‘You’ve got one week’: Teamsters say UPS strike inevitable as negotiations falter

A UPS driver’s strike may be inevitable if the company does not deliver a better offer by Friday, according to the Teamsters Union.

After UPS delivered a less-than-satisfactory offer to the union on Wednesday, the Teamsters walked away from the table.

“You’ve got one week,” the union tweeted.

Earlier this month, the union signed a strike authorization agreement, saying that if an agreement is not reached by the end of July, drivers would be on the picket line. Just over 97% of unionized workers signed the strike authorization.

A UPS driver’s strike would be the biggest single employer strike in U.S. history, with around 340,000 walking off the job.

If that many drivers pulled off the road, it would hurt the U.S. economy and UPS’s business. 

According to the company, UPS delivers around 6% of the country’s GDP and 25 million packages a day. And since other mail carriers like FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service would not be able to pick up the slack, a drivers strike would severely limit when customers would get their packages.

While UPS still has another month to hammer out a deal, any agreement reached would have to first be voted on by union members. The demands from the union are likely a hard pill for UPS to swallow as well.

The union is asking for the elimination of two-tiered pay, increased pay for part-time workers,  better job security, more full-time jobs as well as harassment protection. The company ceded one demand earlier this month and agreed to expand air conditioner access in their newly purchased delivery trucks.

If an agreement is not reached, the union plans to begin its strike on August 1.