Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Potential Massive UPS Strike Ahead: 90% of Union Members Vote to Strike



Coercive union power may not be dead in America just yet.

UPS could soon face the largest labor stoppage the U.S. has seen in decades, notes Inc.

 More than 90 percent of the shipping company's union members voted in favor of going on strike if a deal is not reached before the current labor contract expires on August 1, according to CNN.

At issue is how workers will be compensated if UPS begins to offer delivery seven days a week. The shipper currently does not deliver on Sundays, and began offering delivery service on Saturdays only a year ago to keep up with the demands of e-commerce shoppers. UPS is proposing a two-tier wage structure that would switch part-time workers making $15/hour to full-time status, while existing employees would continue to earn $36 an hour, or roughly $75,000 a year. An opposition group within the UPS teamsters argued that there is no need for a two-tiered pay system.

UPS transports amount to about 6 percent of America's GDP. Of the more than 430,000 total UPS employees, about 260,000 are union members.

-RW  

3 comments:

  1. Not sure if the UPS employee union is being coercive. Nothing wrong with workers organizing and acting peacefully and without using government force. There is no problem until the freedom of UPS to negotiate with, higher, fire and otherwise associate with whom they please is interfered with.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree with you in theory, but the fact is that unions get a significant degree of assistance from the state through labor regulations. Unions get the exclusive right to bargain (so an employer cannot negotiate with other groups of employees, even if both the employer and employee(s) want to do this), the employer is required to "bargain in good faith," the employer is required to give the union space on his property for union activities, and if the union decides to act violently towards the employer's property (or employees who don't want to strike), the employer's ability to respond like any normal private property owner is limited.

      Delete
    2. Yep. The NLRA requires the initiation of force; not good. Kind of like crony capitalism for unions.

      The State of Georgia where UPS is headquartered has “right to work” laws. I assume that UPS is dealing with their employees on a national level so those Georgia laws are of little significance. Anyway, it is an easy assumption that State right to work laws are more than, “employers and employees are free to associate with who they choose.”

      Delete