A Part-Time Xmas: UPS at the Holidays
Not everyone who works at UPS wears brown. Over 100,000 part-time employees sort packages and load trucks in the middle of the night.
RadicalsAtWork.org interviewed Olivia and Mike about theirs jobs, their organizing, and what it’s like to work there during the busiest season of the year.
RadicalsAtWork.org: What’s your job like?
Olivia: We’re pre-loaders. We work three and a half hours a day loading delivery trucks. I usually load four trucks. Mike loads three.
Mike: Management is really strict about the “methods”—when they want to be. UPS has a special way to do everything, including how to pick out your packages, walk to the truck, and load it. They tell you to walk with two paces every second—they call that an “appropriate sense of urgency.”
Olivia: If you have a target on your back, management will watch your every move and harass you about your methods. Your best protection is to follow every method to the letter.
One supervisor tried to show me how to do my job. But as he was “teaching me,” I caught him breaking four different methods, and I called him on it.
December is “peak” season at UPS. How is your job different this time of year?
Olivia: It’s like UPS on crack. The flow of packages is through the roof. And management is only concerned about production.
Mike: Management throws thousands of packages at you and tells you just get it done.
Our contract is thrown out the window. We see a lot of supervisors doing our work.
You’re members of the Teamsters Union. In the 1990s, the union went on strike for part-timers—the slogan was “Part-Time America Doesn’t Work.” The union won the creation of thousands of new full-time jobs. Are union officials still fighting for you today?
Olivia: We weren't around during the strike, but we know a lot has changed since then. Back in the 1990s, Ron Carey, a reformer, was president of the Teamsters. Members and part-timers had a bigger voice, and he listened. Now our president is Jim Hoffa—and he doesn’t care about part-timers.
Part-timers got screwed in the last contract. When I started, my benefits kicked in after 90 days. Now new employees have to wait a whole year before they get benefits.
The part-time starting wage is $8.50 today. It was $8.00 in 1982.
Mike: The new contract made it easier for supervisors to do our work. They used to be able to work only when they were training or demonstrating something to us. Now they can work under “Acts of God.”
Our local union officials think they can ignore us too, because they don’t think we’ll stick around. We could have a stronger voice if we were better organized.
Editor’s note: Click here to watch a video about the 1997 strike, and click here to read a remembrance of late Teamster leader Ron Carey.
How do you try to organize at work?
Mike: Our co-workers are scared of management, so we started small. We showed people how to track when a supervisor works: we tell them to write down when they started working, when they stopped, and what they were doing. Then we file the grievance on it.
Some members started seeing that we got results, so more people started doing it. Some of our co-workers started directly challenging supervisors when they saw them working.
Now people will come up and tell us when they see supervisors working. We’ve effectively stopped it when people from our circle of friends are around.
Editor's note: Click here to read an article about taking on supervisors' working.
Olivia: We have a “breakfast club” that meets once a week now, over coffee and eggs. We talk about work, the union, and what we can do to make things better.
There’s a flip side to this though too. When you start to organize, management is going to scrutinize you more. A lot of people see that and they say “I don’t want that.” So it’s hard getting people to take that risk.
And there’s definitely a macho atmosphere in the workplace. Our building didn’t have even women’s restrooms when it was built (it does now). I’ve had to work harder than other guys to earn the respect of my co-workers—even though I’m a good worker and I stand up for myself.
What advice do you have for other young organizers?
Olivia: For starters, you have to be a good worker. You have to have good attendance. You have to do your job well. If you don’t, it will be easy for management to crack down on you. And your co-workers won’t respect you.
Mike: There’s no culture of struggle on our job. What we’ve tried to do is show our co-workers that if we stick together, we’re stronger than when we’re apart.
Olivia: Every problem is potentially an opportunity. Most people think they can only fix their problems on their own. Our first job is to show that most of our problems are collective, and the solutions are collective, too.
Mike: I’ve met a lot of radicals who have given up on working people. They say workers are too sexist or too racist or too backwards.
Some are all those things. That’s for sure. But not all. And people can change, especially when they have a fight on their hands. The workplace is where we need to dig in and organize if we want to make some real change in this country.
...AND I NEVER SAID I WORK AT UPS
Solidarity 413,
I'm a union carpenter and freelance writer - I don't work for UPS or any other teamster employer (although I work side by side with teamsters from locals 282, 807, 813 and 814 who work in the building trades and the trade show services industry).
I've been a union shop steward since 1998, a communist since 1982 (yeah, I became radical when I was in junior high) and a labor writer since 1999.
And I'm as critical of my union's leaders as I am of yours.
Just read my books - "DISUNITED BROTHERHOODS ..race, racketeering and the fall of the New York construction unions", "LOST TOWERS ...inside the World Trade Center cleanup" currently in print and available at amazon.com, and the forthcoming "UNION FAIL ...the death spiral of the New York labor movement" - going into print in May 2010.
Or go to my blog http://gangboxnews.blogspot.com
Incidentally, "UNION FAIL" has an excellent chapter on the Teamsters that you might find useful and educational.
You see, I care enough about labor that I can't bring myself to defend the current crop of misleaders ESPECIALLY the ones who try and portray themselves as "leftists"!
Really?
To say Carey ran the same type of union that Hoffa or Fitzsimmons did is just simply not true. I wasn't a Teamster when Carey was in office, but I work next to plenty of people who were. They talk about the days when they felt the Leadership cared about people. They talk about the days when full-time job bids actually got posted!! Those were the days of the Carey leadership or the benefits of that leadership and rank and file pressure.
You think Hoffa would call the '97 strike? Come on man, let's keep it real.
They're not even close to the same. Carey may not of been the radical you wanted him to be, but is anybody?
10,000 jobs is not a drop in the bucket to those people who have them. Those jobs are what we should be trying to get to.
If we as radicals can't back an offical like Carey who actually went to bat for the members. Who whether you like him or not, the other million Teamsters do because he got real results. And those results weren't backdoor deals like the current leader or his daddy have gotten they were results that put real food on 10,000 peoples tables.
UPS FACTS
The difference between Carey and Hoffa Junior are a matter of degrees.
As for the 1997 strike - honestly, how much difference did it actually make for the vast majority of UPS part timers - the 130,000 folks who did not get those handful of full time jobs?
For them, UPS is still a low wage part time job - kind of like working at Safeway or Pathmark, a temporary way station on their way to finishing college and getting a "real job"
These are cold hard facts and if we really want to improve the labor movement, we have to admit them.
As for Carey and your claim that "a million teamsters" support him, I'll just say this.
In both of the elections he ran in - 1991 and 1997 - barely 20% of teamsters bothered to vote.
That's 280,000 combined votes for all the candidates running for office.
So, that's at least 700,000 short of "a million teamsters"
As for his "real results", every Teamsters president since Hoffa Senior has presided over a shrinking and decaying union - from 2,300,000 under Fitzsimmons in the 1970's to barely 1,400,000 today under Junior Hoffa.
And that 1.4 million figure is inflated by the thousands of workers that Hoffa brought in by taking over dying railroad and newspaper printers unions.
To look at the freight industry - once the core of the Teamsters - there were 450,000 unionized Teamster freight workers in a 500,000 worker industry in 1970 while today there are barely 90,000 unionized Teamster freight workers in a 2 million worker freight industry.
There's plenty of blame to go around for that decay - and Carey and Teamsters for a Democratic Union are as responsible for it as Hoffa Senior, Fitzsimmons, Williams, Presser, Mathis, McCarthy and Hoffa Junior.
Carey and TDU, by collaborating with the US government monitorship that has dominated the IBT since 1988, actually bear a disproportionate share of responsibility for that decay.
Where the hell do you work?
Where the hell do you work? Because it can't be UPS. I do, and even though my brothers and sisters next to me may not of voted in the election Carey doesn't mean they can't support him.
What kind of dream world are you in?
Members went to strike for full-time jobs. They got them. Did we get what we wanted? Of course not! We're radicals, we want a hell of a lot more then 10,000 full-time jobs. I know I do.
But what we got was a president willing to fight along side us not against us. That's Ron Carey, for you to sit here and attack him is laughable. And for you to attack TDU of all things is silly. You can't work at UPS.
If you worked at my Hub you'd know how much of a different our 150 full-time jobs make. If you ask those 150 people or their families they'll tell you the difference it made. Give me a break.
SO, THEY DIDN'T VOTE FOR HIM BUT THEY SUPPORT HIM?
Brother/Sister,
I'm genuinely puzzled by your worldview, where people can be "supporters" of folks that they didn't return a mail ballot for in an election, and where 10,000 full time jobs is a great victory at a company that has 130,000 part timers, and where the part time starting wage is barely $ 8.50 hr.
If we want to be serious labor activists, we have to recognize the cold hard facts that American unions are in a death spiral and, if present trends continue, American unions will collapse within our lifetimes.
And yes, that includes the IBT.
Cheerleading for "reform" labor chieftains like Ron Carey is NOT going to save us.
Well you're right about one
Well you're right about one thing. Leaders won't save us. Members will, and if we're lucky our leaders will listen to the members. Which Carey did his best at. And if we're even more lucky our leaders will be organic from the rank and file, which Carey was.
I don't need a sectarian lecture on the death spiral of American Unions.
If you don't think people can be supporters of someone even though they didn't mail their ballot, well I guess we're done discussing it then.
I don't need to be patronized about being a serious labor activist. Thanks for all your work within the labor community and thanks for your passion, but we couldn't disagree more it seems.
Good luck brother,
A Part-Time Teamster
Sorry you have illusions about Carey
I'm really sorry to hear you have illusions about Ron Carey and how "progressive" he was.
I won't even get into the whole $ 400,000 worth of your union's funds that the Independent Review Board caught Ron laundering through the Democratic Party back during his 1997 election campaign (which in and of itself was proof of his limited social base among teamsters) - because no matter what facts I provide, you'll probably continue having blind faith in the late Ron Carey.
An earlier generation of Teamsters had illusions about Hoffa Senior, right up til the time the Genovese Family allegedly killed him in a mob hit (hell, some of the guys from that era who are still around still have those same illusions), and we all know how well that worked out!
As for the "sectarian lecture" - brother, I'm just trying to share the benefit of my research with you ...weather you like my style or not, it would still do you benefit to learn from what I have put out there.
Also, you might want to go to a website called Teamster.net http://www.teamster.net - I'm sure you've heard of it, and it's been a great source of information for me about you union.
If that bulletin board is at all representative of what the average activist teamster actually thinks about TDU and Carey, I think you might want to reassess your belief that "a million Teamsters" support Ron Carey.
THE REAL STORY ON THE 1997 STRIKE
Ron Carey, the Teamsters general president during the 1997 strike, CLAIMED that the strike was about defending the part timers.
That was a total lie - it was a battle between the IBT leadership and UPS management over control of pension fund contributions made on behalf of UPS workers.
The needs of the part timers were irrelevant - and, quite frankly, for every International Brotherhood of Teamsters administration from 1965 on, the UPS part timers are regarded as expendable dues payers.
To read the real story on the 1997 UPS strike, read my article JACKKNIFED ...the collapse of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in the freight industry" at
http://www.clnews.org/forums/showthread.php?t=16368
Part time America won't work
Greg --
You accuse these two UPS part-timers of lying. They aren't.
The strike won new language in the contract that created 10,000 new full-time jobs for part-timers. A real gain that has improved the lives of many many Teamsters.
Yes, there were other issues on the table. UPS management wanted to take full-timers out of the Teamster pension funds. What was remarkable is how full-timers and part-timers came together to fight for each other's issues. Ron Carey and the rank and file reform movement made that possible.
The purpose of this site is to encourage dialogue and debate between radicals. When you call someone a liar, you shut down the duscussion. Let's stick to the facts.
Dan H
FACTS ABOUT THE TEAMSTERS
Dan, where in my post did I call those two teamsters liars?
I don't even know those folks - so why would I make such a sharp accusation?
I was taking issue with Ron Carey's record about the 1997 strike - and that is a legitimate matter of contention.
On the part time thing, here are the cold hard facts.
In 1965, UPS began its reorganization from a department store delivery firm all of who's hourly employees were full time teamsters to a parcel post company where the package sorting operation is all part timers, with the only full timers being the drivers.
Then Teamsters General President James R. Hoffa agreed to that under the National Master UPS Agreement - and allowed UPS to use unlimited part timers in the areas of the country then covered by the NMPUSA - at that time, Canada, Chicago, New York City, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles were not covered under the national agreement.
Over the next decade, his successors General Presidents Frank Fitzsimmons, Roy Williams and Jackie Presser extended the unlimited part timer rule to every UPS location in North America.
Ron Carey never even tried to reverse that.
And, as a result, of the total of 230,000 teamsters that work for UPS today, 130,000 are part timers - mostly college students working their way through college.
Also, thanks to Jackie Presser, UPS part timers have the same $ 8.50/hr starting wage they had in 1988 - as opposed to the $ 24.07/hr top rate for the full timers.
These are FACTS dude - and I have a print copy of the current NMUPSA in front of me to prove it!
The cold hard fact is, at a company that has 130,000 part timers and has an over 100% labor turnover rate, 10,000 full time jobs is a drop in the bucket!
On the pensions - as I pointed out, most UPS employees quit, get fired or leave the job due to injury within a year of hire - for them, the pensions are irrelevant, basically, it's a perk for the full timers.
Those are the facts, Dan - so please do not throw up red herring arguments about me allegedly calling people "liars"!
And the fact is, the Carey Administration, much hyped as it was and is among leftists, basically carried on the same type of business unionism that the previous Hoffa Senior, Fitzsimmons, Williams, Presser, Mathis and McCarthy administrations did before it, and that the present Hoffa Junior administration carries on today.
If you want to stick to facts - those are the facts.