WASHINGTON — Traffic World reports that the United Parcel Service and the Teamsters union are entering their seventh consecutive week of negotiations with a renewed sense of urgency as they enter the final month of the current agreement. The two sides are just beginning to tackle the nitty-gritty of negotiating compromises after examining their initial economic proposals.
Ken Hall, the union’s parcel and small package division director who is heading the IBT negotiating team, says the two sides are “far apart” on economic issues. A UPS spokesman remained optimistic a deal could be reached before the July 31 expiration of the current five-year deal.
The union presented a majority of its economic proposals for the first time to UPS on June 13. Among the proposals addressed are increased wages, narrowed wage differentials between part-timers and more full-time jobs. After examining the Teamsters’ proposals, UPS presented union negotiators with its economic proposals on June 18. Hall said the company’s proposals “fail to address the needs” of the 230,000 UPS Teamsters.
“We remain far apart on the economic proposals. If the company wants to complete negotiations on time, they need to step up and present us with fair proposals,” Hall said. “We won’t – and our members won’t – accept anything less.”
Negotiations that resumed last week in Washington were expected to continue this week. Presentation of the two economic proposals is the beginning of the nitty-gritty job of negotiating the most serious issues – wages, benefits and pension contributions. This did not occur until late July during the previous negotiations in 1997 when the union under then-IBT president Ron Carey called a 15-day strike, the first national work stoppage in UPS history.
Both sides have agreed to not negotiate publicly. Yet rumors of a lump-sum “bonus” payment continue to circulate through the Teamsters’ rank and file.
One UPS worker said the company was considering a seven-year offer with a $20,000 bonus, but no other wage increases. There was also talk of a $10,000 bonus for full timers, $5,000 for part timers and a 40-cent hourly increase for seven years. The third one was a 25-cent-per-hour increase for seven years and $15,000 for all 230,000 UPS Teamsters. Then there was talk of a $1-an-hour raise with the retirement benefit sweetened so that UPS workers could retire after 25 years’ service with $4,000 retirement per month, or $48,000 annually. The company refused to discuss anything specific regarding wage increases. A full-time UPS Teamster currently earns $23.05 an hour, plus about another $14 an hour in fringe benefits.
Economic issues typically are the last items to be negotiated because the costs of “noneconomic” items must be determined in order to estimate how much money is available to resolve economic issues.
Meanwhile, the union is increasingly taking a higher profile and drawing bigger crowds at a series of rallies held to build support around the country.
The union said more than 4,000 UPS Teamsters from across the Northeast rallied for a strong contract in suburban New York on June 23. Teamsters President Jim Hoffa, Secretary-Treasurer Tom Keegel and Parcel and Small Package Division Director Hall joined local union leaders in a raucous rally calling on UPS to share its wealth with workers.
Teamsters from Baltimore, Boston, Hartford, Philadelphia, Atlantic City and Washington traveled by bus to join more than 2,000 Teamsters from Local 804 and Teamsters from New Jersey, the union said.
Hoffa told the crowd that the national negotiating committee will win a strong contract as negotiations enter the crucial final weeks.
“Brown is rolling in green, and we’re going to put it in our pockets,” Hoffa said.
UPS earned $2.4 billion net income last year on $30.6 billion revenue, on top of the record $2.8 billion it earned in 2000 on $29.8 billion revenue.
“By God, we want our piece of the pie,” Keegel told the rally. “We will get dignity and respect for what you do.”
Hall said that while the company has repeatedly stated its desire to complete negotiations prior to the July 31 contract deadline, the company’s offer raises serious questions about its sense of urgency. Supplemental committees that have not reached tentative agreement also met last week.
UPS is scheduled to release its second-quarter earnings on July 23, eight days before the current contract expires. The company said it would be offering no updates on financial or volume trends in advance of the earnings release. The company said only that it remains “optimistic that a fair and balanced agreement can be reached without a disruption in service to customers.”