Maine UPS Workers with Teamsters 340 Prepare for Potential Strike

UPS workers with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 340 have been holding a series of “practice pickets” at nine UPS facilities around the state to prepare for a potential strike in August if the company refuses to settle a fair contract. So far the company continues to insist on a "cost-neutral" contract, despite nearly doubling their profits in the past three years. In 2022 alone, the company raked in more than $100 billion in revenue last year — its largest haul since the company was founded in 1907.

Teamsters across the country have overwhelmingly authorized a strike by 97 percent should UPS fail to come to terms on a new contract. Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien has made it clear that the 340,000 full- and part-time UPS workers won’t hesitate to strike for the first time since a fifteen-day strike in 1997 that cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars.

"UPS has a choice," said Teamsters President O'Brien at a rally in New York over the weekend. "They can respect and do right by working people, they can pay the wages that part-time and full-time workers deserve, and they can agree to terms on a strong new contract. Or UPS can wait until August 1 and regret turning its back on the hardworking people who make it a success. We are not backing down. We will take on this corporate bully for as long as it takes to get what we’ve earned.”

UPS workers who gathered outside the company’s distribution facility in Rockland for a practice picket on June 29 described how they’ve been working longer and harder than ever due to a lack of staffing to handle the massive volume of parcels that surged during the pandemic and hasn’t let up since.

“We’ve always worked overtime and that’s one of the good things about the job, working nine and a half hours a day, but now it’s turned into twelve and fourteen hours day,” said Brett Miller, President and Business Agent of Teamsters Local 340. “The drivers are out there until midnight some days and that’s become a real issue. They’re doing six days a week instead of five. Those are the things we’re trying to tackle at the national level and we’ve got four weeks to figure it all out.”

Although there are disincentives in the current contract for forcing drivers to do excessive overtime, the company chooses instead to settle all of the grievances and pay the penalties as a cost of doing business. James York, a 12-year UPS driver and Chief Steward at the Rockland facility, said he routinely clocks out well after 11pm after working a 13 to 14-hour day.

“I was driving home last night from Boothbay Harbor in pea soup fog and it was a slow ride. It’s easy to nod off and you definitely feel the fatigue day in and day out,” said York. “This is back-to-back, week after week of the volume and pressure the company puts on you to deliver everything. The mandate from the company is you have to deliver every package every day.”

Walking up to people’s doors late at night has also presented dangers for drivers. Drivers from the Rockland facility have reported assaults and guns and knives pulled on them by frightened customers.

“I’ve been here for 37 years and I’ve never seen drivers so exhausted,” said Local 340 member Todd Hersey, who also works out of Rockland “Lots of drivers here can’t even tuck their kids in at night.”

Hersey said he is particularly sympathetic to the company’s many part-time workers whose wages were slashed last year after receiving a pay bump to recruit and retain them during the pandemic. Part-timers technically start at $14.75 per hour, but UPS was forced to make wage adjustments due to the tight labor market. As a result, many part-timers began earning $18, $21 or even $25 per hour, but then had their wages cut by several dollars per hour last year as the company made record profits.

“People don’t realize how this is really labor intensive, back-breaking work. They have to offer them more than what the contract pays in this building to get them to come to work,” said Hersey. “I don’t know about you, but have you ever worked at a job where you startat a certain rate and all of a sudden the boss docks your pay $5 an hour and expects you to work just as hard? They’ve asked a lot of us during the past three years and these workers deserve a little bit of the gravy that comes in for all of our hard work.”

It’s shaking out to be busy summer for the 4,000-member union, which also represents freight drivers, University of Maine staff, firefighters, municipal employees and more. Local 340 members at UMaine are the midst of bargaining while another contract with ABF Freight expired on June 30 amid ongoing negotiations. Another Teamsters agreement with Force Freight expires July 31 while Local 340 members at UMaine’s newly privatized food service are set to begin bargaining a first contract with the company Sodexo in August.

With the UPS negotiations going sour, it’s possible there could be multiple Teamster strikes this summer and it’s critical that workers come out to support them on the picket lines if it comes to that. As Local 340 members are quick to point out, this fight is not just about UPS workers. It’s also about setting the standard for jobs across sectors and to inspire millions more workers to join the struggle for a stronger voice on the job, family sustaining wages, quality health care, a dignified retirement and a better life.

“We want to make sure that the jobs that grow out of this explosion of E-commerce are good, sustainable jobs that can provide for our families,” said York. “A lot of workers in various industries that were pushed during the pandemic are getting squeezed because the company learned that the best way to maximize profits is to wear down the workers, work them 60 or 70 hours a week instead of hiring additional staff. This fight around this UPS contract is a fight for them and the next generation of workers too.”

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