Teamsters reach sellout agreement “in principle” with UPS

Bolshevik

Well-Known Member
The Teamsters union and United Parcel Service are preparing to impose historic concessions on UPS workers, according to a tentative agreement announced last night.

Full details of the deal have not been released and the contract has yet to be finalized. Further talks are scheduled from July 9 to July 12. However, the details that have been made public make clear that the agreement is a betrayal of UPS workers, who voted by a margin of 93 percent to authorize a strike.

UPS has long been a pioneer in developing a low-paid, highly exploited workforce, with 70 percent of its 230,000 US employees working part-time for starting wages of as little as $10 per hour. This has been implemented with the active support of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which has colluded over decades in imposing contract concessions.

According to a statement released by the union, the tentative agreement would create a new “hybrid driver” position, a second and lower-paid tier of drivers who would split their time between deliveries and working at UPS distribution hubs. These workers would start out at $20.50 per hour and top out at $34.79 by 2022, significantly less than what drivers currently make. Up to now, UPS driver has been one of the few remaining decent-paying hourly positions at the company.

The hybrid driver plan was originally proposed by the Teamsters union, not the company, according to leaks from the union negotiating committee. This information has provoked widespread anger among the rank and file.

The agreement includes a paltry $4.15 per hour increase in wages for full-time employees over the five-year life of the contract, barely enough to keep up with inflation.

The deal would also raise starting wages for part-timers from $10 to $13 per hour, increasing to $15.50 per hour by the end of the contact. This poverty-level starting pay for part-timers is even less than the $15 per hour that some facilities have already begun to pay on the West Coast, in response to astronomical turnover caused by brutal working conditions.

Yesterday’s announcement amounts to a provocation against UPS workers. Lead negotiator Denis T, the bargaining committee, and Teamsters President James P. Hoffa simply ignored the near-unanimous opposition among UPS workers to the creation of a second tier of drivers. Instead, the Teamsters claimed that the new tier was in response to “membership concerns, including Saturday and Sunday delivery, excessive forced overtime [and] time off.”

The move would “create additional high-paying, full-time opportunities for part-time employees and provide thousands of additional contributors to our Teamster pension funds,” the statement claims. This makes clear that the strategy of the Teamsters and UPS to force through the two-tier system is to set lower-paid part timers against existing full-time drivers.

The reference to the Teamsters pension funds suggests that in pushing a two-tier driver system the union aims to bolster the finances of the multi-billion-dollar funds that serve as investment vehicles and sources of income for the union bureaucracy, even as pension payments to retirees are being slashed.

Taylor, the Teamsters’ package division director, claimed in the union’s official statement: “I am confident that once the membership has reviewed and understood the changes, they will see that this agreement is among the very best ever negotiated for UPS members.”

He continued: “On behalf of the entire National Negotiating Committee, I also remind the membership, once again, that they should not rely on the misinformation that is circulating on the Internet. The groups that are generating that misinformation do not have your best interests in mind.”

Taylor’s reference to “misinformation”—that is, truth that cuts against the bureaucracy’s lies—is reminiscent of the campaign launched by the United Auto Workers against Internet “fake news” in 2015, after workers took to the Internet to express and organize opposition to the union’s sellout contract, which created a third tier by expanding the use of part-time workers. In particular, the UAW campaign was focused against the growing influence of the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter, which became a center of opposition to the sellout.

The release of the statement prompted outrage among UPS workers.

A UPS worker in Michigan denounced the two-tier scheme to the World Socialist Web Site. “I’ve seen my dad go through that at GM,” he said. “They introduced two tiers in 2004 and 2007 and then they would give the lower tier workers bonuses to sign contracts that cut pensions. It was used to divide workers and get rid of 100 years of collective bargaining. The UAW was bribed to sign those contracts. I’m almost certain that Denis T and Hoffa are getting paid off. I can’t prove it, but there is too much going on behind our backs.”

An older worker from the Los Angeles area told the World Socialist Web Sitethat he thought the hybrid driver position could be used to divide the work force. He said: “They are currently making $12 per hour on average, and eyeing a $20-$34 driver-inside split will likely seem attractive, even if full-time drivers are making $41 per hour. So I do believe this has to be called out, as it’s a slippery slope for all, seeking to split the membership in two, much like what happened in the union betrayals of the 1980s at the auto manufacturing plants.”

Given the widespread opposition to the tentative agreement, there is every possibility that the final contract will be voted down. However, this will not convince the Teamsters bureaucracy to conduct a genuine struggle. In 2014, Hoffa responded to repeated rejections of the 2013 contract and its local supplements by overriding the vote and imposing it unilaterally.

The Teamsters union will do everything it can to avoid a strike, or, if that becomes impossible, to limit and isolate it in order to ensure its defeat. Investment firm Wolfe Research, LLC has suggested that although it is unlikely the Teamsters would actually call a strike, UPS should consider the advantages of a “short-term” strike in order to wrest further concessions that would provide “long-term labor flexibility.”

The UPS deal underscores the fact that the Teamsters union has long since been transformed from a workers’ organization into a pro-company, anti-working class industrial police force. Changes in the structure of the world economy have produced a similar change in every union, all of which now see their primary function as the suppression of the class struggle. As a union lawyer recently argued before the Supreme Court, “union security is the tradeoff for no strikes.”

A serious struggle against wage and benefit cuts can take place only on the basis of a rank-and-file rebellion against the unions. This was demonstrated by the teachers’ strikes earlier this year, when teachers organized outside of the unions and defied initial attempts to send them back to work. In the end, however, the unions were able to regain control due to the lack of a conscious political leadership fighting to establish new organizations of struggle—rank-and-file committees—to broaden the strikes and direct them consciously against both the Republican and Democratic parties and the pro-corporate unions.

This perspective is opposed by various “dissident” groups within and around the Teamsters bureaucracy such as the Teamsters for a Democratic Union. The history of the TDU demonstrates the bankruptcy of the perspective of reforming the union.

The TDU entered into the Teamsters leadership under former President Ron Carey, whose sellout of the 1997 UPS strike established the principle of two-tier wages at the full-time level through the hiring of part-time employees working full-time hours at a reduced wage scale. Carey himself was later brought down in a corruption scandal implicating the AFL-CIO and the Democratic National Committee.

Workers should begin organizing now to oppose the Teamsters-UPS contract. The World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party urge UPS workers to form rank-and-file committees in every workplace, completely independent of the Teamsters bureaucracy, to unite full-time and part-time workers and appeal to broader layers of the working class, especially Postal Service workers, whose contract expires on September 20, and Amazon workers. Workers who are interested in organizing such a struggle should contact the World Socialist Web Site to discuss this perspective.

Teamsters reach sellout agreement “in principle” with UPS

Thoughts?
 

DoYouEvenLift

Active Member
Well written and thought out. My building is voting yes and my shop stewards did not even know when I mentioned hybrid driver....But then pointed to a board with the contract summary and the hybrid driver info was literally the first bullet point.

So basically my entire building is in the dark (it's a fairly large west coast hub too)

He said there was no way we would strike. Yet my supe is saying the pre-shift meetings are super :censored2:ed up and they're (management) Is preparing for a strike


Just really confused. Voting no on this.
 

Bolshevik

Well-Known Member
American trade unions have led the charge against workers since they stopped being workers organizations and became organs of the capitalist system.

Hoffa is a modern Ed Sadlowski, who sold out the UAW rank and file during catastrophic concessions of the 1980's and then took a job at Chrsyler's board of directors and hailed by Wall St as a "hero." :The death of Ed Sadlowski and the demise of trade union reformism

Ladies and gentlemen, we are in the process of being betrayed by the very organizations that claim to represent workers. The UAW is in a corruption scandal for taking bribes during the 2008-2010 bailout crisis: Growing outrage from autoworkers over UAW bribery scandal

For more on Teamsters and its complicity with UPS/capital: World Socialist Web Site - Marxist analysis, international working class struggles & the fight for socialism

Support for strike action at UPS as Teamsters union prepares sell-out contract
 

bowhnterdon

Well-Known Member
I was talking to FT people in my building. No interest in the hybrid jobs. Just “how much money do we get”. Can’t fix stupid. Don’t even try. It will be voted in....
 

35years

Gravy route
American trade unions have led the charge against workers since they stopped being workers organizations and became organs of the capitalist system.

Hoffa is a modern Ed Sadlowski, who sold out the UAW rank and file during catastrophic concessions of the 1980's and then took a job at Chrsyler's board of directors and hailed by Wall St as a "hero." :The death of Ed Sadlowski and the demise of trade union reformism

Ladies and gentlemen, we are in the process of being betrayed by the very organizations that claim to represent workers. The UAW is in a corruption scandal for taking bribes during the 2008-2010 bailout crisis: Growing outrage from autoworkers over UAW bribery scandal

For more on Teamsters and its complicity with UPS/capital: World Socialist Web Site - Marxist analysis, international working class struggles & the fight for socialism

Support for strike action at UPS as Teamsters union prepares sell-out contract
No one falls for the Communist B.S. anymore.

Is that you Ricky?

This is not about politics.
 

35years

Gravy route
Nice ad hominem attack TOTALLY ignoring my facts and points.

No...
Ad Hominem = To the man (in Latin)
I did not attack you as a person.
I did disagree with your argument, forcefully and succinctly.

You copied and pasted an article from a Marxist/Communist web site.
I called your argument out for the Communistic drivel it is.

Communists will often latch on to Union issues trying to promote their flawed political philosophy.

You asked for our thoughts. And I gave mine.

So I ask you...
Are you a Communist, Bolshevik?

You will find most hard working UPS employees are capitalists, not Communists. We prefer that the Government does not control our hard earned money.






 
Last edited:

Bolshevik

Well-Known Member
No...
Ad Hominem = To the man (in Latin)
I did not attack you as a person.
I did disagree with your argument, forcefully and succinctly.

You copied and pasted an article from a Marxist/Communist web site.
I called your argument out for the Communistic drivel it is.

Communists will often latch on to Union issues trying to promote their flawed political philosophy.

You asked for our thoughts. And I gave mine.

So I ask you...
Are you a Communist, Bolshevik?

You will find most hard working UPS employees are capitalists, not Communists. We prefer that the Government does not control our hard earned money.






Its the lack of a militant Left (aka communists, socialists, anarchists, etc) that was purged by the trade union bureaucracy during the mcccarty era that has led to the absolute debacle and collapse of American trade unions. Private sector union membership now stands below 5%, but lets keep doing things your way, the way that isnt working for large parts of the country INCLUDING your own brother and sisters at UPS.

That you think 'communism' is equivalent to some tax increase shows your ignorance and thus any debate with you would lack merit; and be a waste of time.

You say communism is flawed, but everything you were afraid would happen under communism IS happening under capitalism. And soon, because of capitalist vultures like Bezos, you and others here at UPS may soon be joining the ranks of the already impoverished.
 

35years

Gravy route
My comments in red below (how is that for irony)...
Boshevik quote;
"Its the lack of a militant Left (aka communists, socialists, anarchists, etc) that was purged by the trade union bureaucracy during the mcccarty era that has led to the absolute debacle and collapse of American trade unions. Private sector union membership now stands below 5%, but lets keep doing things your way, the way that isnt working for large parts of the country INCLUDING your own brother and sisters at UPS."
So I will take that as a yes...
You are a Communist.

"That you think 'communism' is equivalent to some tax increase shows your ignorance and thus any debate with you would lack merit; and be a waste of time."
Where did I state such a thing?
Typical straw man argument.


"You say communism is flawed, but everything you were afraid would happen under communism IS happening under capitalism. And soon, because of capitalist vultures like Bezos, you and others here at UPS may soon be joining the ranks of the already impoverished."[/QUOTE]
I was never afraid of Communism.
The old Soviet Union and it's collapse showed conclusively what Communism reaps..
Oppression and bread lines.
 
Last edited:

UnconTROLLed

perfection
My comments in red below (how is that for irony)...
Boshevik quote;
"Its the lack of a militant Left (aka communists, socialists, anarchists, etc) that was purged by the trade union bureaucracy during the mcccarty era that has led to the absolute debacle and collapse of American trade unions. Private sector union membership now stands below 5%, but lets keep doing things your way, the way that isnt working for large parts of the country INCLUDING your own brother and sisters at UPS."
So I will take that as a yes...
You are a Communist.

"That you think 'communism' is equivalent to some tax increase shows your ignorance and thus any debate with you would lack merit; and be a waste of time."
Where did I state such a thing?
Typical straw man argument.


"You say communism is flawed, but everything you were afraid would happen under communism IS happening under capitalism. And soon, because of capitalist vultures like Bezos, you and others here at UPS may soon be joining the ranks of the already impoverished."
I was never afraid of Communism.
The old Soviet Union and it's collapse showed conclusively what Communism reaps..
Oppression and bread lines.
[/QUOTE]state communism
 

Bolshevik

Well-Known Member
009.jpg
I was never afraid of Communism.
The old Soviet Union and it's collapse showed conclusively what Communism reaps..
Oppression and bread lines.
state communism[/QUOTE]

Ironically enough, thats where capitalism is heading with AI/robotics; globally. Capitalism is in its greatest crisis since the 1930's; leading to the rise of the far right across the globe and all people got are 1950 cold war literal red herrings and ad hominem attacks. LOL. What an old-timer

Anyways this thread was created to discuss the betrayal of teamsters rank and file, at the hands of the union bureaucracy; much like the UAW betrayed its members over the past two decades.

.......OH and bread lines LOL
 
Last edited:

Bolshevik

Well-Known Member
My comments in red below (how is that for irony)...


"You say communism is flawed, but everything you were afraid would happen under communism IS happening under capitalism. And soon, because of capitalist vultures like Bezos, you and others here at UPS may soon be joining the ranks of the already impoverished."
I was never afraid of Communism.
The old Soviet Union and it's collapse showed conclusively what Communism reaps..
Oppression and bread lines.
[/QUOTE]

Still waiting for you to counter one of the articles points.
 
Top