. He continued to say that after much deliberation they feel confidently that they walked away with just that.
The biggest win for UPS is that they were able to prevent a strike, which would have been significantly damaging to their company and the supply chain. Other shipping companies were already preparing for an influx in their services with UPS out of service, but now they will not need to.
Voting for union members will begin on August 3rd and end on August 22nd.