UPS, Teamsters Meet as Strike Looms

Negotiators for United Parcel Service of America Inc. and the Teamsters resumed talks Sunday in an effort to avert a strike that could paralyze the daily delivery of 12 million packages by the nation’s largest carrier.

The discussions, which are the first since talks broke off late Friday, resumed at 7:30 p.m. EDT Sunday at the request of federal mediators. The negotiating committee for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which set a new strike deadline for midnight Sunday, sent a revised proposal late Saturday to UPS management.

Teamsters officials had earlier postponed a strike, which was to have started at midnight Thursday.

John C. Wells, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, said Sunday that Teamsters President Ron Carey has told him that this is unequivocally “a drop-dead deadline. . . . We are going into this negotiating session with a genuine sense of urgency.”

*

Upon arriving Sunday night at the Washington offices of the mediator, Carey said he was optimistic about the negotiations, but added: “If the company does not address issues about full-time jobs, no subcontracting and a better pension, I can tell you that at 12:01 tonight we will be on strike.”

A strike at UPS would cripple delivery service nationwide because many of the company’s competitors, such as Federal Express Corp., Airborne Express and the U.S. Postal Service, would probably be unable to handle the extra demand on their services, industry experts said.

The threat of a strike already has hurt UPS, which has lost about $5 million, or 8%, of its daily business, the company said.

The company also has laid off several thousand workers as delivery volume has dropped, although UPS acknowledged that some of the job losses may reflect the usual summer slowdown.

Atlanta-based UPS employs 308,000 workers in the United States, 185,000 of whom are represented by the Teamsters, including drivers, sorters and package handlers. The closely held company last year reported net income of $1.15 billion and revenue of $22.4 million.

The Teamsters and UPS remained apart on a number of issues. The Teamsters want the company to create more full-time jobs for its part-time workers, eliminate the use of outside contractors, increase wages and improve pension benefits and job safety.

On the issue of job safety, the union said UPS has increased weight limits on the amount of packages that employees must lift, increasing the risk of on-the-job injuries.

UPS has offered to create 1,000 full-time jobs over the life of a proposed five-year contract, for which part-timers would be given first preference. The company has offered employees hourly pay increases that also include several bonuses over the life of the contract.

The proposed contract would increase salaries at UPS, making its employees among the highest paid in the industry, company officials said. Top hourly pay for full-time workers would increase to $21.45 from $19.95 by 2001. The hourly wage for the lowest-paid part-time employees would increase to $11 from $8 by 2001.

*

UPS also has proposed replacing the Teamsters pension program with one of its own, the payout of which would be 50% higher than the program now available. The company’s plan would pay retirees $100 a month for every year of service up to $3,500 a month.

Customers of UPS, including major catalog companies such as Lands’ End Inc. and J.C. Penney Co., have been making alternate arrangements to have their products delivered in anticipation of a strike.