The new contract, reached Oct 1 -- almost a year in advance of expiration of IBT\'s old pact with UPS -- includes "substantial" raises, preservation of health benefits, and creation of a new jointly administered Teamsters-UPS pension fund for UPS workers, along with a $6.1 billion company contribution to it.

Voting will take place by mail, with results expected in early December, the union said.

For legal reasons having to do with new federal pension laws, UPS will withdraw from participation in the Teamsters\' Central States pension fund, the union said. If ratified, most provisions in the master UPS pact will take effect starting next Aug. 1, when the old pact expires.

A key section in the new national pact is a reported card-check clause. If it is in the pact, it will apply not just to organizing present UPS facilities, but also to organizing UPS Freight, the former Overnite. Union President James Hoffa said IBT has been trying to organize Overnite for almost 50 years. Overnite has 15,000 workers.

Separately, the union reached its first-ever contract at an Overnite terminal, covering 125 workers in Indianapolis. Teamster regional reps met Oct. 11 in San Diego to review the overall UPS pact before it was sent to all the members. The Teamsters-UPS pact is one of the largest private sector contracts in the U.S.

"We made it very clear to the company that we needed to reach a tentative agreement by Oct. 1 so that our members could ratify a contract before new pension rules that could adversely affect our members take effect on Jan. 1, 2008," Hoffa explained. "We met that deadline and negotiated an agreement that will greatly benefit our members at UPS as well as Teamster members in other industries covered by pension and health and welfare funds that will receive the contribution increases."

In Indianapolis, the new pact will be "a national model to organize thousands of other company employees nationwide," Hoffa said. In at least one other UPS Freight terminal, in upstate New York, Teamster leaders are sitting on a stack of signed union election authorization cards, ready to present them for card-check recognition, assuming that section of the national UPS pact exists and kicks in.

The Indianapolis contract will also provide a grievance procedure to fight unfair management decisions, something workers fought hard for, the union said. The pact "will finally give workers a strong say on the job and the protections our other freight members have. A half-century battle is coming to an end, and we gained strong momentum to organize throughout the freight industry. FedEx Freight is next," Hoffa said.

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