Union Shows Rare Clout in UPS Strike

Since the early 1980s, few unions have been willing to risk launching major strikes, and the main reason is simple: In an era when management generally has held the upper hand in labor battles, workers who walk out sometimes never get their jobs back.

So why this time, in the fight between the Teamsters union and United Parcel Service of America Inc., is a big labor organization daring to stage a massive walkout by 185,000 workers?

The Teamsters’ action against UPS, rather than a harbinger of a major national upturn in strikes, appears to be an exception that underscores the general no-walkout rule in contract disputes.

In this case, Teamsters officials have forces working for them that other union leaders today rarely possess. Most important, UPS’ dominance in the package shipment industry eliminates much of the fear that foreign or domestic rivals might permanently snatch away the company’s business--and union members’ jobs--during a strike.

And, as an entrenched labor organization in a company that dominates its industry, the UPS Teamsters appear to have something resembling the old-fashioned clout that emboldened the likes of auto workers and steelworkers to throw their weight around decades ago, before their industries were challenged by tough competitors.

It’s unlikely that UPS could crush the Teamsters by hiring replacement workers, much as Caterpillar Inc. and Detroit’s two major daily newspapers have battered their unions in recent years. UPS’s sizable work force, and the employees’ extensive training, make them unusually hard to replace, and no such preparations are known to be in the works.

“It would be unprecedented to implement something like that on a scope this large,” said Michael Belzer, a onetime Teamster truck driver and now a specialist in transportation industry labor relations at Cornell University.

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Neither the union nor the company is likely to withstand a long-term strike, labor experts say. Belzer estimates that UPS will lose about $90 million in revenue a day from the strike.

Meanwhile, he said, many of the workers--including full-time drivers content with annual earnings in the neighborhood of $50,000--might not be willing to continue very long without their paychecks. “This is going to be a classic test of wills between the two sides,” Belzer said. “We’ll see how long it lasts.”

In recent years, the United Auto Workers have relied on a series of local strikes to try to extract commitments from General Motors to curb the use of nonunion suppliers and contractors. Likewise, the Teamsters won some job safety protections at UPS in 1994 when a fraction of the work force staged a one-day walkout.

Still, organized labor has been timid about striking ever since 1981, when the Reagan administration unexpectedly smashed a strike by federal air-traffic controllers by hiring replacements. By last year, the nation recorded only 37 work stoppages involving 1,000 or more employees, down from 231 two decades earlier.

Some observers say the Teamster leadership’s willingness to call a strike now is driven more by the union’s bitter internal politics and organizational needs than by any push from the rank and file. As such, they question how long the union can hold out before support among members crumbles.

The internal politics revolves around Teamster President Ron Carey, a former UPS driver. Even though he narrowly won reelection over James P. Hoffa in December, Carey still is hounded by critics inside the union. Also, amid continuing investigations into the election, it’s possible that Carey will have to face a new vote.

As a result, to try to silence some of his opponents, Carey “has to appear militant,” said Daniel J. B. Mitchell, a UCLA labor economist.

The dispute between the Teamsters and UPS over pensions, observers suggest, also touches a deep nerve among union leaders.

These observers note that UPS is the biggest employer of Teamster members. Consequently, if the company prevails in its demand to take its employees’ pension funds out of the Teamsters’ multiemployer fund, the health of the union’s entire pension program could be threatened.

The strike, however, could easily open up divisions within the rank and file.

The Teamsters’ demands for more full-time jobs and pay hikes would mainly benefit the part-timers who make up almost 60% of the union’s members. The union’s other main contract demands--guarantees against greater use of subcontractors and the ability to keep the employees’ pensions in the Teamsters’ multiemployer fund, along with job safety improvements--may not be enough to maintain the support of full-timers.

Although rank-and-file members gave the union authorization to call a strike, they did so before UPS issued its more recent contract offer, and workers have not voted on the offer itself. Full-timers such as Todd Alfiers, a UPS driver based in Palm Springs, groused that “there are many of us who don’t want to be on strike.”

“UPS is 100% right when they say that if the union would put the contract to the membership [for a vote], it would pass,” added Alfiers, who joined the company as a part-time loader in 1985 and three years later moved up to his full-time job.

Part-timers, he said, “have a lot more to gain from [a strike], and a lot less to lose,” he said.

Alfiers also contended that many part-timers--hopeful that they can land full-time jobs within five years of joining the company--have mixed feelings about the wisdom of the strike.

Times staff writer James F. Peltz contributed to this story.