NEW YORK — The Teamsters Union said on Monday its President Jim Hoffa will announce on Tuesday the details of a tentative contract agreement reached with package delivery company United Parcel Service, according to a wire service.
“It’s certainly an improvement. The union is very pleased with the progress we made in this contract,” said Bret Caldwell, the union’s spokesman. “It certainly sets our members up with a strong future with UPS.”
The union will make the announcement at 11 a.m. on Tuesday at a Washington, D.C., hotel, the union said in a statement.
A UPS spokesman confirmed they reached a tentative pact, but declined to comment on the details before the announcement.
The Teamsters had said its 230,000 members, including those who sort, load and deliver more than 13 million packages a day, will strike if there is no deal by the time its current contract expires on July 31.
Atlanta-based UPS reported weaker second-quarter earnings last week, saying it was losing business to rivals because it had not yet reached a deal with the union. Union officials sparred with the company on key issues such as pensions, health care benefits and wages.
UPS, whose drivers deliver packages in signature brown trucks, had been anxious to avoid a crippling strike like the one it endured in 1997, when Teamster members walked off the job in a contract dispute, shutting down the company for 15 days. That shook the nearly century-old company’s record for reliability and cost it $750 million in lost revenue.