UPS workers approve 5-year contract, capping contentious negotiations that threatened deliveries
The union representing 340,000 UPS workers says its members voted to approve the tentative contract agreement reached last month
The union representing 340,000 UPS workers said Tuesday that its members voted to approve the tentative contract agreement reached last month, putting a final seal on contentious labor negotiations that threatened to disrupt package deliveries for millions of businesses and households nationwide.
The Teamsters said in a statement that 86% of the votes casts were in favor of ratifying the national contract. They also said it was passed by the highest vote for a contract in the history of the Teamsters at UPS.
The union said more than 40 supplemental agreements were also ratified, except for one that covers roughly 170 members in Florida. The national master agreement will go into effect as soon as that supplement is renegotiated and ratified, it said.
UPS said voting results for deals covering employees under two locals are expected soon.
“Our members just ratified the most lucrative agreement the Teamsters have ever negotiated at UPS," Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement. «This contract will improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers.”
He said the contract set a new standard for pay and benefits.
“This is the template for how workers should be paid and protected nationwide, and nonunion companies like Amazon better pay attention,” O'Brien said, giving a nod to the union's growing ambitions to take on the e-commerce behemoth.
Voting on the new five-year contract began Aug. 3 and concluded Tuesday.
After negotiations broke down in early July, Atlanta-based UPS reached a tentative contract agreement with the Teamsters just days before an Aug. 1
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