UPS is violating the contract by syphoning off pick-up and delivery work to their non-union company Roadie. Our union is taking the fight to UPS to stop the illegal subcontracting of our work.

Here’s what UPS Teamsters need to know and how you can help.

The Roadie Racket

In 2021, UPS acquired a company called Roadie. Roadie uses independent contractors—“gig workers”—who drive their own personal vehicles to pick up and deliver packages.

UPS exploits legal loopholes to classify these workers as independent contractors. That way the company gets out of paying overtime and can violate basic safety laws.

Roadie is growing. They will be in 30 cities and metropolitan areas by the end of the year. And everywhere they go, they are taking packages that should be on UPS trucks driven by UPS Teamsters.

Shell Games

Roadie isn’t the only shell game that UPS plays to subcontract our work and get out of paying union wages and benefits.

Happy Returns is a company that uses gig workers to handle returns that would have gone through UPS counters and clerks.

UPS Mail Innovations works with the postal service to trim down last mile deliveries that go on Teamster package trucks.

UPS has purchased Marken and other healthcare logistics companies to expand their non-union Supply Chain Solutions business.

UPS Supply Chain Solutions employs tens of thousands of workers and brought in $12.7 billion in 2024.

These subcontracting schemes are a threat to Teamsters. CEO Carol Tomé has made no secret of her plans to shrink the number of good union jobs at UPS under her “better, not bigger” strategy. We can’t let that happen.

At the end of the day, it’s UPS workers handling packages—and they should all be Teamsters.

Help Take on UPS Subcontracting

Help build the case against UPS subcontracting violations.

If you have any evidence of work subcontracted to Roadie going in a UPS Tractor Trailer or being stored in a UPS building, send your information to [email protected].

Helpful evidence includes pictures, documents, or tracking information that proves a Roadie package is in the UPS network.

Bargaining to Organize in 2028

Stopping Roadie subcontracting is just one step to protecting good Teamster jobs at UPS.

Teamsters can beat back Carol Tomé’s union-busting tactics at the bargaining table in 2028 by fighting for card-check for workers at UPS’s non-union subsidiaries.

When a group of UPS admins and specialists joined the Teamsters in 2024, the International Union bargained a card-check neutrality agreement for their brothers and sisters across the country. At this point, more than 1,000 have joined.

It’s called bargaining to organize, and it needs to be a big part of our union’s strategy to defend Teamster jobs.