BOSTON—The Teamsters have marched into U.S. District Court in Boston, suing their biggest employer, UPS, over planned massive job cuts the union contends violate key provisions of its contract with one of the nation’s top two package delivery firms.
The union seeks a federal injunction and temporary restraining order to stop the cuts. The company calls the planned cuts the Driver Choice Program (DCP). The union calls it a second “illegal buyout scam,” similar to a smaller UPS buyout try last summer that flopped.
The key point, the union told the court on February 9, is to enforce its contract. “That’s why there are contracts,” explained Joe Henry, a veteran Teamsters organizer and activist.
“Clearly, this is a big violation of the agreement,” which the current Teamsters leadership of President Sean O’Brien—a Bostonian trucker—and Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman reached with the firm in 2003, Henry added.
“You can’t bargain outside the contract,” he said. One big violation the Teamsters listed is illegal direct dealing with the workers. Another is curbing the access and the rights of union shop stewards.
The conflict is important for several reasons. The 338,000 Teamsters who work for UPS, including its drivers, represent one-fourth of the union’s membership, and UPS plans to offer the buyouts to every driver. The number of Teamsters who are actual UPS drivers was unavailable. The union also represents package handlers, warehouse workers, and other workers at UPS.
The Machinists represent UPS conveyor and automotive mechanics. The Transport Workers represent UPS flight dispatchers. The Independent Pilots Association represents the firm’s pilots, who supported the Teamsters’ 2023 strike plan by pledging to refuse to fly. And Teamsters Local 2722 represents UPS aircraft mechanics.
A second important reason is if UPS succeeds, the firm would join the other big package delivery firm, FedEx, in having a non-union driver force. That would let it fire its drivers whenever it pleases, for any reason or none at all.
And a third is that if UPS wins, it could shovel even more cash in stock buybacks and dividend to its corporate chieftains and Wall Street backers. UPS garnered $8.5 billion in its most-recent quarterly report, and all but $1 billion of that went to the corporate honchos and the investor class, the union points out.
UPS Chief Financial Officer Brian Dykes told analysts UPS would save $3 billion if every driver took the buyout, Freightwaves reported. The last, failed, buyout try was greeted with such derision that Teamsters took to social media to video themselves burning the papers the company sent.
UPS isn’t losing money, although it told the Teamsters earlier this year it was laying off 30,000 workers and shutting 24 dispatch centers, which the firm said are “low-volume.”
That’s another violation, because the firm promised to add 30,000 jobs, not subtract them, during the life of the current contract. It also cut warehouses and jobs last year, Freightwaves reported.
That “low-volume” admission drew a deadpan comment from Henry: “They’re disguising their real purpose: They’re not making enough money.”
“For the second time in six months, UPS has proven it doesn’t care about the law, has no respect for its contract with the Teamsters, and is determined to try to screw our members out of their hard-earned money,” O’Brien said on the union’s website.
“If [UPS CEO] Carol Tomé has buyer’s remorse for the historic, legally binding contract she signed with rank-and-file Teamsters, that’s her problem. Our union will not allow UPS to inflate its earnings reports on the backs of Teamsters families.
“We’ve given too much to grow and sustain this company, and we will not be sold short. UPS must dismantle its illegal buyout program and resolve its contract violations in the courts, or the Teamsters will see this greedy corporation in the streets.”
The AFL-CIO’s Executive Paywatch reported Tome earned $24.03 million in calendar 2024, the most recent year available. Federal records show three-fourths of that total was in stock awards. Tome’s compensation was 436 times that of the median pay—around $57,000—for UPS workers, including the drivers. The median is the point where half the workforce (Tome included) is above and half below.
The international union had a few days’ advance notice of the buyout plan, which it used to craft the lawsuit.
UPS’s “Driver Choice Program” would give drivers a one-time lump sum payment in exchange for Teamsters legally committing to never work for UPS again, to waive their rights to unionization, “and to sacrifice a career’s worth of strong union wages, employer-paid health care, and guaranteed retirement benefits,” the Teamsters announcement of the lawsuit said.
It also would be open to all drivers, regardless of how long they’ve been behind the wheel of UPS trucks. The buyout plan last summer was targeted to the most-senior drivers.
Besides the direct dealing and cutting jobs rather than adding them, as the contract mandates, other UPS contract violations include:
- Lack of Information. The union states it issued over 57 requests for information regarding the buyout plans, which were reportedly ignored by UPS executives.
- Irreparable harm. The union’s motion for the injunction says the “irrevocable” nature of UPS’s separation agreements “would permanently damage the union’s right to representation and members’ ability to grieve terms of separation.”
The current lawsuit also notes the union won a temporary restraining order, sought by Local 710, against the failed buyout plan last year.
“This could be a very interesting period,” Henry comments. “They could go on strike.”
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