The Battle of Hayward: A Dispatch

The battle of Hayward was fought by five men in short pants. Three were striking United Parcel Service drivers. They crammed into a white Chevy pickup early Thursday morning and, after roaming the industrial parks and side streets of this Northern California town, tracked down a brown delivery van driven by two UPS managers. Thus, the battle was engaged.

All day long, the Teamsters would shadow the delivery truck. All day long, the managers would attempt to shake the strikers, punching through yellow lights, sneaking out back alleys. At delivery stops, the Teamsters would wave picket signs and pass out pamphlets to startled receptionists and dockhands.

“We’re the real drivers,” Robert Alameda, a 35-year-old Teamster told one secretary as she signed for a package. “They’re the ones trying to take away our jobs.”

“Oh,” she said, looking first at Alameda and then at the manager, both of whom were wearing UPS brown. She didn’t seem to know what to say, but finally told each man to “have a nice day.”

“Have a nice day,” Alameda echoed, backing out of the office.

“Have a nice day,” the manager-turned-driver chipped in, refusing to surrender an inch of public relations high ground.

*

Nobody died in the battle of Hayward, although a magnolia tree lost a few limbs when the management team, caught in a cul-de-sac, backed the truck into it. “Tree!” the homeowner hollered in warning, too late. The union members watched the mishap with glee. “Way to go, Ding Dong!” shouted the pickup driver, 41-year-old David DeMotto.

The strikers said the idea behind the tactic was to ratchet up pressure on clients still using UPS since a nationwide strike by 185,000 workers began last Monday. As for management forces, they obviously wanted to reestablish a presence on the street, as well as move some packages. Each side had its moments.

The Teamsters celebrated when a business owner refused to accept delivery, citing the strike. The managers smiled smugly as a hospital security guard chased away the strikers, shouting, “I wish I had your $20-an-hour jobs!” From a firetruck, shouts of “scabs” and middle fingers were hurled at the UPS van. At a small factory, someone flipped on sprinklers just as a picket crossed the grass.

Along the way, the Teamsters sought to make their case, with detailed talk of pension and health plan issues. In this highly visible strike, however, what seems to resonate the most are union complaints about the proliferation and treatment of part-time workers. It doesn’t take a subscription to the Wall Street Journal to grasp what has been happening across the American workplace. The UPS Teamsters are fortunate that delivery work can’t be farmed out to the Third World, that computers can’t drive trucks.

“I’m with you guys,” a receptionist told one of the strikers. “There are just not enough full-time jobs out there already.”

She said this softly, and signed for the package.

*

Sometimes at stops the warring parties would engage in edgy banter. “How come he’s making you do all the work?” DeMotto asked the junior member of the management duo. “You want to stay away from my truck,” the senior supervisor growled. Neither manager seemed exactly thrilled by their return to road duty. “I’ve got about 20 other things I’d rather be doing today,” one admitted. Like his partner, he had exchanged his business suit for the brown shirt, shorts and anklet socks of a driver--but still wore his black dress shoes.

Later, while the van was being loaded at a computer software firm, the lead manager approached the strikers with sodas. “Just an act of kindness,” he said. They declined the drinks and grumbled among themselves that the supervisor was just playing to the battle of Hayward’s lone correspondent. A few minutes later, the manager was back: “Just wanted you to know, they called the cops on you.”

Soon the pickup was surrounded by squad cars. The UPS managers grinned and waved happily as they sped away. Once freed of the cops, the strikers roamed frantically for a half-hour. At last, amazingly, they spotted the lumbering brown van in traffic. “Didn’t I tell you?” DeMotto shouted, slapping Alameda. “It’s impossible to lose a UPS van. All day long, baby. All day long.”

And so it went, all day long. And at day’s end, when the UPS van returned to the dispatch center, the Teamsters were still on its tail, horn blaring. The battle of Hayward was over. What it meant is hard to say. It was just a tiny skirmish in an old, old war over what work is worth. It might have seemed silly, fun even, if the stakes were not so high.