I broke down and purchased a copy of “Outside the Box” and about the only item of interest in the text is found in the Appendix, where the author interviews Ron Carey. Snippets of the interview are inserted below:
An Interview with Ron Carey:
The Story of a Militant Union Leader
Interview conducted June 3, 2004, in Washington, D.C.
DEEPA KUMAR: You have a long history with UPS. Your father worked there for forty-five years, and then you joined the company. Broadly speaking, what can you say about the company?
RON CAREY: My father had a great deal of respect for UPS; he also had a great work ethic, and he was a very productive human being. What he didn’t like was the way he was treated by the lower management. At that point in time, about 1955, when I started with UPS, the folks that wrote the policy book talked about how employees were the most important product in their company, but that philosophy never trickled down to lower management. The result was daily frustration and anger in the way management dealt with the hourly employees, which was very difficult for me to deal with.
DK: What was it like to work for UPS? Today, the pace of work is very demanding. Did you also experience this as a UPS driver?
RC: UPS does everything to drain you of every ounce of productivity, whether it’s mental or physical. For example, keep the key on your finger when you get out of the truck; walk with urgency; if you see the customer ten feet away, holler out so you don’t have to go and ring the bell, if it’s a private house ... that sort of thing.
I think they put so much pressure on their management people that they were always angry and frustrated. This was counterproductive. For example, you would never receive credit for an outstanding job. If you ever gave that a thought, you were reminded repeatedly, “But it’s your job, you get a good day’s pay.” So that eliminated the feeling of creativity, of self-worth, and created a sense of “I can contribute more, but why should I? They don’t care anyway.”
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DK: Let’s go back to UPS. UPS has made a number of changes in the company in order to become the transnational giant that it is today. What were the key issues facing you when you negotiated the contract in 1997? What kind of strategies did you come up with to pressure UPS?
RC: I knew that one of the critical issues was a good retirement plan. Another one of the critical issues facing not just UPS workers but workers in general was part-time work. You can’t live on part-time wages; it just won’t work. So these were some of the issues: providing a secure job for our members, with good wages, good retirement benefits, good working conditions.... This is a company that’s making terrific profits!
We analyzed these issues and asked, “What are realistic goals here?” Remember, the company has to make money in order to provide for all of this, so there had to be realistic goals.
Going back over the thirty years of experience with UPS, I understood these would be difficult negotiations, it would be a fight; a fight that would have very dangerous consequences. We were confident we had the support of the members in the strike because we had spent a long time communicating with them to get them involved, to get them fully mobilized and engaged in the process. We got their input in formulating our bargaining demands. Rank-and-file members were on the negotiating committee. We knew what they wanted to achieve in the contract.
We also knew that we had to tap into the resources and strengths of other unions around the world. This was a worldwide company. So we put together a worldwide strategy to involve unions in Europe in this fight. We brought them to the bargaining table, to listen to UPS. We had good relationships with most unions. We had the pilots’ union participating with us at the bargaining table. We put together a global cooperation strategy.
We also dug up information on UPS. We looked at UPS’s financial records and found weaknesses. We developed strategies to gain community support, media strategies, and we were present with the members on the picket lines.
But most of all, it was the members that made the strike a success. It wasn’t union officials talking to the press, it was our members and their families, and the public could relate to what they were saying. This dispute was about good jobs and their hopes and dreams. When members feel involved and know the fight is about them, their future, they’ll fight for a better contract.
What happens when people feel involved and feel it is their union? They’ll take some chances. They’ll fight for a better contract. You take on a good legal fight. You strike them, and do everything you can to win it: communication, strategy, being out there and making sure that the officers are down in the trenches with the members, not at a bar somewhere saying, “Good work, guys.”
This was about good jobs in America, and we succeeded — we won on every issue.
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DK: In pushing for a strike, UPS miscalculated. They assumed that the workers wouldn’t go on strike. Why do you think they had such a mistaken view of their workers?
RC: I think they were listening to the old-guard union officials — the good old boys. “These guys aren’t going to strike. People don’t want to strike.” That’s what they’d been saying. But members keep a lot to themselves. They don’t talk openly unless they feel you’re on their side because they’re afraid they’ll lose their jobs. And you know that when you go out campaigning, and you’re shaking hands, and you look in their eyes, and they say to you, “You’re going to do the right thing for us, aren’t you, Ron?” I knew the members would support the strike.
So did they miscalculate? Yes, I think that was part of it. They did not know that once they made their move, we anticipated their strategy, and we had six moves already planned. I had sat down with groups of people, developing opposition strategy. What if we did this? What would they do? What’s their reaction to this? I did it on every issue. Whatever they brought up, I made sure that we had the ammunition, the research, the communication already there. Each move they made, we had to anticipate what their next move would be. Sometimes we didn’t have it a hundred percent, but we were pretty close. Knowing them, how they operate, was one of the good intuitions that I had as a UPS driver, knowing them for thirty-odd years.
DK: Several polls found that the public supported the strikers two to one over the company. Why did this happen? Why do you think American workers identified with the Teamsters?
RC: The Teamsters’ position was about the great American dream, good jobs, decent wages, health coverage, a job with security. The company’s position was about corporate greed and putting dollars over people. When the members got out there with their families, with wives and children on the picket line, and the media picked it up, the public learned that this was about something decent, something good, about the American dream, about what we all are promised. The promise is that if you work hard, you’re honest, you do the right thing, you’re supposed to succeed. It’s what we all believe in. And here it wasn’t happening. Jobs were getting scarce, there were economic problems, and part-timers needed to be treated like people too, The public was able to relate to these issues.
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DK: Do you think the strike improved the public image of the Teamsters and, more generally, presented unions in a favorable light?
RC: Yes, it did. Our strike against UPS was the most successful strike since World War II. We captured the public’s imagination and showed that workers could take on a giant corporation and win.
But two days later, the Teamsters election officer proceeded to disqualify me from union office, so that didn’t help. I remember the last day, after the negotiations were settled. I was in the room with the secretary of labor, Alexis Herman, and the company. The company’s top negotiator, Dave Murray, got up, and said, “You will pay for this. You will be sorry till the day you die.” I said, “Are you threatening me?” I turned to the secretary of labor and said, “Did you hear that?” Ms. Herman said, “I didn’t hear a thing.”
I knew then that my demise was in the works. I had kept telling people that this company would be looking for a victim to pay for this. They would not let it go. And it wasn’t just them — look at all the Mob guys I threw out of the union. They weren’t happy campers.
In my time at the IBT, I made a lot of enemies. We took on the union’s entrenched old guard and some industry giants. We were able to show the country that a union could still wage a successful strike. I have paid a great personal price. But I don’t regret any part of it, I really don’t. I am proud of what we were able to accomplish. I did what I was elected to do. I take the philosophical view that where I am today is where I should be.
DK: Many have referred to your disqualification from the union as a “witch hunt.” It was meant to send a message of what would happen if a union ever dared to take on a company as powerful as UPS. In this context, why didn’t the labor movement do more to defend you?
RC: I have a strong feeling that somewhere within this there’s a connection to UPS, but I can’t prove that. I’ve searched for the answers, and I think they knew that they could never have the labor movement flexing its muscle. That was not to happen.
Why did the labor movement not jump out and defend me? I think they were concerned, but they weren’t there. Clearly, behind the curtains was Jimmy Hoffa. I really can’t speak for the AFL-CIO — I don’t know why they didn’t do anything.
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