‘We’re ready to strike’: UPS workers and Teamsters prepare for contract fight

theguardian.com:

For eight years, Rob Becker worked as a delivery driver for UPS in Queens, New York. About five years ago, he was terminated. He got involved in his local union, Teamsters Local 804, and fought, successfully, to get reinstated.

While pushing for changes and collecting signatures in recent months at UPS as the Teamsters prepare for a new union contract fight across at the company in 2023, Becker, an alternate union steward, was again fired from his job.

“I guess I was costing the company too much money,” said Becker. “We are constantly harassed and intimidated by our management. It’s never-ending, we do go through some calm periods, but inevitably it turns back up at some point when they decide to crack the whip.”

He said his termination noted that he was fired for taking a two- to three-minute break in the morning to get a drink of water.

In the new union contract, Becker and other workers have been pushing for better overtime protections, an elimination of a second tier of delivery drivers who are paid less and provided with less protections for doing the same work, better pay for part-time employees and heat protection.

UPS workers and the Teamsters have signaled preparations to strike to win these demands in the next union contract.

“We are ready to strike 100%. It’s obviously a weapon of last resort,” said Becker.

In August, Teamsters International launched the contract fight at UPS, as the union leadership newly elected in 2021 has signaled an end to accepting concessions in union contracts with UPS.

The union is fighting for the end of misclassifying workers as a means to pay them less, such as personal vehicle drivers who work as temporary contractors. They also want the increasing surveillance of drivers on the job, a