Teamsters set to vote on ‘grand slam’ contract with UPS

Members of Teamsters locals at United Parcel Service are set to begin voting on a new, six-year contract with the private delivery service. Voting will take place over the next 30-45 days, the union said.

The new contract features a $5-an-hour raise over its life for full-timers, $6 for part-timers and $3.75 per hour for health care and pensions. The raises for full-timers are 75 cents an hour for each of the first two years, 80 cents for each of the next two, then 90 cents and a dollar an hour in the last two.

The average full-time Teamster UPS member makes $23.11 per hour and wages for part-timers range from $8.50 to $20, depending on experience, said union negotiations co-chair Ken Hall.

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The new pact also extends health benefits to retired part-timers and adds 20,000 new union jobs to the 210,000 UPS workers the Teamsters represent. Most of those jobs will come in the pact’s last four years. And, for the first time, Teamsters UPS workers will get long-term disability coverage, President James Hoffa said.

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‘This is the richest contract in the 100 years of our relationship,’ Hoffa told a sidewalk press conference outside a Washington hotel where bargaining took place in recent weeks. ‘In 1997, we hit a home run. “Today, we hit a grand slam.’

The Teamsters-UPS pact is the largest single private-sector contract up for negotiations this year. Hoffa also noted the agreement has other national implications.

‘This is a day of celebration for all working people who need a ray of hope in the face of the nation’s economic crisis,’ Hoffa explained. ‘We achieved a much better contract than in 1997, and without a strike.

‘We have shown the nation that job and benefit cuts are not inevitable,’ Hoffa said. ‘When workers are mobilized and belong to a union that is united, they can win good wages and benefits.’

Hoffa also credited UPS, calling it ‘a good company’ that dealt honestly with workers, recognized the cooperative relationship it had with the Teamsters and – unlike others in the news – didn’t lie about its finances.

The new contract replaces a five-year pact that expires July 31 and that was signed after a 15-day strike in 1997. This time, there may be no strike, as the 60-person bargaining committee is unanimously recommending ratification.

This article was written by Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.

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