March 14, 2014: UPS management claims it has issued its “last, best and final” offer on a new Air Rider covering nearly 9,000 UPS Teamsters in Louisville.
UPS says they are done negotiating with Louisville Local 89 over the Air Rider, and they have thrown down an offer that is even worse than their previous one.
The International union has announced they will put the company’s offer to a vote, with ballots mailed out March 21 and counted on April 10.
Local 89 members rejected the company’s previous offer by 89 percent. Management’s new offer stiff-arms the local’s proposals for improvements, and even worse, management removed a $1,000 incentive bonus that was in its previous offer.
Louisville members are prepared to say No, and even Hell No, to this insulting offer.
Local 89 calls it “blind arrogance” by UPS. And they’re right.
It’s also a turn toward hardball tactics by UPS and the International Union who are trying to force through unpopular agreements not just in Louisville, but in Philadelphia and Western Pennsylvania where members have decisively Voted No twice.
The Hoffa-Hall administration doesn’t have a strategy for winning better contract offers in the rejected supplements. So they’re playing politics instead.
They are gearing up a campaign to try to blame Local 89, its President Fred Zuckerman and the Vote No movement for holding up the national contract and members’ retro checks. Hoffa and Hall are to blame: they heard from the members nine months ago and haven’t done a thing to fix the problems in all that time.
The Hoffa-Hall plan is to first push through weak agreements in the holdout locals and then to come after members’ Right to Vote on supplements.
TDU won the Right to Vote on Supplements at the 1991 Teamster Convention precisely to stop the International Union from forcing through substandard supplements in a national vote.
UPS Teamsters in 18 supplements across the country used this right effectively to Vote No to fight concessions and improvements in the rejected supplements.
What’s at Stake in the Local 89 Air Rider
Local 89’s website lays out the issues. Some of the problems are familiar to many other UPSers: adjustments to healthcare to offset negative outcomes in the transfer to Teamcare; more full time jobs; curtailing subcontracting; safety; and others.
One issue is a unique and critically important to Worldport Teamsters: unpaid travel time. Teamsters spend up to 40 minutes a day on their own time (!) using an inadequate shuttle system to get to their work station before they can clock in, and the same deal when they leave work.
Louisville Teamsters are standing up for all UPS Teamsters and deserve our support.