UPS (Photo: MGN Online)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Jessica Ray and her husband live in New York City, work full-time and don’t have a car. They now depend on the delivery of groceries and almost everything else for their homes. This means they can spend more time with their young son at the weekend instead of having to queue for toilet paper or lug heavy bags of dog food around the house.

“I don’t even know where to buy dog ​​food,” Jessica Ray said of the specialty food she’s buying for the family’s aging dog.

There are millions of families like the Rays who have traded store visits for doorstep delivery in recent years, meaning the contentious labor negotiations now at UPS could be far more disruptive than they were last time in 1997, when a gruff upstart Amazon called. com became a public company.

UPS is delivering millions more packages every day than it was five years ago, and its 350,000 unionized workers, represented by the Teamsters, still fret over a deal they say was forced upon them in 2018.

In an environment of active labor movements and lingering resentment among UPS workers, the Teamsters are expected to have involvement and the potential to intimidate a major logistics powerhouse in the US

The 24 million packages that UPS ships on an average day equates to about a quarter of all U.S. package volume, or as UPS puts it, about 6% of the country’s gross domestic product, according to global shipping and logistics company Pitney Bowes.

Higher prices and long wait times are all but certain if there is a stalemate.

“Something has to give,” said Thomas Goldsby, logistics director in the department of supply chain management at the University of Tennessee. “The python can’t swallow the alligator, and we’re all going to feel that.”

In other words, get ready for Supply Chain Breakdown: The Sequel.

In the second half of 2021, the term “global supply chain” began to enter loose conversations as the world emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic. Businesses struggled to get what they needed, leading to higher prices and wait times. Automakers simply held vehicles off the assembly line because they didn’t have all the parts.

Some of these problems persist, and a UPS strike threatens to worsen the suffering.

Those who rely on doorstep delivery for essentials may need to reconsider their weekly schedules.

“We’ve finally gotten to a point where we’re finally feeling pretty good about it,” Ray said. “We can take a Saturday afternoon and do a fun family activity without feeling like we have to do all of the daily household chores.”

UPS employees believe they have played a role in changing the way Americans shop since the last contract was ratified in 2018, while helping make UPS a much more valuable company.

UPS’s annual profit over the past two years is nearly three times what it was before the pandemic. The Atlanta-based company returned approximately $8.6 billion to shareholders in 2022 in the form of dividends and share repurchases, and projects an additional $8.4 billion to shareholders this year.

The Teamsters say UPS frontline workers deserve a portion of that profit.

“Our members have been working really hard against the pandemic,” said Teamsters spokeswoman Kara Deniz. “They must see their fair share.”

Union members rejected the contract offered to them in 2018, but it was pushed through by union leadership on a technicality. So fierce was the dispute over the current contract that workers last year rejected a candidate favored by longtime union leader James Hoffa to lead the Teamsters, opting instead for the more combative Sean O’Brien.

O’Brien undertook a nationwide tour of local Teamsters stores to prepare frontline workers for negotiations.

In addition to tackling part-time wages and what workers describe as excessive overtime, the union also wants to scrap a contract provision that created two separate hierarchies of workers with different pay levels, hours and benefits. Driver safety, especially the lack of air conditioning in vans, also plays a role.

A win at UPS could have an impact on organized labor outside the company.

Teamsters are trying to organize Amazon workers, and dozens of the company’s delivery drivers and dispatchers in California joined the union last month. There are also prominent union campaigns at Apple, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s, Apple and even strippers at a Los Angeles dance club.

“This has tremendous implications for the entire labor movement in the United States,” said John Logan, director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University, referring to labor talks at UPS. “Many young union activists and some sections of the union establishment are showing greater assertiveness and militancy. Sean O’Brien is representative of that.”

When dozens of UPS locals met with Teamsters leadership earlier this year, O’Brien delivered a message of urgency.

“We go into these negotiations with a clear message to UPS that we will not go beyond August 1,” O’Brien told the gathering.

It would be the first walkout since a strike by 185,000 workers that paralyzed the company a quarter century ago.

UPS CEO Carol Tomé has remained publicly optimistic, recently telling investors that the company and the Teamsters are not far apart on important issues.

“While we anticipate there will be a lot of excitement during the negotiations, I remain confident that a win-win-win deal is very achievable and that UPS and the Teamsters will reach an agreement by the end of July,” he said tome

If Tomé is wrong, Americans may need to take more time to shop like they used to.

“It has the potential to have a significant impact,” Ray said. “My husband and I put a lot of effort into figuring out how to free ourselves from the burden of just making sure we always have toilet paper.”

The post UPS strike looms in a world grown reliant on every little thing delivered all over the place on a regular basis appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

UPS is delivering millions more packages every day than it was five years ago, and its 350,000 unionized workers, represented by the Teamsters, still fret over a deal they say was forced upon them in 2018.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Jessica Ray and her husband live in New York City, work full-time and don’t have a car. They now depend on the delivery of groceries and almost everything else for their homes. This means they can spend more time with their young son at the weekend instead of having to queue for toilet paper or lug heavy bags of dog food around the house.

“I don’t even know where to buy dog ​​food,” Jessica Ray said of the specialty food she’s buying for the family’s aging dog.

There are millions of families like the Rays who have traded store visits for doorstep delivery in recent years, meaning the contentious labor negotiations now at UPS could be far more disruptive than they were last time in 1997, when a gruff upstart Amazon called. com became a public company.

UPS is delivering millions more packages every day than it was five years ago, and its 350,000 unionized workers, represented by the Teamsters, still fret over a deal they say was forced upon them in 2018.

In an environment of active labor movements and lingering resentment among UPS workers, the Teamsters are expected to have involvement and the potential to intimidate a major logistics powerhouse in the US

The 24 million packages that UPS ships on an average day equates to about a quarter of all U.S. package volume, or as UPS puts it, about 6% of the country’s gross domestic product, according to global shipping and logistics company Pitney Bowes.

Higher prices and long wait times are all but certain if there is a stalemate.

“Something has to give,” said Thomas Goldsby, logistics director in the department of supply chain management at the University of Tennessee. “The python can’t swallow the alligator, and we’re all going to feel that.”

In other words, get ready for Supply Chain Breakdown: The Sequel.

In the second half of 2021, the term “global supply chain” began to enter loose conversations as the world emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic. Businesses struggled to get what they needed, leading to higher prices and wait times. Automakers simply held vehicles off the assembly line because they didn’t have all the parts.

Some of these problems persist, and a UPS strike threatens to worsen the suffering.

Those who rely on doorstep delivery for essentials may need to reconsider their weekly schedules.

“We’ve finally gotten to a point where we’re finally feeling pretty good about it,” Ray said. “We can take a Saturday afternoon and do a fun family activity without feeling like we have to do all of the daily household chores.”

UPS employees believe they have played a role in changing the way Americans shop since the last contract was ratified in 2018, while helping make UPS a much more valuable company.

UPS’s annual profit over the past two years is nearly three times what it was before the pandemic. The Atlanta-based company returned approximately $8.6 billion to shareholders in 2022 in the form of dividends and share repurchases, and projects an additional $8.4 billion to shareholders this year.

The Teamsters say UPS frontline workers deserve a portion of that profit.

“Our members have been working really hard against the pandemic,” said Teamsters spokeswoman Kara Deniz. “They must see their fair share.”

Union members rejected the contract offered to them in 2018, but it was pushed through by union leadership on a technicality. So fierce was the dispute over the current contract that workers last year rejected a candidate favored by longtime union leader James Hoffa to lead the Teamsters, opting instead for the more combative Sean O’Brien.

O’Brien undertook a nationwide tour of local Teamsters stores to prepare frontline workers for negotiations.

In addition to tackling part-time wages and what workers describe as excessive overtime, the union also wants to scrap a contract provision that created two separate hierarchies of workers with different pay levels, hours and benefits. Driver safety, especially the lack of air conditioning in vans, also plays a role.

A win at UPS could have an impact on organized labor outside the company.

Teamsters are trying to organize Amazon workers, and dozens of the company’s delivery drivers and dispatchers in California joined the union last month. There are also prominent union campaigns at Apple, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s, Apple and even strippers at a Los Angeles dance club.

“This has tremendous implications for the entire labor movement in the United States,” said John Logan, director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University, referring to labor talks at UPS. “Many young union activists and some sections of the union establishment are showing greater assertiveness and militancy. Sean O’Brien is representative of that.”

When dozens of UPS locals met with Teamsters leadership earlier this year, O’Brien delivered a message of urgency.

“We go into these negotiations with a clear message to UPS that we will not go beyond August 1,” O’Brien told the gathering.

It would be the first walkout since a strike by 185,000 workers that paralyzed the company a quarter century ago.

UPS CEO Carol Tomé has remained publicly optimistic, recently telling investors that the company and the Teamsters are not far apart on important issues.

“While we anticipate there will be a lot of excitement during the negotiations, I remain confident that a win-win-win deal is very achievable and that UPS and the Teamsters will reach an agreement by the end of July,” he said tome

If Tomé is wrong, Americans may need to take more time to shop like they used to.

“It has the potential to have a significant impact,” Ray said. “My husband and I put a lot of effort into figuring out how to free ourselves from the burden of just making sure we always have toilet paper.”

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The post UPS strike looms in a world grown reliant on every thing delivered in every single place on a regular basis appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

WASHINGTON – Jessica Ray and her husband live in New York City, work full-time and don’t have a car. They now depend on the delivery of groceries and almost everything else for their homes. This means they can spend more time with their young son at the weekend instead of having to queue for toilet paper or lug heavy bags of dog food around the house.

“I don’t even know where to buy dog ​​food,” Jessica Ray said of the specialty food she’s buying for the family’s aging dog.

There are millions of families like the Rays who have traded store visits for door-to-door delivery in recent years, meaning the contentious labor negotiations now at UPS could be far more disruptive than they were last time in 1997, when a gruff upstart Amazon called. com became a public company.

UPS is delivering millions more packages every day than it was five years ago, and its 350,000 unionized workers, represented by the Teamsters, still fret over a deal they believe was forced upon them in 1998.

In an environment of active labor movements and lingering resentment among UPS workers, the Teamsters are expected to have involvement and the potential to intimidate a major logistics powerhouse in the US

The 24 million packages that UPS ships on an average day equates to about a quarter of all U.S. package volume, or as UPS puts it, about 6% of the country’s gross domestic product, according to global shipping and logistics company Pitney Bowes.

Higher prices and long wait times are all but certain if there is a stalemate.

“Something has to give,” said Thomas Goldsby, logistics director in the department of supply chain management at the University of Tennessee. “The python can’t swallow the alligator, and we’re all going to feel that.”

In other words, get ready for Supply Chain Breakdown: The Sequel.

In the second half of 2021, the term “global supply chain” began to enter loose conversations as the world emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic. Businesses struggled to get what they needed, leading to higher prices and wait times. Automakers simply held vehicles off the assembly line because they didn’t have all the parts.

Some of these problems persist, and a UPS strike threatens to worsen the suffering.

Those who rely on doorstep delivery for essentials may need to reconsider their weekly schedules.

“We’ve finally gotten to a point where we’re finally feeling pretty good about it,” Ray said. “We can take a Saturday afternoon and do a fun family activity without feeling like we have to do all of the daily household chores.”

UPS employees believe they have played a role in changing the way Americans shop since the last contract was ratified in 2018, while helping make UPS a much more valuable company.

UPS’s annual profit over the past two years is nearly three times what it was before the pandemic. The Atlanta-based company returned approximately $8.6 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases in 2022, and projects an additional $8.4 billion to shareholders this year.

The Teamsters say UPS frontline workers deserve a portion of that profit.

“Our members have been working really hard against the pandemic,” said Teamsters spokeswoman Kara Denize. “They must see their fair share.”

Union members rejected the offer of a 2018 contract, but the contract was enforced by the union leadership on a technicality. So fierce was the dispute over the current contract that workers last year rejected a candidate favored by longtime union leader James Hoffa to lead the Teamsters, opting instead for the more combative Sean O’Brien.

O’Brien undertook a nationwide tour of local Teamsters stores to prepare frontline workers for negotiations.

In addition to tackling part-time wages and what workers describe as excessive overtime, the union also wants to scrap a contract provision that created two separate hierarchies of workers with different pay levels, hours and benefits. Driver safety, especially the lack of air conditioning in vans, also plays a role.

A win at UPS could have an impact on organized labor outside the company.

Teamsters are trying to organize Amazon workers, and dozens of the company’s delivery drivers and dispatchers in California joined the union last month. There are also prominent union campaigns at Apple, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s, Apple and even strippers at a Los Angeles dance club.

“This has tremendous implications for the entire labor movement in the United States,” said John Logan, director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University, referring to labor talks at UPS. “Many young union activists and some sections of the union establishment are showing greater assertiveness and militancy. Sean O’Brien is representative of that.”

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When dozens of UPS locals met with Teamsters leadership earlier this year, O’Brien delivered a message of urgency.

“We go into these negotiations with a clear message to UPS that we will not go beyond August 1,” O’Brien told the gathering.

It would be the first walkout since a strike by 185,000 workers that paralyzed the company a quarter century ago.

UPS CEO Carol Tomé has remained publicly optimistic, recently telling investors that the company and the Teamsters are not far apart on important issues.

“While we anticipate there will be a lot of excitement during the negotiations, I remain confident that a win-win-win deal is very achievable and that UPS and the Teamsters will reach an agreement by the end of July,” he said tome

If Tomé is wrong, Americans may need to take more time to shop like they used to.

“It has the potential to have a significant impact,” Ray said. “My husband and I put a lot of effort into figuring out how to free ourselves from the burden of just making sure we always have toilet paper.”

The post UPS strike looms in a world grown reliant on deliveries appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.