UPS Reaches Tentative Deal With Teamsters To Avoid Strike

UPS and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union have reached a tentative new five-year collective bargaining agreement, which would cover approximately 330,000 delivery and warehouse workers.

If the agreement is finalized, it will prevent the largest single strike against a company in US history, which could have caused an estimated $7 billion blow to the US economy.

The current contract between the union and UPS is set to expire on August 1, and the Teamsters had previously threatened that drivers would go on strike if a deal was not reached. Talks between the two parties had stalled earlier in the month but were resumed today.

“We’ve reached a win, win, win agreement,” UPS 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,” Carol Tomé, UPS chief executive officer, said.

The main point of contention was the pay rates for UPS’s part-time union workers.

Currently, these part-time workers, who make up more than half of the company’s workforce, earn an average of $20 per hour after 30 days on the job and already receive the same healthcare and pension benefits as full-time workers.

A potential strike had raised concerns about disrupting the US supply chain, adding to inflation, and causing UPS customers jumping to competitors like FedEx, or others.

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