First modification:
The long chapter of negotiations between the workers and managers of the American delivery company comes to an end. Although the decision did not satisfy all employees, with the new contract, full-time and part-time workers will receive $2.75 more per hour for the remainder of 2023, and $7.50 more, in total, by the time the end of the five-year contract comes.
Four weeks of voting ended in the approval of a new agreement that improved working conditions for 340,000 employees of one of the largest delivery companies in the United States. Voting on the new contract began on August 3 and concluded on Tuesday, August 22.
In a historic vote, more than 86% of UPS union members decided to say “yes” to a contract that eliminates the possibility of thousands of people being left without their packages.
“This is the template for how workers across the country should be paid and protected, and non-union companies like Amazon should pay attention,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a nod to the growing ambitions of the e-commerce giant’s syndicate.
The logistics company was already posing a scenario in which the employees rejected the agreement and went on strike, which in addition to causing chaos for the company’s management and its customers, would have meant that the main rivals had absorbed the demand for orders.
Unionized UPS workers voted to accept a five-year contract that raises pay up to 55 percent for certain employees over five years and includes workplace improvements in a labor agreement that experts call a historic success for the US union movement. https://t.co/pOi1mdqJ5k
—The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 22, 2023
In early August, the delivery company reported that its revenue fell for the second quarter of this year, as the volume of packages dropped sharply during negotiations with the union.
“Together we reached a win-win agreement on the issues that are important to Teamsters leadership, our employees, and to UPS and our customers,” said Carol Tomé, UPS CEO, when the tentative agreement was announced.
The bases of the new agreement
With a five-year contract, UPS assured that it has reserved 30,000 million dollars to comply with the agreement.
The company said part-time workers will earn no less than $21 an hour; that full-time employees will receive an average of $49 per hour which, per year, will average $170,000.
The logistics company also agreed to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a full holiday, end forced overtime on drivers’ days off, and stop using driver-facing cameras in vehicles.
He scrapped a two-tier wage system for drivers, and tentative deals were also reached on safety issues, including equipping more trucks with air conditioning.
According to global shipping and logistics firm Pitney Bowes, the 24 million packages UPS ships daily account for about a quarter of all package volume in the United States.
With these data, UPS added that every day it moves 3.8 billion dollars in goods, which represents approximately 6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the world’s leading economy.
With AP and local media
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