December 5, 2005: In an historic win, our union has organized two FedEx Ground stations near Boston. Workers voted 22-8 for Teamster Local 25 at the two small stations.

Instead of recognizing the union and bargaining, FedEx intends to challenge the union victory at the NLRB and court, to drag it out. FedEx Ground drivers are contractors who buy their own trucks, but the NLRB has ruled that they are employees.

The union has lost most earlier organizing attempts at FedEx, so this victory could mark a positive trend. Organizing FedEx Ground (along with FedEx Freight and FedEx Express) is a long-term priority for Teamster strength. Local wins like this one can help spark a movement, but it will take a major commitment by the International Union to finish the job.

December 5, 2006: An academic study by three economists entitled “Corporate Political Contributions and Stock Returns” and reported in the New York Times indicates that in recent years UPS has donated PAC money to more Congressional candidates than any other corporation. UPS’s corporate PAC gave to 629 Congressional and Senate candidates from October 1999 to October 2004.

The study found that corporate buying of Congressional influence has a positive effect on stock price. It shows a statistical correlation between the number of candidates receiving money from a corporation, and increases in share value. It also indicates that corporations that spread their money around to many Congressional candidates get the most benefit.

December 5, 2006: UPS’s third-quarter after-tax profits rose to $1.04 billion, with strong growth in domestic and international shipments. Profit in the largest business line, domestic packages, rose 8.8 percent and international profits jumped 22 percent.

UPS reported only one weak spot: integration of Menlo Forwarding (UPS Cartage Services Inc.) and Overnite (UPS Freight).

UPS Bargaining Opens

November 4, 2006. Will the present International Union leadership fight for a good contract at UPS?

One bad sign is that they are already keeping contract information secret from the members. At the October contract proposal meeting they wouldn’t even let local officers leave with copies of the union’s proposals, which they promptly handed to management.

Fortunately, TDU has obtained copies of the both the union and employer non-monetary bargaining proposals.

You can click here to can access the union proposals and employer proposals.

There are not too many surprises in the union proposals. There are somewhat fewer proposals overall this time around, perhaps in line with Hoffa’s and management’s shared interest in settling quickly.

Proposals around perennial problems, like supervisors working and excessive overtime, are fairly predictable and attempt to patch up weak language. It is fine to beef up penalties for failure to release drivers who request “regular” work hours, but problems still exist if management just dumps the work on other drivers. Penalties need to be automatic (like double time after ten hours) and staffing levels and workloads need to be addressed.

Very disappointing is the lack of any card-check/neutrality proposal. In 2002 four pages were devoted to this issue. This time it is mentioned merely as an addendum to a proposal on subcontracting and does not address the need to obtain organizing rights at all other UPS divisions, not just for bargaining work being subcontracted. This critical demand needs to be added to our union bargaining program.

Employer proposals

TDU has also obtained a copy of management’s initial bargaining demands. These, as with the union proposals, do not include any of the most important items: benefits, wages or full-time job creation. Nothing is included about their move against our pensions. In fact, the proposals are so skimpy that it is clear that management is not showing its real hand.

The UPS demands cover some ongoing back and forth on issues like supervisors working and subcontracting (only locals where subcontracting originated get to file over it). These are put in to counter union proposals.

They include a fair share of management nitpicking; for example, they are often up in arms about bereavement leave. There’s also one on bidding to another job and being disqualified (longer wait to qualify again) and one on bidding into feeder (must stay two years).

A couple of management proposals are based on recent events: they want to be able to adjust meal and break periods (a response to the big California wage and hours lawsuit now underway) and a demand that Teamsters give up the right to honor picket lines setup on highways (in response to the Pennsylvania Turnpike toll booth strike of a couple years ago).

The company is always interested in trying to further weaken innocent until proven guilty (they want the right to discharge a worker already under pending discharge if they have a second offense). Sadly, our union under the current leadership is ready to go along with this (innocent until proven guilty was largely eliminated in the freight contract).

There are some interesting changes proposed under “competition” (Article 26) and “emergency reopening”. Competition language has to do with new services or products and sets out a procedure (60 days notice, and if the parties disagree it goes to arbitration). Emergency reopening of the contract could be over any national law which increases the employer’s health care costs, or “any other event.” They like early bargaining so much they want the right to do it virtually whenever they want.

They also want the right to use a much weaker, watered down arbitration procedure in disputes over work and operations.

But the big bombs have yet to drop. For years, UPS has waged a campaign to eliminate union pensions. And the restoration and improvement of pension benefits is high on the list of member concerns going into this contract.

Also missing are any employer or union demands over wage rates, full-time job creation, or time off. Part-time new hire rates have been frozen for over two decades and real progress must be made on that and other fronts for any contract to receive membership support.

Click here for the UPS Union Proposals (Adobe Reader Required)

Click here for the UPS Employer Proposals (Adobe Reader Required)

July 2006. Recently UPS management has quietly expanded a rural route scheme that they launched under the 2002 contract.

Members from North Carolina to California report that UPS is moving the starting locations for certain rural routes from the UPS building to vacant lots 50 or 60 miles away. Drivers are then forced to drive the extra miles on their own dime to get to work—or relocate, or just bid off the routes and let lower seniority drivers take them.

To get its foot in the door, management may make it seem that they are doing drivers a favor. In Bakersfield, Calif. they got the local to agree to one run because a driver lived far from the UPS building and liked the new arrangement. Then they added other runs to remote locations, forcing other drivers to deal with the extra commuting time and costs. North Georgia management took a similar approach by promising drivers eight-hour days and other goodies.

UPS has a trailer deliver to the remote location each morning. The drivers load their cars, deliver and return in the evening to off-load packages. The DIADs are turned in via a driver who comes by in the evening.

Asheville, N.C. Local 61 members saw five of their runs moved to a parking lot 50 miles from the center. Pressure forced management to provide canvas tarps for protection from the rain, but the runs remain. All of the high seniority drivers got off the runs, bumping back into what are sometimes more physically demanding routes.

Bakersfield driver and Local 87 President Dudley Stewart asked “With profits in the billions why does UPS have to try to save a nickel at the expense of their workers? They are spending thousands of dollars on things like videotaping drivers and then pinching pennies with the rural satellite system.”

When asked about the remote delivery set-up, IBT Small Parcel Director Ken Hall said that he had  “sent a letter” to UPS management about the problem. Members dealing with this issue might want to request a copy of that letter from their local, file grievances, and ask the union to take aggressive action to protect our working conditions.

Management did come across with an agreement, which will now be put to a vote of the 2,500 pilots. Not all terms of the contract have been released. Pay for UPS pilots has lagged behind other cargo airlines. FedEx pay has been slightly better and pay at some cargo airlines is nearly $50 per hour more. The UPS pilots have also been concerned about benefits and protections from loss of work to nonunion operations.

October 18, 2006. On Aug. 31, UPS’s 2,775 pilots narrowly ratified an eight-year contract which will give them immediate raises of 18 to 26 percent. The contract was ratified with 56 percent voting yes. UPS pilots belong to the Independent Pilots Association. They were in the Teamsters but left in the 1980s to form the IPA.

UPS pilots got a 29 percent raise over the life of their last seven-year contract. For the new contract, the union set its sights on winning an industry-leading agreement, given UPS’s excellent financial position.

Many pilots hoped to match a contract for Ohio-based cargo carrier ABX Air. Senior pilots for that carrier are paid a rate of $239 per flying hour (UPS pilots were previously at $190 per hour) and pilots with similar seniority at FedEx are paid $201 per hour (before their new contract).

Prior to this new contract, UPS pilots made an average of $175,000 per year.

In July, Brian Gaudet, a spokesman for the International Pilots Association, said that UPS pilots were looking at ABX’s $239 hourly rate as a benchmark in their own negotiations.

“We’re looking at that $239 rate, and FedEx is looking at it and every other major cargo pilots union is looking at it,” Gaudet said.

The new contract includes signing bonuses—UPS captains will get a bonus of $60,000, first officers $40,000, and second officers $34,000.

UPSers Clear on Improvements Needed

October 18, 2006. UPS Teamsters are clear on the improvements we need to win in the next contract on issues like benefits, overtime, fairness for combo workers, part-time wages, and restrictions on subcontracting and supervisors working. What’s less clear is how early bargaining will give us the leverage we need to win these improvements.

Since the announcement, UPS has basked in glowing reports in the business press. Early bargaining, after all, means that the contract may not get anywhere near a real deadline that could make shippers antsy enough to pressure UPS to settle. It also means that the contract could be wrapped up before another critical time for management—the 100th anniversary next August. Bargaining is scheduled to open on Sept. 19.

“It would be terrible to settle before the anniversary year, when we have the potential to really disrupt things—if the members were involved,” says UPS part-timer Dawn Stanger in Vermont.

And while the IBT keeps busy with press releases, UPS management is getting supervisors into contract mode, preparing to swamp members with their take on issues and events.

A strong campaign is needed to counter management’s pressure, but so far that hasn’t happened. Recent contract proposal meetings were a case in point. Hoffa gave locals just two weeks notice for holding the proposal meetings in August, not exactly the best month for union meetings.

Turnout at contract meetings was lower than ever before. Some locals, like Local 384 in Philadelphia, didn’t even bother to hold meetings. Most went through the motions but failed to inspire confidence in UPS Teamsters.

“Some of the members came prepared with good ideas,” says Al Hildestad from Des Moines Local 90. “But a lot of people are skeptical whether any of the proposals will really get to the bargaining table.”

In spite of the skepticism, member opinions on issues are crystal clear. Benefits, overtime, part-time wages, subcontracting and supervisors working were raised as top issues.

“One thing is for sure,” Louisville Local 89 steward David Thornsberry said about the contract, “any UPS contract is going down in the vote if it does not make major improvements in the areas where we have gotten burned so badly by UPS and Hoffa.”

July 27, 2005: UPS workers in Germany have launced a website in English as a way to reach out to brother and sister workers in North America. Go to www.netzwerkit.de/projekte/galley/ for the site.

The case stems from work that Teamster Local 177 has been doing with FedEx workers for a number of years. In 2005 the local won an NLRB ruling that FedEx drivers were employees, not contractors. Similar decisions have been issued over the years, which have confirmed that FedEx “contractors” are actually workers who are eligible for unionization.

Drivers at the Barrington, New Jersey terminal became the first FedEx unit to unionize. The new NLRB complaint cites FedEx for threatening and firing workers involved in organizing at the Barrington and West Deptford terminals.

Earlier this year a California court ruled that FedEx Ground single-route drivers in that state were employees and that they should be reclassified as such by April 2006. More than 30 class action lawsuits from contractor drivers are also pending in more than 24 U.S. states. Those lawsuits argue that drivers are not given full autonomy, and demands expense reimbursement, overtime and benefits. If FedEx, which earned $1.4 billion in fiscal 2005, has to classify all 14,000 ground-unit drivers as employees, the pretax hit could be in the neighborhood of $1.4 billion.