UPS Teamsters culminated a year-long contract campaign by voting in record turnout to approve their new contract by 86.3 percent. Click here to view a breakdown of the vote count for the national agreement and all supplements and riders.
The year-long Teamster mobilization at UPS included a contract unity pledge, parking lot rallies, a strike authorization vote of 97 percent, and practice picketing.
“We showed UPS that we were ready to strike if we had to. That's how we ended a generation of givebacks under Hoffa and put our union back on the offense against UPS,” said TDU Co-chair and Local 804 shop steward Eugene Braswell.
The contract won record pay increases, ended two-tier 22.4, eliminated forced sixth punches, won thousands of full-time jobs, established MLK Day as a paid holiday, boosted substandard pensions for over 60,000 members, stopped driver-facing cameras, tightened restrictions on subcontracting, increased part-time wages, and more.
Now, UPSers are looking to the future—from contract enforcement to organizing Amazon.
“During the contract campaign, so many members in my building got active and excited about the union for the first time,” said Tyler Condo, a shop steward in Denver Local 455. “We’re going to build on this momentum to enforce the contract.”
“We all need to stick together to hold management accountable going forward, however you voted,” said TDU Steering Committee member and Local 25 shop steward Greg Kerwood.
The best contract in the world isn’t worth the paper it’s written on if you don’t enforce it.”
Amazon workers are also looking to build on the momentum from the UPS contract campaign. Some have launched a campaign to demand that Amazon increase wages to match UPS.
Vote Count by the Numbers
The contract vote was conducted by an independent third party, BallotPoint, and observed by TDU members Basil Darling and Sean McGovern.
There were 260,335 eligible voters of which 151,231 cast a ballot -- an unprecedented 58.1 percent voter turnout. (UPS Teamsters in Local 705 and Local 710 vote on their own separate contracts and are not eligible to vote on the national agreement. New employees in their probationary period Non-members in Right-to-Work states are also not eligible to vote.)
All supplements and riders were approved except for one. The Latin American Inc (Local 769) Supplement covering 174 workers in Florida was rejected. The new national contract will not go into effect until that small supplement is settled.
Wage increases will be paid retroactively to August 1 once the remaining supplement is finalized, and with it, the National Master Agreement.
Chicago UPS Contracts
UPS Teamsters in Local 710 and Local 705 work under separate, independent agreements with UPS.
The Chicago Local 710 contract covers 10,000 Teamsters in Illinois, much of Indiana, and the hub in Davenport Iowa. The Local 710 UPS Contract was ratified by membership vote on August 25.
The contract covering 13,000 UPS Teamsters in Chicago Local 705 was ratified by membership vote on September 9.