Reject the Treasonous UPS Agreement!

Editor’s Note: Due to the difficulty of obtaining “official” demands of the bargaining team, the worker’s demands have been updated after further conversation with members of the union. A rank-and-file effort to vote down the contract is ongoing and an be contacted at upsrankandfilecommittee@gmail.com

On July 25, 2023, the Teamsters union labor bureaucrats, those “negotiators” who make their wages by ensuring labor-peace between the workers and the bosses, announced that they had reached a “historic” tentative agreement with UPS management on the eve of an empire-wide strike.

What were the demands of the workers?

Although contract negotiations are confidential, we know from the Teamsters press releases and statements that their outstanding demands included the following when negotiations broke down:

1. An increase in minimum pay for all positions. At least $25.20 an hour would be required to keep up with inflation.
2. End the two-tier wage system for temporary workers.
3. End days off without forced overtime.
4. A large increase in the number of full-time jobs offered.
5. Protection from the abuse and harassment of managers.
6. A safe work environment.

What is contained in this tentative agreement?

The draft tentative agreement does not address any one of these demands to any real degree. The tentative agreement contains the following provisions:

1. UPS wins the right to use drones and fire employees if it gives six months notice of the change.
2. Removal of delivery vehicle’s internal cameras and audio.
3. Certain drivers will be reclassified as full-time workers.
4. Certain trucks will have air conditioning installed.
5. Extra fans and water fountains will be installed in warehouses (notably, no air conditioning units).
6. Part-time employees are being offered 22,500 full-time jobs through the contract, up from 22,000, with a guarantee to create 7500 new full-time jobs in the last three years of the agreement.
7. Part-time employee wages are increased to a $21/hr floor; a new tier of part-time employees is created for those hired after August of 2023 who will receive a starting salary of $23/hr, creating a new tiered system designed to sew division among the part-time employees.
8. Employees receive Martin Luther King Day as a holiday.
9. Employees may request not to be placed into forced overtime but must make that request a full month in advance.
10. Full-time employees will make a floor of $23 an hour.

And why don’t we know the full demands that were issued by the Teamsters bargaining team? Because, like many unions, they agreed to a non-disclosure agreement as part of the bargaining process. This has become a nearly universal practice, and is one of the many ways that unions betray their membership. Although the union leadership tells the most atrocious lies about how this agreement benefits the membership, it’s merely a screen to allow the union to evade responsibility to its members and make it “easier” to reach an agreement with management — easier, because the bargaining team can plead that they were outmaneuvered, that this was “as good as they could get” without ever having to show the proof. Here it’s obvious that UPS didn’t outmaneuver the Teamsters bargaining team! UPS has no power here; the union holds all the cards. Somehow, the bargaining team still couldn’t get the contract the membership wanted. They couldn’t even get near it. That’s the way the union bureaucrats prefer things.

Thanks to a century of bourgeois class struggle that has degraded them, partially infiltrated them, captured them, and fostered an encrustation of labor aristocrats loyal not to the membership but to their own paycheck and by extension to the bourgeois-capitalist system, today’s unions have little in common with the heroic labor combinations of old. For these unions like the Teamsters to actually represent the interests of their membership, a thorough ongoing campaign must be waged within them to shake off the calcification of petit-bourgeois legalism, and escape from the leadership of labor bureaucrats. The first step in this kind of revitalization for the Teamsters would be to reject this utterly abysmal contract.

Of the five demands made by the membership, not one has been fulfilled in full. Not one has been fulfilled to the degree that we might consider a good faith effort. Those demands that were addressed at all were given the barest of attention, the most filthy of fig leaves so UPS might sneer that they’ve addressed the issue. Paper protections that require cutting through reams of red tape are not protections at all. Wages have been increased overall by about $6 across the board, far short of the minimum $25 an hour demand. Part-time employees haven’t been made full-time employees.

Yes, the labor aristocrats in charge of the Teamsters negotiating team secured a contract that seems slightly more favorable to the bargaining unit. However, inflation of consumer goods, caused by the state’s manipulation of the currency to keep huge corporations like UPS from collapsing during the COVID-19 crash, means that money today is worth 20% less than it was in 2018, when the last contract was signed. Put this in perspective: to keep pace with inflation, the old $21 an hour starting wage would have had to increase to $25.20 an hour.

So, under this new contract, UPS would actually reduce the wages of the Teamsters, relative to their wage-power in 2018. Even in the most generous terms, we can’t consider this a “win.” At most, this is a cleverly disguised betrayal.

Union members, do not listen to the union bureaucrats when they tell you they secured a win for you. They have, instead, dressed up a loss. UPS plans to phase out as much of its human workforce as possible, as quickly as possible, in order to reap the temporary reward of increased automation before its competitors can take the field with their drones. This contract reduces wages, makes meaningless alterations to the process for taking off overtime, and does nothing to address the issues you have told the union are important.

The union bureaucrats will tell you that you can’t afford a strike. Don’t believe them. The entire political system is trembling at the thought of a Teamsters strike. The capitalists at Forbes estimated that a strike would cost the entire U.S. imperial economy $7 billion if it lasted for a mere ten days. Media outlets — mouthpieces of capital like CNN, Forbes, and even Vox — have been tearing their hair and rending their garb at the thought of a Teamsters strike. The power you have now, at this critical juncture in history, is unfathomable, but the union bureaucrats want you to accept demotions, reductions in pay, and replacement by machines. Do not be diverted from the goal.

The workers of UPS are a mighty giant, but you have allowed petty bureaucrats to tie your arms with string. It would take only a flex of your organized muscle to snap that string, and bring those mighty battering arms to bear.

Do not be fooled. Do not be disarmed by turncoats and weasels in the employ of the bosses.

Vote NO on the tentative agreement.