BrownCafe

The company, which withdrew from the $17.8 billion pension fund as part of a collective bargaining agreement with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters at the end of 2007, might also be required to pay between $3.2 billion and $3.8 billion in benefit payments if the benefit reduction is approved by the Treasury Department.

A “backstop agreement” in that CBA stated that in the event “at some point in the future if Central States ever lawfully cut benefits to that group, UPS would provide a supplemental retiree benefit,” UPS spokesman Steve Gaut said. “As a result of that backstop agreement now, we are potentially liable for a future payment to those (UPS) employees that are retirees that are eligible, associated with what that benefit cut turns out to be,” Mr. Gaut said.

United Parcel Service pilots announced Tuesday afternoon that roughly 80 members of its union working in Cologne, Germany will honor the picket lines of workers at the Cologne Bonn airport – an action that could affect nearly 60 flights.

The strike by ver.di, a large German workers union that represents the ground staff at the European airport, is scheduled to last 24 hours starting at midnight Germany time Tuesday. The Independent Pilots Association, the union that represents UPS pilots worldwide, agreed to withhold services as pilots during workers’ 24-hour strike, Robert Travis, a pilot and union president, said in a statement Tuesday.

A UPS driver came to the rescue of a San Diego teenager who was pinned underneath a truck that had collapsed on his head, his family said.

Cameron King, 17, was an inch away from being crushed by a truck after a jack slid from underneath it.  The 17-year-old boy was working on the truck when the jack moved and the truck dropped on his head and shoulder.

UPS calls pilots, aircraft mechanics recent tactics “posturing.”

United Parcel Service and its pilots union are set to return to the bargaining table this week after five years of negotiations, the last three of which have been under the oversight of a federal mediator.

Why, after five years of closed-door talks, has the pilots union gone public with news of its strike authorization vote and the establishment of a strike operations center in Louisville? UPS officials called the latest announcement of the strike center on Fern Valley Road a publicity stunt clearly intended to ramp up pressure on the company.