New York Local 804, led by Vinnie Perrone, a candidate on the OZ-Teamsters United Slate, has done what the Hoffa administration could not. They have fought back and won against UPS on the critical issue of Personal Vehicle Drivers (PVDs).

Inflation rose 5.0% from May 2020 to May 2021, due to a large bump in May, so some UPS Teamsters will get a 33c per hour cost of living (COLA) raise on August 1, in addition to the contract wage increase of 90c. This is per Article 33 of the contract, which provides for a COLA raise to Teamster employees “who have completed their appropriate wage progression schedule.”

UPS made an astonishing $2.8 billion in operating profit for the first quarter of the year, shattering all-time records and beating Wall Street projections. 

UPSers Teamsters are organizing to win MLK Day as a paid holiday and to end part-time poverty, discrimination and harassment.

UPS Teamsters in Rhode Island Local 251 passed out more than 400 whistles and “blew the whistle” on harassment at UPS. The very next day, a top supervisor who serially harassed employees was removed from his position.

UPS reported record-shattering $24.9 billion in fourth-quarter revenue and $7.8 billion in operating profits after taxes for the year. The corporate windfall makes the givebacks imposed by Hoffa & Co. in the 2018 contract an even more bitter pill to swallow than it was already.

In a surprise move, UPS has sold UPS Freight to TFI, a Canadian trucking and logistics corporation. 

Every year, workers at the Postal Service and UPS expect to work long hours between Thanksgiving and Christmas. “This is like our Super Bowl,” said Kimberly Karol, president of the Iowa Postal Workers (APWU). “Employees really do rally together.”

But this year has been like no other. Workers were still catching their breath from last year’s holiday peak when the pandemic struck and online ordering ratcheted up. It was like Christmas all over again—and it never stopped.

Click here to read the story at LaborNotes.org 

Twenty-three years ago, Teamster members won labor’s biggest victory in decades in the 1997 UPS strike. What are the lessons for today?