America is in the midst of the biggest surge in labor activity in a quarter-century. Auto workers, writers, actors, Starbucks workers, Amazon workers, UPS drivers, flight attendants – labor isn’t a ‘special interest’. It’s all of us.
UPS Teamsters used a strike threat to win big wage increases in their tentative agreement. Amazon workers are looking at the pay gains as proof they can do the same.
One thing is clear from the Teamsters’ recent tentative agreement for UPS workers: thanks to members’ organizing, it is far and away the best contract ever negotiated at the company. The problems UPS workers will have to solve now are good problems.
Amazon delivery drivers, employed by Amazon contractors, joined the Teamsters and won big gains. Amazon is fighting back, so workers are stepping up their struggle.
Teamsters have overwhelmingly voted to strike July 31. The vote doesn’t mean that a walkout is inevitable. The vote is a signal UPS management ignores at its peril. Most important, which side of the scale the Biden administration places its thumb.
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