Teamsters announces October 5 vote deadline
Vote “no” on the UPS-Teamsters sellout contract! Form rank-and-file committees to organize opposition!
By
the WSWS UPS Workers Newsletter
6 September 2018
On Tuesday, the Teamsters union announced that a vote on the contract covering a quarter million United Parcel Service (UPS) package delivery and warehouse employees in the United States will be counted on October 5, more than two months after the expiration of the current agreement. Ballots are being sent individually to all workers by mail over the next two weeks, and workers will be able to vote electronically at any time before the count.
Since July 10, when the union released its sellout agreement backed by UPS management, it has been engaged in a campaign to wear down rank-and-file opposition to the deal. It has continuously delayed a vote, kept workers completely in the dark and dispatched its officials to local meetings across the country to browbeat workers into voting “yes.”
Typical were the statements of western packaging division director Andy Marshall, who told a room of 100 workers in San Diego Local 642 on August 12 that the contract was the “best they could get,” and that while workers may want more, “when I was a kid, I wanted a pony.” Marshall threatened that workers and their families would lose health coverage if they went on strike, and that the next offer would be worse if they vote “no.”
Speaking at an August 25 “conference call” for Teamsters members at which no questions were allowed, chief “negotiator” Denis Taylor told workers they should stop complaining about the creation of a new lower-paid driving tier in the contract, because there are already many other tiers created in previous sellouts by the Teamsters. “It…