WASHINGTON—The Teamsters have disclosed, and blew a sharp whistle against, a plan by their members’ biggest employer, United Parcel Service, to offer individual buyouts to full-time drivers, violating the union’s master contract.
In a hard-hitting video on July 7 to a YouTube town hall, union President Sean O’Brien urged his members to “ignore and reject it,” when bosses come around touting what the company claims is a “voluntary” plan to help in UPS’s “reconfiguration” to meet “changed circumstances.”
“They’re s—tting you,” O’Brien said of company “lies.” He said the buyouts illegally violate the contract, three years after it was reached.
UPS was caught off guard by the union’s disclosure of its buyout scheme, which it intended to roll out at the end of July, O’Brien said. Now they’re speeding it up, he added in the video to the union’s UPS members. The 340,000 Teamsters who work for UPS make up approximately 25% of the Teamsters’ total membership.
“UPS is obligated to establish tens of thousands of new full-time jobs under the agreement,” creating 22,500 new delivery driver jobs and promoting 7500 part-timers to full-time, O’Brien said. Instead, the firm is “trying to weasel its way out of” that job-creation commitment via the buyouts and outsourcing.
“CEO Carol Tomé and UPS’s corporate managers are hoping if they offer paltry severance packages to enough workers, no one will notice the company is setting the union’s contract on fire. UPS Teamsters work too damn hard to be treated with such disrespect.”
The company retorted anyone taking the buyout would get health care, but the union said UPS offers “paltry severance packages.” Under the contract, retirees with 30+ years of service get lifetime company-paid health care and a good pension.
“We need to be prepared…to call out UPS for what they are: Another greedy, profit-driven corporation,” O’Brien told Zoom viewers. Figures from the AFL-CIO’s Paywatch website back him up.
They show Tomé earned $23.39 million in pay, stock options, and bonuses in 2023, the last year data was available, according to federal records. That’s 436 times the median pay of a UPS worker, including the drivers. The median is the point where half of the group is above and half below. UPS profits then totaled $9.9 billion, 11% of its worldwide revenues.
The union adds that UPS did not meet a July 1 deadline for information on achieving a goal of 28,000 new and air-conditioned delivery trucks by 2028. With the eastern U.S. gripped in a “heat dome” and the globe sweltering from record high temperatures due to global warming, air conditioning is important.
“Our members are not prostitutes. They cannot be bought,” O’Brien vowed. “UPS either wants to pay fewer workers or pay workers less than” the contract “calls for. That’s what this sham program comes down to. I urge you to ignore and reject these cheap buyouts. We want managers to get off our backs and let us do our jobs.”
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