UPS and the Teamsters union have reached a contract agreement, avoiding the biggest strike from a single employer in United States history.
The Teamsters announced the agreement on Tuesday, just days before the deadline for a strike would have hit. The two sides have been in talks for months, and negotiations went right up to the wire ahead of the July 31 deadline to come to an agreement.
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UPS confirmed the deal in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner.
“Together we reached a win-win-win agreement on the issues that are important to Teamsters leadership, our employees, and to UPS and our customers,” UPS CEO Carol Tome said. “This agreement continues to reward UPS’s full- and part-time employees with industry-leading pay and benefits while retaining the flexibility we need to stay competitive, serve our customers and keep our business strong.”
The agreement is noteworthy, given how much a strike would have reverberated through the economy and roiled supply chains. Some 6% of the country’s GDP travels through UPS, and the labor contract represents the largest private-sector union agreement in North America.
The Teamsters represent some 340,000 workers, and a recent analysis by Anderson Economic Group found that a 10-day strike would have cost the economy more than $7 billion — the most expensive strike in at least a century.
In a tweet after the deal was reached, the union touted: “We’ve changed the game.”
“Today, the [Teamsters] reached the most historic tentative agreement for workers in the history of [UPS], protecting and rewarding more than 340,000 UPS Teamsters nationwide,” the group said.
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The five-year agreement is still subject to voting and ratification by union members, although Dan Bowling, a distinguished fellow at Duke University School of Law, where he teaches labor and employment courses, told the Washington Examiner after the deal was reached that he expects Teamsters members to approve it.
Business groups had asked the White House to intervene to stop a possible strike, a move that would have been a politically challenging one for President Joe Biden, who has touted his union bona fides. Tuesday's deal is good news for the administration, given that it won't be forced into such a decision.