WASHINGTON — Negotiations between UPS management and the Teamsters union have broken down, with both sides accusing the other of walking away from the bargaining table as a potential strike looms.
Early Wednesday morning, the Teamsters posted to their Twitter that an overnight negotiation session had collapsed, with UPS supposedly walking away from the bargaining table after presenting an "unacceptable offer" that the union said didn't address what its members needed.
A UPS spokesperson disputed the claim, saying it was the Teamsters who walked away from negotiations, and said the company stood by its offer.
"The Teamsters have stopped negotiating despite UPS’s historic offer that builds on our industry-leading pay. We have nearly a month left to negotiate. We have not walked away, and the union has a responsibility to remain at the table," the spokesperson said in a statement.
The union is negotiating a new contract for more than 340,000 UPS workers before July 31, when the current contract expires. Earlier this month, workers authorized a strike that could happen as soon as Aug. 1 if a final agreement isn't reached.
Talks had already stalled once before, last month, when union leaders walked away from the national bargaining table and demanded a final offer.
Teamsters president Sean O’Brien said Saturday at a press conference that their members would not continue to work past July 31 without a ratified contract.
Will UPS workers strike?
If workers end up striking, it would be the first time since a 15-day walkout by 185,000 workers crippled the company a quarter-century ago. A strike from UPS workers would be the largest single-employer strike in U.S. history, according to NBC News.
UPS has grown vastly since then and has become even more ingrained in the U.S. economy. The company says it delivers the equivalent of about 6% of the nation’s gross domestic product. That means a strike would carry with it potentially far-reaching implications for the economy.
The company delivers around 25 million packages a day, representing about a quarter of all U.S. parcel volume, according to the global shipping and logistics firm Pitney Bowes. That’s about 10 million parcels more than it delivered each day in the years leading up to the pandemic.
The union has been in negotiations with the package carrier since April 17.
In June, UPS reached a tentative deal with union leaders that secured delivery drivers with air-conditioned trucks for the first time.
The tentative agreement aimed to finally address delivery drivers' concerns with extremely hot temperatures. Heat-related concerns have been at the top of many UPS workers' complaints as temperatures continue to rise across the nation. In recent years, more than 100 UPS workers have been hospitalized for heat-related illnesses, NBC News reported.