UPS and Teamsters attain agreement on contract
International Brotherhood of Teamsters President James P. Hoffa and UPS Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Eskew discussed the pact at a press conference Tuesday in Washington.
“In 1997 we hit a homerun and today we hit a grand slam,” Hoffa said referring to the last contract the union negotiated with UPS. “I don’t want anyone to say that these negotiations were not tough. To say the least, they were intense, they were driven. We were up all hours of the night.”
UPS full-time and part-time workers will receive hourly wage increases of $5 and $6, respectively, over the six-year life of the contract. Health benefits were also increased, Hoffa said. The results of a ratification vote by the union’s membership are expected in mid-August.
The agreement was reached after nine consecutive weeks of negotiations and a marathon bargaining session this past weekend. Contract proposals were first exchanged on Jan. 30. Both sides said they wanted to avoid a repeat of the two-week strike in 1997 that cost UPS $750 million.
UPS customers, fearing another strike after the current contract expired July 31, had already started diverting shipments to rival carriers.
“We reached this handshake agreement well in advance of the expiration of our current agreement,” Eskew said.
The company agreed to discontinue using approximately 10,000 subcontracted workers, instead allowing those employees to join the union. During each of the last four years of the contract, 2,500 new union jobs will be added, for a total of 10,000 jobs, Hoffa said.
Strike fears hit results at Atlanta-based UPS, which earlier reported second-quarter profits of $611 million, off 3 percent from the $630 million it earned in the same period in 2001. Package volume was down 2 percent in April and May from the previous year’s levels, and fell 4 percent in June.
