Teamsters’ Historic Contract
Jobs With Justice Celebrates UPS Teamsters’ Groundbreaking Tentative Agreement
The five-year deal, unanimously endorsed by the UPS Teamsters National Negotiating Committee, demonstrates the strength of the national labor movement.
Washington, D.C. — Today, UPS Teamsters members secured the most groundbreaking tentative agreement for workers in the history of UPS. The agreement protects over 340,000 UPS Teamsters members across the country who lacked the safety, dignity, and respect they deserve under their previous agreement.
The tentative agreement will immediately end the two-tier system of pay and benefits for part-time employees and the practice of forced overtime on days off. Crucially, the tentative agreement protects the right to life-saving air conditioning in vehicles, creates thousands more full-time jobs and dozens of necessary workplace protections, and increases wages tremendously, including an immediate increase to a $21 hourly wage for part-time drivers. For the first time in company history, UPS Teamsters members will be afforded Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a fully paid holiday.
In response to this historic moment for UPS Teamsters members and workers everywhere, Erica Smiley, the Executive Director of Jobs With Justice, released the following statement celebrating this victory:
“Today, the labor movement made history through the hard work of the UPS Teamsters members whose fight for a fair contract resulted in the most groundbreaking tentative agreement reached in UPS company history. Avoiding a strike is a testament to the power of workers organizing together and of a community standing strong in unwavering solidarity behind those workers — a movement driven by the reality that all working people deserve fairness, dignity, respect, and compensation.
“We are exceptionally proud to stand behind UPS Teamsters members in solidarity and participate in their necessary fight. Just last weekend, Jobs With Justice activists around the country supported UPS Teamsters members who collected and delivered to UPS branch managers over 80,000 petitions of support signed by members of the community.
“This is far from the end of the road, but rather a resounding celebration of the fact that we as a worker-led movement will no longer allow the profiteering of multi-million dollar corporations to go unchecked at the expense of their employees. As demonstrated through the immeasurable sacrifices delivery workers made throughout the pandemic, the logistics industry is a backbone of our country. This contract demonstrates that workers won’t let low-road employers like Amazon set the standards. Instead, workers will set their own standards, backed by thousands of hardworking people across the country who recognize that now is the time for change.
“When we fight together, we win together. Today, the fight continues with more energy than ever before as we celebrate the extraordinary ground broken by the UPS Teamsters’ tentative agreement.”
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