With one week till the strike deadline, UPS and the Teamsters have agreed to resume negotiations on July 24. A deal is still possible and workers' pressure is proving effective.
The Teamsters have already won tentative agreements on several key issues. UPS has pledged to end two-tier pay for drivers, install air conditioning in new trucks, and curtail forced overtime. But the Teamsters aren’t celebrating yet. Instead, there is cross-classification unity for the union's remaining demand: higher pay for part-time workers. If UPS refuses this demand, then, as Teamster General President Sean O’Brien puts it, they are choosing to “strike themselves.”
In the first part of this episode, we bring you to one of several rallies happening at Teamster locals all over the country. In Long Island, solidarity abounded as Sean O'Brien, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the new president of the UAW Shawn Fain rallied for a just contract at UPS.
Next, Rand Wilson, a Teamsters for a Democratic Union organizer from Episode 2 returns to the show, alongside Misty Baker, a ten-year part-time UPS worker out of Local 651 in Lexington, Kentucky. You'll hear about the organizing going on around the country, the remaining issues in contract negotiations, and the propaganda UPS is putting out to pit worker against worker, and worker against consumer.
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Hosted by Teddy Ostrow
Edited by Teddy Ostrow
Produced by NYGP & Ruby Walsh, in partnership with In These Times & The Real News
Music by Casey Gallagher
Cover art by Devlin Claro Resetar
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Support the show at Patreon.com/upsurgepod.
Follow us on Twitter @upsurgepod, Facebook, The Upsurge, and YouTube @upsurgepod.
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Read about the actual largest single-employer in US history: Timothy J. Minchin, “'A Gallant Fight': The UAW and the 1970 General Motors Strike," International Review of Social History, Vol. 68, no. 1, April 2023, pp. 41 - 73.
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