This is Mia from the very very near future. We found out as we were live recording this episode that Teamster's leadership has cut a tentative agreement with UPS to try to revert the strike. So we've we've decided to leave this in and you're gonna hear us find this shit out, literally in the middle of an interview of what we thought was going to be a really really really large strike starting. So enjoy it strike season here at it could happen here the podcast where things fall
apart and sometimes you put them back together again. And as as you probably have noticed, presumably from the last interview, maybe from reading the news, maybe from like talking to people who are in unions, we are in a genuindely historic period of labor militancy in this country. That is effectively we are now we are we are We are now entering the second phase of the hot Summer of twenty twenty three. We used to have hot summers all the time. People do what that meant, so now it
just means like global warming. But long ago, in the galaxy far far away, there are these things called hot summers when everyone would fucking go on strike and there'd be you know, sort of mass resist as a capital the state. And yeah, we're fucking going back there and talk with me about the next series of massive private sector strikes that we're about to get. Is Rehee Smith and Oliver Rose, who are rank and file UPS workers and teamsters doing the standard disclaimer. These individuals do not
represent the union or the positions of the union. They're speaking as individuals. Yeah, we have this is this is this is the disclaimer for the lawyers. It is also true. Yeah, but recent Oliver, welcome to the show.
Hey, yeah, thanks for having us.
Yeah, thank you much.
Yeah, I'm really really glad we can talk to you. So, all right, the day this is going out, it'll be six days before the teamsters are potentially going to go on strike and the current contract runs out. Can I yeah, can we talk a little bit about what Okay, who is first, who is going on strike and what do they do?
Yeah, So there's going to be three hundred and forty thousand UPS workers going on strike, and that's going to be you know, the inside warehouse workers, and that's going to be the delivery drivers and also the theater drivers and the twenty two fours, like all of them.
Could you explain what, oh last you are?
Yes, Yeah, so twenty two fours is a classification of worker where they're kind of half inside and half driving. Something that the union has told us is that there's already been a tentative agreement that that classification is not going to exist anymore. It was kind of a really raw deal for people that found themselves in that position. Shit, what was the other one that I mentioned? Twenty two drivers? I think theater drivers. Yes, so theeter drivers are not
your regular package delivery drivers. They drive the big semis that you see from like hub to hub and whatnot, and that's how they deliver. Uh. So those are the last two classifications that I mentioned. And yeah, we're all going to be going on strike, and well we are potentially going to be on strike, and if we are, UPS is kind of going to be in a world of hurt because it is very hard to replace three hundred and forty thousand workers and what economists have told
me is a tight labor market. So yeah, it's going to be very exciting.
Yeah, it's I'm excited, like I don't all you know, it was funny, So when when when SAG officially walked off and joined the WGA strike that was that was the largest strike since Hilariously, the team Stirs went strike in the like the year I was born, like ninety seven, And hilariously, that is a title that if this happens, they're going to hold that title for like one month before this ups striker places is the.
Largest strike in the US since the nineties. Yeah, Yeah, it's gonna be wild. If we go on strike while you know, Saga AFTRA is on strike, and while the Writers Guilder are on strike, that's going to be over half a million workers on strike in this country at this time, and that is just going to be you know, it's gonna be fucking historic.
Right, Yeah, And there's and there's a chance, depending on how long these strikes drag out, that we get to like September, the Big three Auto the UAW goes on strike, and if that happens, that that will be like the most number of people who've been on a strike in this country since like the fifties, which is wild, especially, you know, because this is supposed to be a sort of like, I don't know, I think that's sort of the especially interesting thing about this, right is that actual
union density is really low and hasn't been increasing that much. On the other hand, and like everyone seems to lake unions and everyone wants to go on strike, and I don't know, it's it's a really interesting sort of set of conditions right now.
Oh yeah, oh yeah. I'm very heartened by, you know, the support that unions have garnered, because as you mentioned, you know, we are at a low union density. There was like that labor decline that happened, you know, since the fucking like seventies and eighties, right, like the backlash to organize labor. I am very hopeful that this this
strike wave can kind of turn that around. Right. You know, something that I've been thinking about a lot is uh, you know, it's like ups is a is a major, major company in a whole logistics sector, right yeah, and like we can set that standard for that logistics company or like a piece of shit company like Amazon in So if we win, and we win big, that could absolutely encourage more organizing in those other sectors, leading to an increase of union density. So hopefully that's like the
way forward past all these strikes. It'd be great. It's sorely needed, sorely.
Needed, absolutely and even beyond you know, the logistics industry. You know, I think we can show that you know, any you know company or corporation that you know, year after years making these record break and profits, you know, while meanwhile there's poor wear conditions or even unsafe work conditions. You know, there's pay that does not you know allow you know, us to pay rent, but food on the table.
You know that we can just show that. Okay, you know, we're done, you know with giving all of the wealth that we're creating to the company, and now it's going back into our hands.
Yeah. And UPS fucking created thirteen billion dollar profits last year. Yeah, yeah, and that's up from I was just reading an article this morning and Jacobin written by a fellow UPS team star, and that's up from six point five billion in twenty nineteen. And they're also giving.
Doubled the profit. They've overdoubled the profits and like to reach they.
Were doubled their profits. And they keep trying to tell the union that, oh, no, I'm just a poor popper.
We don't have money for your demands, like we're just we're just so poor, and it's like there, meanwhile, you know, they're given their fucking like CEO and shareholders like dividends and stock buybacks and all of that in addition to the profits that they are reaping, right, because profits is just the cream of the crop, right, Like that's everything past business expenses, what they're paying out like salary, so that's not even being touched. And yeah, no, it's time
for us to say we want that. We created that.
So I think that leads you to sort of the next thing I want to ask about, which is, can you talk a little bit about what the sort of specific grievances were that that kicked this off. I'm assuming there are a lot, because you know, this sucks.
You know, and there is a wide range of conditions because you know, for a long time, you know, the contract hasn't kept up with both like economic and non economic side of things, you know, and we have kind of two dynamics where there's you know, well over a majority of like part time workers who aren't getting enough payer hours, you know, to afford to live. And then we also have you know, the full time workers who inside warehouse could be working you know, ten twelve hour shifts.
You know, we have drivers who are doing you know, twelve hour shifts, and you know, even up to like fourteen hours you know, every day and then also getting you know contacted to come in you know on their day off to do six day weeks.
You know. Of course on the driver's side.
You know, we have these escalating temperatures and meanwhile there's you know, no air conditioned ers in the vehicles and same you know thing in the warehouse because personally, you know, I work inside warehouse as a loader, so I'm spending you know, virtually all my shift in the trailer loading boxes.
You know, there's no airflow. Those things, you know, can you know be five to ten degrees hotter, you know, like at a minimum than the ambient temperature last summer, like on a mid ninety day, I recorded one hundred and eight degrees you know inside the trailer. So you know, there's not necessarily any kind of protections currently for that. So you know, that's one big lack in the contract is having those kind of you know heat heat protection and you know.
Prevent that is yeah, I mean that could just kill people. And we've talked about on the show before people who've died like working conditions like that because you know it was it was too hot, but their bosses were like, fuck you, we don't care, like keep uploading this stuff.
Yeah, and it's absolutely tragic. I know we had a you know, UPS team stir I believe in California who died due to the extreme heat conditions last summer. And also no, you know, there was another case where I think a driver stopped at like a convenience store to buy a drink and you know was fired. Were making you know, an off route stop even though they tell us, you know, take breaks when you need it, but they don't actually mean it.
Yeah.
Yeah, because obviously, you know, you want to be being disciplined or fired.
One of the things that I saw was part of negotiations that UPS had offered to be like, oh well, put in air conditionings in all new vehicles. And I was looking at this and I was like, this is this is the Clean Air Act loophole. I remember this. If you only specified new vehicles, I'll just never replace the old ones.
Absolutely. And you know with these companies, they're going to be looking for those loopholes, right Yeah, And like I don't know that I've seen a vehicle that looked new. When I'm at my hub, I'm also inside worker and Yeah, they all look like they've been around, been around a while, and I don't know that they've been spending the capital to get those new vehicles. So that's absolutely something that we're gonna you know, keep their feet to the fire on,
so to speak. Yeah. And then in terms of other conditions that are like really leading up to this right now, there is a big problem with MRAs. And know not the MRAs you all might be thinking of, this is a market rate adjustment and both are bad. Both are bad. We are staunchly against both MRAs. And essentially what an MRA does is it it sounds good at first, you know, it gives the company leeway to you know, potentially increase
our pay right beyond what's just stipulated in the contract. However, when you kind of get late into the contract, like you know, towards the expiration date, the base pay that was agreed on for the last contract is no longer acceptable. And while it gives them the leeway to increase our wage, they can always go back down to the lower wage should they choose to. And last year at the hub that I worked at, it was right after peak, in
peak season. We were hired on at twenty seven dollars an hour, and come February, you know, we're all walking into the job and there's one of the supervisors there who is frankly looking like she's not having a good time having to stop to talk to each of us to explain, Oh, yeah, so we are going to be bringing your pay down to fifteen fifty an hour. Jesus, but don't I know, I know, but don't worry. Don't worry.
There's an attendance bonus. There's an attendance bonus of one hundred and twenty dollars if you make all your shifts, and that really fucking sucked, like if you get like if you get sick, Like okay, so like at this hub that I work at, I work at one of the few hubs that don't have what's called the hourly guarantee. Most hubs have an hourly g If you're a part time worker, you have an hourly guarantee of three and
a half hours a day. So if they say that there's no work to be done, you can say I want that hourly guarantee and they either find you more work to do or they pay that out. And then for full time workers, that's eight hours I work at one of the few hubs that doesn't. It's a classification related to the type of hub that I am at. And uh so I'm only like, at this hub, I work maybe twelve hours a week if I'm lucky, So this is twelve hours a week at fifteen fifty an
hour with an attendance bonus. But if I get sick one of those days, that means I have a paycheck, a weekly paycheck that is going from roughly two hundred dollars to like maybe roughly eighty And that is just it's totally totally unacceptable the way that they kind of like, yeah, with the plague going on, yes, being sick is highly likely right now, and yeah, no, they're just kind of able to like yo yo us around on these wages like whenever they want. And so a demand that is
being circulated in the grassroots of the union. Leadership hasn't really talked about it to my knowledge, but there is a you know, a petition going around to have a starting wage of twenty five dollars an hour, and you know, right now that would only be because right now this year, I'm making twenty four and they didn't do that bullshit.
I think kind of an anticipation of the strike. They didn't want to make us, you know, more angry, and so that would only be a dollar increase for me, but also it would prevent them from doing that in the future.
Right.
Yeah, So, I like Reese, you know, also was affected by the MRA, but luckily not as severe. You know, my pay went from twenty six down to twenty three an hour, and of course, you know what ten eleven percent pay cut also same time inflation goes up, you know, ten percent. This was very difficult enough, let alone having you know, your pay getting dropped almost by fifty percent.
You know, there's multiple hubs in the area, and they're all just on different pay scales, you know, for the same kind of you know, same same area, doing the same work, and we had just have these like fluctuating pay scales, you know. I know for us, it was you know, right after peak season, and they're like, oh, thanks so much for the most successful peak season ever.
We made record breaking profits. We couldn't have done this without you, by the way, we're cutting all of your pay and now, of course you know we're getting paid above twenty five and hey, that helped their profits, so you know, it's absolutely absurd to say, oh, well, you know, we can't afford you know, these higher wages when they can't.
Yet they don't. Exactly, they doubled their fucking profits, Like are you kidding me? Like Jesus Christ, it's like they think we're fucking dumb. It's like no, like, our work far exceeded what you're paying us, like an unimaginable amount. And you guys like it was earlier on in the compln not earlier on. I think this happened maybe late June,
early July. It was they leaked, it got leaked their economic proposals for us, and they had the part timers starting at seventeen dollars an hour seventeen, and like, I just I don't think that's affordable anywhere.
I just think I'm gonna mention that I think is. I think it's really important, but it isn't particularly well in oursen. So you know, if you go back to like the regional flight fifteen campaign rights wage, like that wage, which was already like kind of nonsense in like twenty twelve,
like with inflation, that's like nineteen thirty. Now, Yeah, so this is you know, this is this is how much like inflation has sort of deteriorated wages and that, and that's just sort of like you know, the economic terms, like inflation is like the bundle of goods, right, and that that's not accounting for the fact that, for example, the increase in housing prices has been way higher from
this sort of like avig rated inflation, right. Healthcare costs are increasing higher from the sort of quote unquote Aviatrade inflation, and so like, yeah, it's like, yeah, this sounds like a lot of money. It's fucking like, no, sick simply is not.
Yeah. I heard at a at a rally not too long ago from one of the speakers for you know, it was a it was a team's rally that you know, we're getting our members hyped and all that, and one of the speakers mentioned that for our city, a minimum wage that could be livable would be twenty six dollars an hour. And I'm just like, yeah, that seems about right, and that's like the bare minimum. That's like, Okay, I can eat enough, I can pay my rent, and I probably don't have a whole lot leftover.
So yeah, especially when we have you know, like average rent you know, for one bedroom you know, around like fifteen hundred dollars you know these days, and so many landlords want you you know, want three times you know that rent and income. So you know, I was actually just kind of yeah, writing you know, or you know, doing the math last night. I was just like, oh, okay, so in my hours I would have actually need forty three dollars an hour.
Just to.
You know, be making three times the average monthly rent. Yep, yeah, yeah, So that's definitely why you know, twenty five dollars you know an hour is the minimum. You know that, you know, I think we can settle for. I would love to see it higher, but I also recognize you know, well, you know, maybe twenty five is still not quite cutting it, you know in a more urban area. But you know, there's going to be a lot of people that's you know, significant gains are going to help so much, you know,
to meet their material needs. You know, definitely have to you know, consider this as you know, big picture, this is a national agreement, and you know we've got to get that really solid foundation and then we can expand from there.
Yeah.
Well what the sorry as as as you were talking I got a thing saying that the team series have settled. What all right, think?
Oh my gosh, what the fuck.
They're back at the table.
Back at the negotiation table.
Jesus Christ.
They've only been at the negotiation table for like four hours.
Yeah, okay, okay, I got signal shots here. Yeah, Jesus Christ. Well all right, I don't know if were gonna leave this in, but yeah, we've discovered live on air that.
Yeah, Teamsters win historic ups contract. Oh we'll see.
Yeah. I'm also looking at this and see one of.
The Yeah, I'm at the teamster dot org website where they have an update on it.
Uh.
Yeah, at least, you know, speaking of wages, at least the first thing that I'm seeing is existing part timers will be raised up to no less than twenty one dollars per hour immediately. A part time seniority workers earning more under a market road adjustment would still receive all new general wage increases.
Yeah, yeah, this is Uh I'm not stoked on those wages. Yeah, yeah, no, I'm definitely I am twenty five or bust on this.
Yeah.
All right, so that does that will change things. That definitely changes the timeline because this still has to be sent out to be voted on and approved by membership. Yeah, and what we learned at the there was a call not too long ago where they kind of explained the process of it. So in the event that they would reach at tentative agreement that gets sent out to us, we vote from home, and it takes about three weeks
for it to ratify. There is still a possibility that membership could vote to reject it, in which case they would be going back to the bargaining table and we could potentially be going on strike then. But this does set it back by now three weeks. It'll be interesting to see what the TDU, which is the Team Service for a Democratic Union, which is a reform caucus inside our our union. It'll be interesting to see what their
line is on this. So, oh my gosh, what a what a bomb drop to get in the middle of a podcast.
Yeah, unfortunately, can't even speak to it since and a little bit of it.
Yeah, yeah, it Do they actually have the full agreement out or are they just do they just have this stuff?
They will not have the full agreement out, something that we've been having a little bit of fresh trations with within our union. Is that we do not have open bargaining. So bargaining happens Yeah, yeah, bargaining happens behind closed doors, and they occasionally give us updates about what's happening, but we don't really get to see the full picture until we're going to be voting on it. And h I
obviously think this is bad for a number of reasons. Yeah, one and a big primary one is these contracts that are negotiated. I was about to go get my copy of the contract I could show you, and then I remember this is a podcast, and that's not actually going to be helpful for.
Hey, we do we do. We do visual bits on this podcast all the time.
It's fine.
So the size of our pop our contract is about the size of a pocket Bible Jesus, it is. It is very very big, and it's you know, it's written in legally is and stuff like that, and so it's not very accessible to most of our most of our members. And so you know, if we had open and bargaining, if we had consistent like updates where like you know, our union leadership would be like, all right, so this is what we've agreed upon so far, this is what
we've rejected. This is what it all means, you know, in the lead up to like whether or not you vote no, membership could have a far more comprehensive understanding of what is in the contract instead of waiting until the very end as we got little bits pieces and snippets and then being like, okay, well read this and decide how you feel.
Yeah, I mean that's I don't know if if it feels like a system much just kind of designed to like railroad people into signing whatever contract negotiators agree to. Yeah, it is kind of a disaster.
And without that transparent see.
I mean, you know, you know, all of us rank and file members are you know, essentially being removed from the process, you know, being involved in the decision making, uh, you know, stipulating what's going to do it, you know, to meet our needs?
What what do we need?
You know, out of these you know, five year contracts, and you know, I think it was just you know, a few days ago, got you know, get an update from the local you know, basically a week before you know the contract ends, you know, and they're you know, talking about this is like one of the most transparent
contracts there's ever been. There's all these updates and you know, there's more rank and file you know, members involved in the bargaining, and it's like, well, that's great, you know that shows you know, how far you know, we've come, I guess. But also it's still just it's kind of sad to think that, you know, this, this process that's all bounded by NDA, is the most transparent, transparent it's been.
And and also the fact the fact that you're fighting this out live on air from like their press release that they put out on Twitter, it's like.
What yeah, yeah, oh my gosh, absolutely absolutely absurd. Yeah, so it seems like this is a this is an agreement that is going to be pushed by union leadership as a vote to vote yes on, which is a kind of a far cry from earlier in in July when you know, you when the team stories were telling ups you need to present us with either an agreement that we like actually agree with, or present your last best final offer by July fifth, right, Yeah, and yeah, yeah,
so yeah, we'll we'll see how how the UH rank and file react in the twenty eighteen contract. I know that the TDU tried to UH organize a vote no campaign and they did get a simple majority of the membership to vote no. However, at the time, and this has now been changed, but at the time, Uh, in our constitution, it would require a two thirds majority to have projected it and goes to strike Jesus Christ.
Was it was?
Was that? Was that because it was was that because it has one of those weird like electoral college systems, or was it like you need two thirds to project it?
Was a it was a you need two thirds. That has been changed. Uh when when Sean, when the Reform Slate was elected and they had their team Seris convention, they changed the constitution so that it would be a simple majority. So yeah, we'll we'll see what TD the line that TDU wants to take. And yeah, yeah, we'll see this. Uh, this certainly put puts a wrinkle on things.
I'm gonna be honest, I was actually really looking forward to strike pay because my strike pay would have paid more than my actual job does.
Yeah, And I mean I think there's like, I think there's a few things that we can sort of immediately talk about from this one is that it doesn't like nothing they've put out here from what I've read so far, I'm reading I mean literally, I'm reading from the teamster's website says you're doing anything about market rate adjustments at all.
Mm hmm.
And the second thing is that you know, you know, we were talking earlier before we knew that there was a strike about sort of the impact of this on the entire class, and it really looks like both the Teamsters and UPS, like you know, really wanted to cut a deal as you know, part of part of this attempt to keep everything going and to keep the stuff from happening, which I mean, I think makes sense, right if you're you know, if if you're UPS, you don't
act like we're we're having an actual sort of like workers and surtaincy like having having having a summer this hot, like isn't good for like, it isn't good for UPS. It's arguably not good for some of the more sort of like some of the more sort of conservative union leaderships either, who do who unlike a lot of workers do not want to be on strike because that like that cut that cuts into the sort of war chest of capital that they have to manage.
Mm hmmm hmm.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, uh they're you know, they're just recently on Twitter or excuse me, X it's X now. But just recently on Twitter, there was a fair amount of strike discourse. Uh yeah, and there was like you know, labor activists and stuff saying that, you know, like it's good, it's good for you know, if they reach a tentative agreement that you know sold this. Yeah, yeah, if they reach a tentative agreement that you know makes those material gains,
it's better to not go on strike. And like, I I know, I know, like and to me, that's like a little bit wild because one, there is so much and we could demand so much more, but also, like you know, collective action, you know, in order to be consistent, to be good at it, it requires you to undertake it, right, Like, and you know, when I think about like how our local is, they have a very service model orientation to unionism as opposed to an organizing model, and I, you know,
I was really under the impression that this potential strike could have kind of like you know, lit a fire under their ass and like kind of got back into like the organizing aspect of unionism, right uh, And like they weren't that great at that, I swear sometimes we would talk to them about like, hey, so like, have you tried likeabilizing members. Have you tried like showing up
the gates? Have you like you know, you can like there's like programs out there where you can text your entire membership about like you know, come to this like contract update. And it's like we were just speaking a different language. Like they just had no idea, Like they had no idea. And they would look at our union meetings where like, you know, we represent like I think over like a like I think well over like one
thousand workers. I don't have the numbers on that, so I'm not going to get more specific, but like well over that. And they would look at our union meetings where we have maybe fifty to seventy people, and they're just kind of like, well, this is just as good as it's going to get.
Yeah, And that's nonsense, Like it's nonsense.
It's nonsense, like you know, like back in the fucking like you know, from like the tens to the fifties, union meetings would bring in just so many people and they don't have anywhere near the like technological advance advantages that we have now. And it was just it's very much like, yes, you tell us about your grievances, we get those filed and we do make those like wins for you, and like that's that's good. Like, you know, there are some unions that barely do that much, and
the fact that they do that is great. But like you know, at my hub, I remember I was, I was talking to my carpool and he didn't even know who his steward was. And I'm like the only person that gives him updates about what's going on in the union. And that's just because like when I started working at UPS, I was just like, yeah, I'm gonna go to these fucking union meetings. I'm gonna find out what's going on.
I want to be involved. And most people, you know, it's just a job for them, and they don't know all the things that a union can provide for them or how a union can back them up. And part of that's because you know, union leadership, you know, has decided that that's not something they really they don't need to be engaged with the members as they could be.
Yeah.
Well, and there's there's a second thing there too, which is like, okay, if you are like you know, if if if if if you are someone you know, if you were in a position of leadership, and you're in your position of leadership because there's incredible base. There's like really really load attendance for union elections, right, really load turnout, which is which is usually true, right, Like union union
election turnout tends to be just atrocious. You don't actually want more people being involved because the more people that are involved, the more likely is it a bunch of people are going to show up in an election. Someone's good and you know when someone's gonna look at one of the deals you cut, it's gonna be like what
the fuck are you doing? Right, So there's there's there's a lot of sort of perverse intensive structures in terms of like just the sort of the basic organizational electoral structure that gets you, you know, like people cutting deals and culling and you know, like try trying to cut off the sort of like hot summer and its knees.
Yeah. I have something funny that's kind of related to that. So when we were voting to authorize a to authorize a strike, right, you know, we we did it and all of that, and uh, you know, Sean O'Brien announced that there was going to be voting at the gates and are our local. Initially it was like, oh no, we're just going to have people come to the hall between the hours of eight and ten on two specific
days and we'll do voting that way. Eventually, they did change it after they got pressure, i think probably from up top and below. But one of the members who is involved was like, oh no, no, no, no, like, it'll be better if it's just the people that are motivated enough to go, because they're the ones that are
going to like vote the thing on through. And that was just that was wild too, seeing that sort of perspective, because if we, you know, if the union is there, if like you know, our union reps, our business agents, if they're there, if they're constantly engaging membership, then we will all be on the same page. Like they're the ones that have all of the like, you know, the
like technical information. They're the ones that can really talk to they can talk to people about you know, like this is how much UPS is making and profits, this is like what they're paying our CEO. This is all of this. You deserve more and we're going to fight for it. And if they had those constant interactions, you would all be on the same page and we wouldn't have to worry about well, if there's increased voter turnout, it might make the vote kind of iffy, you know, like.
Yeah, there's definitely you know, that's been one of my biggest scripes is around uh, you know, communications, particularly you know from the local which is kind of practically non existent, and you know it's there's so many even like between new hires and you know, even people have been there a few years a part timers like don't know their rights under our contract and you know it was only because of organizing and you know, talking with people that
I know those rights and can you know the share that you know knowledge uh with other you know teamsters.
But it's kind of like, well, why why are we having to do this?
And I mean of yes, internal or organizing, you know, knowledge is super important, but it'd be nice, you know why, you know, why isn't there a you know, like a welcome packet.
Why are there you know, not more.
Maybe not like full meetings, but at least something where you know, our union officials can meet with rank and file members. And I think I'm partly you know, speaking to that because you know, the shift I work is during union meetings, so you know, attending those is not you know, not quite feasible, uh, you know for me or other people on my shift.
And I know that's also kind of seems like it's led to this like some.
Contempt for part timers like oh, we're not involved, you know, we don't care. But it's like we don't you know, we don't necessarily know you know, about the meetings or that you know, there's the scheduling common or you know, again talking about like we don't even know what our you know, basic rights are you know, under our contract.
Well, it's like a like you can't you can't not explain to people. You can't not onboard people and then complain that they're not onboarded, Like come on, this is.
A sad self fulfilling prophecy there.
You know, you're creating the outcome that you think you know already exists because you're not engaging members.
So there was another thing that I wanted to talk about, which is that there's been a lot of like I don't know, I've been seeing this in sort of various places in the discourse talking about the strike, which is that there's a lot of people who basically are holding onto the notion that a people don't want to strike and b that like striking is bad and that you
should want to do it as little as possible. And you know, this pisses me off for like a lot of reasons, one of which is that, like my grandma was a teamster and she was a she was a union punch card operator, like back in like the seventies
and eighties. And you know, my grandma is like like not like a leftist, right like she we have to stop her from giving money to the Fallen Gong, like she's so you know this, this is the kind of thing super dealing with you, right, But like she loved going on strike, right like, And that's the thing that like my family, who's not like particularly sort of labor friendly or like, oh yeah, no, we love going on strike.
Because that's that's why she has insurance, right because the team shairs were going with like any eighties teams just go on shrike. And I you know, and I think I think that's everything that's like this, you know this kind of well, okay, then there's two ways to look of it at it. One is that it's a fundamental misreading of the situation that's happened right now, which is, no, people absolutely love going on strike. People are really excited
to go on strike. People who people whose politics are not like you know, people whose polities are not aligned with the left, really like going on strike and are really excited about it. And this is something that's happening sort of irrespective of this. There's been a bunch of wildcat strikes. This is something that's been happening sort of irrespective of like actual union membership as people what to
do this. We've also seen sort of the great resignation over the last few years of you know, what is effectively a massive like part of the reason the conditions for labor are like this strong right now is because there's been this massive informal strike of people just sort of of people you know, walking off the job, like
deciding their job fucking sucks and quitting. And that's been putting a lot of pressure on employers and you know, and it's simultaneous this, you know, I think, I think the reading of this that's more sort of cynical is that like, these people know this, right, they know that people want to go on strike, and they're looking at it and they're terrified, and their conclusion is like, we have to fucking stop, you know, we have to stop this wave of labor militancy before it gets going, because
if it gets going, you know, if you're like, if you're you know, like a sort of centrist liberal politician, or if you're like a conservative union bureaucrat, like that's terrifying for you, then there's you know, there's there's a lot of people who have a lot to lose if if you know, like if really sort of a president wave of labor militance he gets going.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Uh.
You know, when I think of, you know, people in wanting to go on strike, I guess I'll touch on two things here, which is that you know, at my hub, whenever we talk about going on strike there, you know, there is a sense that, yes, people really want it, and also they're really worried that they aren't going to be able to that, Like, you know, we're going to get this kind of agreement that most people will want,
and it's not going to happen. And we've had all of this build up and you know, it's kind of kind of you know, fall flat. And then you know, also I've spent a fair amount of time on UH on picket lines as like a community supporter. And you know, there is something incredibly magical about being on strike, you know, like there's often just this outpouring of community support for the workers, right, and workers get to see that their labor is extremely valued by the larger community, and I
think that is really important. I think that builds bonds of solidarity. And you get to see the other unions who come out and support of your strike, and then you know, you go and support them, and then it creates Yeah, it creates these bonds that you know aren't really they can be achieved without it, but it's just so much more bonding. I guess I'm going to use the term bonds a lot, but and there really isn't
a substitute for it. And you know, and then people also they get to experience the power that they have as you know, as labor, right like they be can they realize it's like oh wait, no, like I'm on strike and this company is like the shit is hitting the fan for them because they don't have us who know how to do our jobs in there doing them right.
Like you know, I was at a picket line for this other company a few years back, and like the workers there on the line were constantly giving the updates. They'd be like, yeah, man, it's wild I heard in there that like, you know, the managers are trying to do our jobs and like none of what they make is edible, and they're.
Throwing it all away and like breaking.
The machines are breaking, like ye, and so they're one. They're seeing that, yes, their labor is specific, it has value, it is necessary and crucial, and they are getting that community support and you know, there's not a lot of other opportunities for those realizations to happen.
So yeah, and I mean there's something that like i've literally you've seen this, like our teachers' union. We've talked about this a bit on the show, but like our local teachers union in Chicago, Like god, you know, they got to reform caucussy and they're not perfect, but you know,
they're they're much better than what was happening before. And you know, and one of the things they do is they've they've been on strike a lot of times in the last about deck like decade a decade, bit over a decade, and it changed the city, like Chicago is a you know, it was for i mean decades, decades and decades, this just like interminable machine run like neoliberal hellhole.
And you know, I mean, I'm not going to say like Chicago's like some kind of like you know, like beacon of the left or whatever, but like the city
is just different after it. And it was just the one truck they kept they kept going on the Shrike, and they kept going on the Shrek, and you know, you can you can look at the quality of their wins and you can sort of like you know, like I mean, there's not like I know, I mean, like I know people who like have quibbles with sort of like exactly what happened in the contract negotiations, but like you know, they they went on strike multiple times and they won and that really and then you know, the
every thing happens is the thing you were talking about, right, is like suddenly you're at these pickets and like the entire community is showing up, like everyone's showing up with food. Like it it changed, it changed the city. And you know, and I think this guess is an everything I think is important here about and what's you know, sort of
the potential is being averted. Is the interesting thing about this strike wave is that we've had a number you know, we've we had like the whole we had sort of the wildcat teacher strikes in twenty seventeen. We've had a
couple of a couple of waves of teacher strikes. But like most of the strikes that have been happening at public sector unions, we haven't had these giant strikes other than basically, I mean, there there's been some, right, there's there's there's been a lot of strikes in the healthcare sector.
We haven't had a strike like at this scale in the private sector in you know, outside basically like the Team Series and is like set the Team Series and like the Guild are like the only two big unions on that scale who go on strike like even kind of regularly. Even that's like that's like a once in like twenty year thing, right, And so I don't know, like I think, I think just sort of the potential
of what's being lost here is enormous. If if what happens is that this deal, which is like I'm not great from when I see it from the initial things, although again, like we still don't fucking know what's in this deal, and we're not going to for like a bit at like at least until they fucking release the thing. I don't know.
Yeah, I mean obviously, you know, we'll we'll we'll have to see, you know, what's what's in that agreement. Yeah, but you know, at least just you know, for you know, my own views. You know, it's any you know company you know that's paying you poverty wages or you know, there's unsafe work conditions, and just seems like, well, on principle, there needs to be a work stoppage, like that's you know, if you're going to treat people that way, that's just the result.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Something that I'm like kind of thinking about right now is like, so like the twenty one h seventy five I believe it is for part time workers. You know, that is a significant increase from the fifteen fifty, but we're just at the beginning of our five year contract.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, like I feel like, you know, like it's being viewed as like, oh, well, that's like okay for right now. It's you know, kind of not but it's really just not going to be okay in five years. When we have to have these contract negotiations again, and because we're not starting out with a solid twenty five dollars an hour, we're going to be playing catch up to what is not really okay right now. Like it's just gonna like it's like it's just going to keep happening.
You know, by the time we get to twenty twenty eight, you know, we'll probably get up to twenty five dollars an hour maybe, but by that time, you know, who knows what we're actually going to need in order to survive in this economy. Yeah, so, you know, I feel like that wage is just not it's not proactive enough for what we're going to need in the coming years. And you know, in there there is stuff about like you know, wage increases for like you know, however long
you've been there and stuff like that. But yeah, I you know, you know, like I graduated from high school in like two thousand and eight, and I just feel like the my entire life, the economy has just been fucking shitty. And when they tell me the economy is great, my finances are still fucking shitty.
This is they're one of one of the old twenty eleven slogans that like, well, I guess it's also two thousand and eight slogan that like people need to fucking remember is that the when the bank takes your house, GDP goes up.
Right.
The economic indicators that we have are are you know, they're they're Bushwa economic indicators right like they are they are They are designed to measure how well CAPP is being extracted from you.
Mm hmm, yep, yep, yep, yep.
Definitely no reflection on our actual you know, day to day lives, you know what what.
Our needs are.
Oh yeah, and hey, some people made money off of your labor, so things are good unless you know you're the labor.
Yeah, And like you know, I think, I think, and everything that happens a lot is like yeah, like you know, it is entirely possible that a bunch of people who are you know, making like seventy thousand dollars a year are fucking doing great right now, and it's like, well, bully for them, like we're fucking not.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, and speaking to you know, to the you know what the things you know look five years out, which you know, it seems like, you know, things just kind of get exponentially worse.
You know, I don't know what you know the environment, you know what our climate's going to be. I don't know what you know inflation or food costs, you know it's gonna be and you know so far, you know, i'd need to see the you know what the tenet
of agreement has on that market rate adjustment. And then there's also the cost of living adjustment too, which at least what I believe is, you know, it doesn't kick into like you've been there for five years, so I guess you just aren't living for those first five years.
I don't know.
You know that my utilities and my rent waives my bills for the first five years that I worked for ups.
Someone someone someone, so someone also like, go find the statistics on how many people get fired at four years and eleven months.
Like yeah, and that's yeah.
I mean that's also when the pension uh minimum investment investment time is five years. You know, that's also something I've thought about. Well, what happens on a four years and eleven months is that when you know, now even got a bigger target on my back, it's like already have thorn in their side.
Uh, they they they they did the thing I said they were going to do where it says UPS will equip in cab, a c and all large v delivery vehicles, sprinter vans and packaged cars purchased after January first, oh, twenty twenty four. Fans are getting cars getting two fans in an induction event in the cargo compartment, which is good, but also not air conditioning.
It's not air conditioning and it gets very hot in those trailers. And yeah no, it's like, yeah, in all large except you know, all things purchased after January first, twenty twenty four.
Yeah, so it's just like you know, yeah, it's like they will start purchasing cars again in like twenty ninety four.
Yeah. Yeah, nothing in there about retrofitting those cars. Well, I think tersting cars.
I think they're well, okay, I don't know. This is another thing, like it's it's unclear to me exactly what a lot of this means because we you know, like we we were like we can't get the actual contract, which is yeah, like yeah, so this is do we need to I guess also like prefaces like this is what we're not doing legal analysis of this. This is our speculation based on what we're reading. This is this none of this constanity's finding legal advice?
Yeah, but yeah, yeah, hey I just work here.
Yeah. Another thing that I'm like noticing in this contract. So another big grievance that was had was the lack of full time positions and so like, if you want to get a full time inside job, you know there is a seven to ten year wait list for that, right.
So this US, this tenetive agreement stipulates that there will be a creation of seventy five hundred new full time team shore jobs at UPS and the fulfillment of twenty two five hundred open positions, but it doesn't specify if that's going to be for inside work or for uh, you know, more more drivers. And you know I have I have epilepsy, So I Am not going to be a driver. Uh that's just doesn't seem ideal for me. And yeah, I would I would like to see some
numbers on Uh, so that wait list is that going down? Like, because that's like what I'm waiting for is to be able to you know, snag one of those full time inside positions. But I don't know, and like when you think about you know, seventy five hundred full time positions. It's also worth to keep in mind that ups employees three hundred and forty thousand people.
So it's like, yeah, wait, yeah, so that's a two percent.
Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's like two percent. And like admittedly, like you know, forty percent of that workforce is already like they're full time drivers, but so that's like sixty percent of that is part timers. And you know, I'm not going to make anyone do more math, but seventy five hundred for sixty percent of three hundred and forty thousand people.
Is.
It's not as exciting as just seeing that number itself, yes, right.
Which is like a shook, Like and this goes into something you know, I've noticed, you know, with you know, coworkers, which is always talking about you know, you know, we need more hours and that you know.
That that is true to a degree. You know really though, it's like, well we need more pay, you know, I you know, I think that's you know, would be a sign you know, it can be you know, like a really strong union is that you know, we can even just say, yeah, you know what, maybe people shouldn't be working seventy hour weeks. Yeah, you know, maybe we should cap that at thirty with you know PT pay that you know pays like full time. But of course, you
know we're not there. You know, we need these jobs that can actually provide you know, definitely not going to knock that, but you know, would definitely like to see that overall shift kind of just you know, in our culture of you know, we don't need to work more to have our needs met.
I think it's also sort of important to understand about ups jobs. It's like you're fucking destroying your body. So especially if you're like if you're if you're if you're one of the people shorting packages like you are lifting like you were lifting like thousands of packages a day. These things can weigh up to like eighty fucking pounds.
They can weigh up to one hundred and fifty.
One hundred fifty Jesus Christ never.
Mind, Okay, one fifty is the other limit. Seventy pounds is where you know you can do team lift. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Like talking to a feeder driver recently, was talking about having a you know, two of those trailers hooked up and weighing in at something like seventeen thousand pounds on the scale Jesus obviously you know that's the cabin engine included, I believe, but you know that's not my world. I'm kind of completely unfamiliar with that side
of things. But still, yeah, it's like a lot of weight, you know, is we're carrying so many packages every day.
Yeah, and it's a lot of wear and tear on the body.
And management's always pushing you to move faster too.
Yeah.
Like I had a uh, a worker who is a feeder driver for another hub, and she was telling me that a supervisor there was telling newly hired part time employees that it's actually safer to work faster instead of slower. What. Yes, Yeah, that makes no fucking sense, no fucking sense at all. And like one of the reasons they have an incentive to make us work really fast, which is that the full time soups get a parts per hour bonus, uh,
depending on how fast we go. So you know, they will harass you into working faster, even though you know we're moving these thousands of fucking packages. They'll harass us to move faster so that they get a bonus off of the packages that we handled, and moved.
I mean, like this last week in the you know, I think it was like mid nineties outside or something, you know, and we're not getting Oh do you need water? Do you need to rest? It was, Oh, you're not working fast enough. Like your packages per hours you know,
too low. You know, it's that kind of constant you know, harassment or you know maybe sometimes like you know, I know, my supervisors a little bit more subtle about it, you know, versus you know, outright being like, oh, you need to work faster, because that's the thing is in our contract. You know, there's no kind of productivity quota. You know, we work safe, we follow the methods. That's something I really try and you know, really focus on because you know, ideally, you know, I want to you.
Know, I would like to be here longer.
Yeah, silly enough as that is for job with terrible conditions, but.
You know, also it's a job that has ASI.
And that yeah, that's the big thing.
And it's like, I don't you know, what's a pinch you're going to do if you know, I'm you know, have some kind of you know, grave injury from from the jobs, but.
Still, yeah, you're dead with heat exhaustion, it's like, well, a pension doesn't pay out, like.
Yeah, it's just it's just yeah, it's wild. It's wild. Man. I am going to be really excited to see how this, how this smoke goes.
Yeah, it's gonna be an interesting day at work.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure that I'll have those people that know that I know about the union come up and talk to me to ask me what I think about it, uh, because I'm the only person they know that knows anything about the union, because, as we talked about earlier, union reps just are barely ever there. Yeah,
and yeah, we'll see, we'll see. Man. That's I'm just now really thinking about that seventy five hundred full time jobs three percent, two or three percent, depending on the metric that you're looking at.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean not enough.
No, no, no, wild wild. And now that as is a at best, a delayed opportunity for a strike to build those as we talked about earlier, those necessary, necessary muscles that need to be exercised. Yeah, and that's at best. You know, we might have we might have missed it.
Yeah.
Yeah, well we'll see, we'll see.
Yeah.
That fucking sucks.
Yeah, what a curveball to get for the podcast.
Well most unless you have anything else you want to talk about. Yeah, actually going to wrap up this incredibly chaotic episode that could happen here in which we discovered the chaos of a not open bargaining process and what that looks like live on air.
Yeah. Yeah, exciting times. But yeah, I think I think I'm good. I feel like I hit all my notes and some that I wasn't even planning on hitting because we had this new information, so.
Right, good lord, that was like we couldn't have been like an hour earlier, so I could have at least well, you know, you can join us next for the live analysis of the over three hundred page contract.
That we got, like just the highlights.
Of Oh yeah, but thank you you both for thank you both for coming on. And yeah, I guess I guess if the strike happens, we can talk to you again or maybe also if it doesn't, I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely thank you for having us on. Yeah, I love to stay in contact to talk about if we do go on strike or you know, if we don't, would love I would absolutely be open to a follow up on that.
And yeah, okay, so where can people go if they want to support like the strike or also potentially the rake and file workers who are trying to like make sure it happens.
Yeah, I would say that a good place to follow, or like a good source I guess to follow would be to follow the team Service for a Democratic Union. If there is going to be any movement that is in the union that's organized, it's going to be coming from them most likely, So they are the better version I would say to follow on that front. And of course you can still follow the regular Teamsters page and stuff like that to see what's going on. But yeah, yeah,
it's gonna be weird. I don't know what the TDU line is going to is going to be on this, so.
It's like we'll see and you know, hopefully, you know, if we can strike obviously, Yeah, come out to yeah, support your fellow workers, and you too will also be able to coordinate, you know, with rank and file on union reps, you know what kind of needs there might be out on the picket line.
Yep.
Yeah. Also and yeah, thank you yeah very much for having us.
Yeah, thank you for coming on. Yeah, this has been nicking up here. Go on strike, don't let your leadership tell you not to go on strike. Simply do the big and organize so you could do it again.
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