{"id":4829,"date":"2021-11-29T08:35:01","date_gmt":"2021-11-29T13:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=4829"},"modified":"2022-11-07T16:16:43","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T21:16:43","slug":"the-teamster-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2021\/11\/the-teamster-election\/","title":{"rendered":"The Teamster Election"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>he landslide victory of the O\u2019Brien-Zuckerman Teamsters United<\/i> slate certainly represents a vote for a change<\/a>. While the focus of discontent is centered at United Parcel Service (UPS), a broad swath of Teamsters across industry lines voted to move the union in a more militant direction. The question will be: will they get it?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not surprising that UPS Teamsters have been at the center of the long election campaign. UPS is the largest Teamster employer as well as\u00a0 being the largest private-sector unionized employer in the United States. It is a fabulously profitable corporation that boomed during the pandemic. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution<\/i> reported<\/a> in October,<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s net income for the quarter ended Sept. 30 was $2.33 billion, up 19% from the same period a year earlier. Its revenue grew 9.2% to $23.18 billion, extending a string of strong financial results since the pandemic as more consumers have goods delivered to their homes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s hard to think of a year in living memory that UPS lost money. The pathetic attempt by Steve Vairma, the leader of the losing Teamster Power<\/a> slate and Hoffa\u2019s anointed successor, to paint the UPS Teamsters as the spoiled children of the union was another in a list of self-destructive flubs that wrecked his already weak campaign.<\/p>\n

A growing revolt at UPS<\/h4>\n

During the last decade, a growing number of UPS Teamsters have grown increasingly bewildered and angered by the long list of concessions from health care to a new tier of lower-wage full-time drivers agreed to by the union. This came on top of four decades of concessions at the national level including multiple wage tiers and long progressions to top pay scale stuffed into the national contract. UPS, twenty-four years after the 1997 strike<\/a>, is still a company where two-thirds of the workforce is part-time.<\/p>\n

Starting in 2013, Teamsters repeatedly voted down<\/a> supplements (mini-contracts over local or regional issues), while that same year the national contract was passed by a small margin of 53 percent to 47 percent. Discontent with Hoffa was so great by the 2016 Teamster election, he barely survived<\/a>, winning by a mere 6,000 votes against Fred Zuckerman, leader of the largest UPS Teamster local union in the country. Local unions with big UPS contingents were vital to Zuckerman\u2019s near victory.<\/p>\n