{"id":10234,"date":"2023-05-16T07:00:58","date_gmt":"2023-05-16T11:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=10234"},"modified":"2023-05-30T00:35:25","modified_gmt":"2023-05-30T04:35:25","slug":"on-the-brink-the-teamsters-and-ups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2023\/05\/on-the-brink-the-teamsters-and-ups\/","title":{"rendered":"On The Brink?: The Teamsters and UPS"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span>n less than ten weeks, the Teamsters\u2019 national contract with United Parcel Service (UPS) will expire, at midnight on July 31. Expectations for the contract are running high, a sharp change from past contract negotiations<\/a> under former Teamster General President James P. Hoffa, Jr. The current leadership of the Teamsters, General President Sean O\u2019Brien and General Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman, have repeatedly stated that, if there is not a tentative agreement that resolves key issues, there will be a national strike<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Teamsters union\u2014with some seasonal fluctuation\u2014represents around 330,000 workers<\/a> at UPS. If a strike occurs, it will be the biggest industrial strike in a generation. It has the potential to raise the class struggle to a new level in the United States, as well as having wide-ranging effects on the labor movement, from the upcoming UAW negotiations with the Big 3 automakers to organizing at Amazon. This strike would be similar to the 1997 UPS strike<\/a> that thrilled the labor movement and the Left but\u00a0 whose potential wider impact was thwarted by the federal government\u2019s\u00a0 intervention<\/a> following the strike.<\/p>\n

Re-writing history<\/h4>\n

The threat of federal intervention hangs over the current negotiations between the Teamsters and UPS, not only because of the Biden administration\u2019s heavy-handed intervention<\/a> to block the Rail unions last year from striking. But, as Sean O\u2019Brien revealed during a speech<\/a> in southern California that he has been to the White House to discuss the UPS contract. After a meeting at the White House, O\u2019Brien declared, \u201cI want to tell you this because our brothers and sisters in the [Teamster] rail division, they felt that the administration interceded, which isn\u2019t the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why O\u2019Brien, who was at the White House making the case against federal intervention in the UPS negotiations , made such a bizarre declaration is worrisome. It is frankly indisputable that the Biden administration, along with Congress, engaged<\/a> in preemptive strike breaking, and that\u00a0 it was a major defeat for the labor movement. Why such a re-writing of events<\/a> that took place only a few months ago? It may speak to the suffocating relationship of the Democratic Party and the trade unions in this country as well as the cautiousness of O\u2019Brien, a career union official long associated with the Hoffa machine, despite his verbose rhetoric . As the expiration date gets closer, the Biden administration will likely play an even bigger role in negotiations.<\/p>\n