What Happens If UPS Goes on Strike

Americans’ shopping habits have made us reliant on delivery workers—and helped UPS’s business boom. Now UPS workers are threatening to strike to get a piece of that success.

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Five of the most beautiful words to see in my inbox are Your package is coming today, courtesy of UPS. The missive means that something I ordered online—recently: three tie-dyed shirts in different colors, 100 personalized matchbooks for a party—is on its way, and that a classic brown truck will be rolling down my street soon. Like many Americans, I depend on the United Parcel Service and its reliable service, and I welcome digital updates about the status of my stuff.

Lately, I have been thinking more about the human dimension of package delivery, too, and about the hundreds of thousands of workers who make up UPS. Amazon has conditioned many of us to expect speedy, free delivery, and as a result, all package companies are facing intense competitive pressures. As the only union-represented major players among private companies in the delivery game, UPS workers are fighting to make strides for their cohort.

Come August, hundreds of thousands of UPS workers could walk off the job: 97 percent of UPS’s Teamsters have voted to authorize a strike if the union can’t come to an agreement with management by the time their current contract expires, on July 31. The two sides can still align on a contract in the next few weeks. But the possibility of a strike is real—and it would have major repercussions for the workers, the company, and the economy writ large. “UPS is one of the largest players in the delivery business. The nature of a strike would be to shut it down entirely,” Alex Colvin, the dean of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell, told me.

Even as Amazon, FedEx, and DHL have competed with UPS for curb space and market share in recent years, UPS’s business has boomed. Americans’ online-shopping habits have helped the company’s revenue skyrocket: In 2022, according to company earnings, UPS took in more than $100 billion for the first time. The company’s more than 300,000 union workers, represented by the Teamsters through the largest private-sector union agreement in the country, want a slice of that success. And they are ready to walk out to try to get it. “UPS is so clutch for so many other businesses,” Suresh Naidu, an economics professor at Columbia, told me, so any disruptions could have “a multiplier effect.”

The Teamsters have said that 95 percent of the issues in their negotiations are “out of the way.” A major sticking point now regards the fate of part-time workers, who represent much of the unit. The union is working to get better pay for them. Unlike full-time drivers, who can make about $40 an hour, the part-timers—many of whom are package handlers—make an average of $20 an hour, a company spokesperson told me. Asked about the unresolved issues at the negotiating table, the spokesperson for UPS said, “We’re focused on economic issues, especially pay for part-time workers.” He also noted that part-time workers are eligible to receive a pension and health insurance with no premium.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, negotiations broke down. Now each side is blaming the other. A spokesperson for the Teamsters told me that two days ago, there were no more bargaining sessions scheduled.

UPS has had a productive relationship with the Teamsters for nearly 100 years, and as the company grew, so did its unionized workforce. The company’s workers have gone on strike before, most recently in 1997, in what was then the largest American labor action in decades. At the time, 185,000 workers picketed for 15 days and ultimately declared victory. A lot has changed since then—including what customers expect. Colvin said that while the last UPS strike was certainly disruptive, “I would expect [a strike] to have a bigger impact today across the country.”

This strong union history makes UPS both an outlier in the current delivery landscape and a leader when it comes to pay and benefits. Seventy percent of UPS’s workers in the U.S. are represented by unions (that includes the Teamsters, as well as other unions for employees such as machinists and pilots). Amazon, which started delivering its own packages after shipping delays in the 2013 holiday season, is largely not unionized—though its structure may make it vulnerable to labor action at key locations. Gig workers, who are largely independent contractors, are playing a greater role in package delivery, too.

Saying that workers are ready to go on strike can help the Teamsters gain leverage at the bargaining table. But it’s not the only tool the union has at its disposal. Colvin told me that because the union is negotiating a master contract for workers across the country, it has more bargaining leverage than it would in a series of smaller local contracts: UPS’s integrated, national delivery system is part of what makes it a great company, he said, but also means that it’s reliant on its wide network of workers. The tight labor market gives these workers further leverage, because UPS may struggle to find replacement workers during a strike, Naidu told me.

The outcome of these negotiations could have an effect on other workers in the industry, too, especially those  at other companies, like Amazon, who might be looking to unionize with the Teamsters. Colvin told me that a positive outcome for the UPS workers would “send a strong message to workers organizing at places like Amazon about union representation.”

American workers have lost a lot of ground in recent decades. As the country’s workforce has ballooned, its number of union workers has not kept pace. But workers, including many young people, are excited about unions right now. It’s hard to measure that energy beyond anecdotes, and it may take years for union density to rebuild. But public perception of unions is as positive as it’s been since the 1960s, Colvin told me, and the outcome of UPS’s negotiations may shape that further. Strikes have been happening and looming across industries, including in Hollywood and at Starbucks.

Americans’ reliance on fast shipping can be tough for workers: Many have to complete their delivery routes in extreme heat (at UPS last month, the union and the company came to a tentative agreement on new heat-safety measures that included adding air-conditioning to new trucks and fans to existing ones).. But our dependence on shipping may also give workers leverage at UPS. We need them. That’s great for the company, for the most part, and it could turn out to be great for the workers, too.

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Katherine Hu contributed to this newsletter.