The Transport Workers Union (TWU) and the Independent Pilots Association (IPA) have announced their intention to support the Teamsters Union in its potential strike against UPS— and, if materialized, could become the largest single employer strike in US history.
According to TWU President John Samuelsen, the potential strike is seen as an opportunity to revitalize the American trade movement, while IPA spokesman Brian Gaudet confirmed the IPA’s pilots would honor Teamster picket lines, as they did during the 1997 UPS strike. The Teamsters Union represents over 325,000 of UPS’s nearly 450,000 employees.
The strike could affect 340,000 package car drivers, truck drivers, and warehouse workers, ultimately grounding UPS Airlines operations as there would be insufficient labour to manage the aircraft, process, and deliver packages. UPS, for its part, is preparing for this possibility by training nonunion employees to handle packages. Even so, it’s estimated that management would only be able to move around 22% of the company’s daily 18.6 million parcel deliveries via contingency plans.
UPS and the Teamsters union are deadlocked over wages and other economic matters, with analysts suggesting that UPS is in a precarious position, potentially driving away more customers if it raises rates to offset the cost of a generous Teamsters deal. Any increase in labor costs will likely lead to a loss of business to FedEx, the US Postal Service, regional parcel carriers, and Amazon’s own delivery network.
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