Teamsters Rally For UPS Contract
In what was the last of approximately fifty rallies held across the country in the past five months, over 3,000 members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters employed by the United Parcel Service rallied outside a union meeting hall in Nassau County, NY yesterday. With only one week left in the contract reached between UPS and the Teamsters after a fifteen-day strike in 1997, the rallies---and a recent increase in the Teamsters strike fund---are a clear message to UPS that the union is ready to strike if a new contract agreement is not reached. The main areas of disagreement in the negotiations are management?s proposal to replace raises with profit-sharing, and the union?s push for UPS to offer full-time employment to a substantial number of the fifty-nine percent of Teamsters members currently working part-time for the company.