Hundreds of members of Teamsters Local 120 and Local 638 joined a rally and “practice picket” July 8 at the UPS hub in northeast Minneapolis. Real picketing could begin Aug. 1.
With “practice picketing” outside UPS facilities across the Twin Cities this month, local Teamsters are showing the company that they are prepared to strike – if necessary – when the contract covering 340,000 union members nationwide expires July 31.
“I don’t think anyone wants to go on strike, but we’ll do what we have to do,” Gunnar Johnson, a UPS driver and member of Teamsters Local 638, said while walking a picket line July 8 in Minneapolis. “We’re not asking for the moon. UPS can end this today if they want.”
That would mean settling a contract that meets Teamsters’ key demands: fair wage increases, elimination of a two-tier wage structure and no more mandatory six-day workweeks.
“I don’t think that’s asking too much of any employer, especially one that we’ve sacrificed so much to keep afloat,” Eagan-based loader Rikki Schreiner said. “They are the most successful and most reliable shipping company there is because of Teamster labor. We’ve taken good care of them, and now it’s time for them to take care of us.”
UPS reported record profits of $11.3 billion in 2022, with revenues exceeding $100 billion. CEO Carol Tomé earned $19 million in total compensation. Those numbers make Robert Cristino, a feeder driver in Maple Grove, confident UPS can do better by full- and part-time workers when it comes to wages and work-life balance.
Gunnar Johnson (L) and Robert Cristino, who work at the Maple Grove UPS hub, walked the practice picket line.
“The big lie is that everyone at UPS makes $94,000 or whatever a year. That’s what UPS likes to tell the media,” Cristino said “Sure, maybe you can make that, but you’ve got to work six days a week to get it. It’s too much all the time, and you never get a break.”
Johnson said an arrangement that allows UPS to deny pay increases to part-timers needs to go. “There are part-time drivers doing the same job as me, getting paid less,” he said. “You can go to Costco right now and make more. We just want everyone treated fairly.”
Talks between the union and UPS broke down at 4 a.m. July 5. After two weeks of Teamster picketing, the company finally called the union back into bargaining July 19, as this issue went to press.
In balloting across the country earlier this summer, 97% of Teamsters voted to authorize their bargaining team to call a strike, which would have a widespread impact on the U.S. economy and beyond. UPS delivers 24.3 million parcels daily, on average; that’s on par with the U.S. Postal Service and more than twice as many as FedEx delivers.
Rikki Schreiner is a union steward at the UPS facility in Eagan.
“We want – and we’re going to get – what we’ve got coming to us,” said Teamsters Local 120 President Tom Erickson, who serves as a vice president of the international union. “During the pandemic UPS had no problem taking advantage of our workers, and that stops on Aug. 1, one way or another.
“We’re either going to have a contract, or we’re going to be out on the street fighting for what we’ve got coming to us.”
Schreiner, who has worked at the Eagan facility since 1999, said she’s hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.
“I’m ready,” she said. “We have to stand up for what we deserve. If we don’t, they’ll step all over us.”
Union Advocate 
I think rather thay pickeding UPS we should picket Fed Ex