File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_1997/aut-op-sy.9708, message 86


Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 10:36:49 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave-AT-mundo.eco.utexas.edu>
Subject: AUT: UPS Strike (fwd)



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 11:00:03 -0400
From: Sam Lanfranco <lanfran-AT-YORKU.CA>
Reply-To: Forum on Labor in the Global Economy <LABOR-L-AT-YORKU.CA>
To: LABOR-L-AT-YORKU.CA
Subject: UPS Strike (fwd)

______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________
Subject: UPS Strike
Date: Aug 13, 1997
From: Michael Eisenscher <meisenscher-AT-igc.apc.org

I attended the national convention of APALA (Asian Pacific American Labor
Alliance) today in San Francisco.  It was an impressive event attended by
more than 500 delegates from across the country.  At the dinner Carolyn
Robinson, Secretary-Treasurer of IBT Local 315 in Martinez gave a revealing
report on the UPS Strike.  She sits on the national bargaining committee;
she's been in negotiations for seven months.  She heads up the sub-committee
on safety & health.  Sister Robinson is the first (and only) woman to serve
on the national UPS negotiating team for the Teamsters.  She gave a very
revealing report with details that have not yet been released to the media.
She has given permission to me to relate them to you and intends to break
these facts shortly to the public. (I tried to note her comments as Carolyn
made them.  If there are any errors in this information, it may be that I
failed to accurately capture her comments.  I believe, however, what follows
is factually correct.  If others know differently, please provide
corrections.)

1. UPS has a rate of occupational injury that is three times that of
   the transportation industry.

2. UPS has one of the worst hazmat violation records in the industry.

3. EEOC has filed a class action suit against UPS for violating the
   rights of disabled workers.  Workers who suffer eye injury are
   entitled to be transferred to other jobs, but UPS has refused or
   failed to accommodate their disabilities.

4. UPS, unlike its competition in the package delivery business, has
   refused to invest the $55 per vehicle it would cost to equip
   their fleet with articulated mirrors at the rear of the trucks.  As
   a consequence, children have been injured and killed because
   drivers were unable to see them behind their vehicles.  Isn't a
   child's life worth more than $55?

5. UPS has consistently stonewalled union demands for appropriate
   safety equipment such as decent seatbelts, seats, and tires,
   and has refused to retire from their fleet trucks that have only
   single cylinder brakes.

6. On average, one UPS employee is killed on the job every month.

7. In Chicago a brand new employee (described as barely more than a
   "boy") serving his 30 day probation died of heat exhaustion
   while unloading a truck during one of Chicago's heat waves.  He was
   required to meet the standard of unloading 2000 packages
   per hour in order to make probation.  OSHA fined the company $5000.

8.  Packages presently can weigh up to 150 pounds each.  The company has
   refused to bargain over weight limits, reserving the right
   to require drivers to unload alone packages that could run 200 or
   more pounds.  When challenged, management told the union
   that if the driver needed help, s/he could ask the customer to
   assist.  Young, inexperienced workers are becoming disabled for life
   from injuries received at UPS, often their first real job.

Sister Robinson cited these as only some of the issues that are hung up in
negotiations.  While the issue of part timers and company demands to
withdraw from the union's multi-employer pension plan have gotten press
play, they are not the only unresolved problems that led to the strike.

She reports that the strike is 99% effective nationwide.

She also reported that the Teamsters have met with unions representing UPS
employees in Europe and they have established a World UPS Union Council.
Three strikers are touring Europe now, briefing workers on the strike.  They
spoke this week in Belgium, where the union at UPS responded by shutting
down the company throughout the country in solidarity.  She proclaimed,
"Belgium is shut down tight!"

Side Notes:

I was at the UPS picketlines in Oakland yesterday where about 1200 workers
are out solid.  Spirits were high and the mood good natured but whenever  a
"Brown Alert" was called as a management-driven truck returned (with two
managers in each) it became clear that they meant to take care of business.
(How many managers does it take to read a map or package address?)  In the
short time I was there, a delivery driver for the SF Chronicle wheeled up
and dropped off free papers, and a driver for Emory pulled up and unloaded
fried chicken and sodas he purchased with money collected from coworkers.

A picket captain with whom I spoke told me that he had personally visited
very one of his customers to apologize for the inconvenience and explain
what the company was doing and how they, not the union members, were the
source of the strike.  He is on a first-name basis with all of them, as he
has had the same route for 8 years.  HE is UPS to those customers.  The last
thing he did before walking out at the end of his last shift was to pull his
name plate off the side of the truck he drives so that no one would assume
he was driving during the strike.  His sense of obligation and
responsibility to his customers is not atypical.

It is early in the strike and union members have yet to miss their first
paycheck, but $55/week in strike benefits will not go far and it won't be
too long before they feel the pain.  When you go to the picketlines, don't
go empty-handed.  I was in the Mission District earlier this week and there
were several members of one of SF's numerous left groups out on street
corners with buckets collecting donations to the UPS strike fund.  We could
each take up a collection at work, call friends, and get organizations we
belong to to pitch in with money or in-kind contributions.  Most important
of all, however, is that there be a loud and persistent growing crescendo of
support for the strikers in letters to the editor, calls to talk shows, ads,
email and letters to UPS, etc.

We can't do anything now about Staley, Caterpillar, or the Detroit newspaper
strikes.  But we sure as hell can do something about the UPS strike and we
ought not wait until it has dragged on for a year before taking our
responsibility for solidarity seriously.

In solidarity,
Michael

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