UPS Workers Authorize Teamsters Union to Call Strike
United Parcel Service workers have authorized their union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, to call a strike as soon as Aug. 1, after the current contract expires, the Teamsters announced Friday.
The Teamsters represent more than 325,000 UPS employees in the United States, where the company has nearly 450,000 employees overall. The union said 97 percent had voted in favor of strike authorization.
Many unions hold such votes to create leverage at the bargaining table, but a much smaller percentage end up following through. “The results do not mean a strike is imminent and do not impact our current business operations in any way,” UPS said in a statement, adding that it was “confident that we will reach an agreement.”
A UPS strike could have significant economic fallout. The company handles about one-quarter of the tens of millions of parcels shipped each day in the United States, according to the Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index. And while UPS’s competition has grown in recent years, rivals would be hard-pressed to replace that lost capacity quickly, leaving some customers in the lurch and others facing higher costs.
Source: The New York Times
