Teamster leaders realize that it’s a good time to strike—Joe Biden and his administration are strongly pro-union, the extremely tight labor market gives unions extra leverage, many workers are fuming about how they were treated during the pandemic, and public approval of unions is at its highest level in six decades. Moreover, UPS’s soaring profits make the company a fat target; in his many speeches that seek to prepare UPS workers to strike, O’Brien loves to bash the company rhetorically. Its revenues have jumped 33 percent since 2019, while its net income has more than doubled, to $11.6 billion from $4.5 billion.
It would be very wrong, however, to think that a strike would be just about ambition and making a statement. UPS workers have long had some serious complaints, among them a lack of air conditioning in their trucks—the temperature in the back of one truck was measured at 121 degrees. A UPS driver in Pasadena, Esteban Chavez Jr., collapsed and died last July when temperatures climbed into the upper 90s.
Many UPS employees are also angry about a two-tier wage system that pays some drivers 13 percent less than others. While running for Teamsters president in 2021, O’Brien repeatedly attacked the union’s then-president, James P. Hoffa, for having agreed to such a second tier in the previous round of UPS negotiations. O’Brien vowed to go to the mat to abolish that second tier. Another big issue is UPS’s widespread use of part-time workers—many of them complain they don’t earn nearly enough to make ends meet. Their starting pay is $16.20 an hour, although UPS says they average $20 an hour. The Teamsters want part-timers’ minimum pay increased to at least $20 an hour. As for full-time drivers, UPS boasts that they earn $93,000 a year, with another $50,000 in health and other benefits, far more than FedEx’s nonunion drivers earn.