The Teamsters´ reform slate that won the leadership can and must act quickly: All eyes are on preparations of the UPS contract negotiations in 2023.

By Jesse Dreyer and Nick Marrapode 

In November 2021, a reform slate won the national leadership elections of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). Within one of the most powerful unions in the US, with 1.3 million members, a new chapter of democratization and reorientation toward class struggle unionism could be opening. 

The reform slate Teamsters United promised to bargain hard against UPS in 2023, organize Amazon, and contribute to rebuilding labor. While some of the reformers came from within the old machine that ran the Teamsters bureaucratically through the practice of business unionism, the change is still a major accomplishment that could serve as a signal to open the floodgates for rank-and-file self-empowerment in the coming struggles. 

There’s no guarantee this will be the case — but DSA members, activists in the growing socialist movement in the US, can and should help to revive the proud, militant traditions of the self described “World’s Most Powerful Union”.

Where things are 

The reform slate, known both as “OZ” for the top ticket officers Sean O’Brien and Fred Zuckerman, and by the official name Teamsters United (TU), won every US region in the 2021 International Brotherhood of Teamsters internal election. It won by a 3 to 1 majority in the South, Central, and Eastern regions, and the Western region with 56 percent and only losing the Canadian region with 25 percent. (www.oz2021.com/vote-count). 

This victory was partly a response to brutal setbacks in the 2018 UPS contract, which instituted a two-tier contract for drivers (the most engaged and militant section of the workforce at UPS). So called “22-4 drivers”, named after the provision in that 2018 contract, make up that tier. The wages of the “22-4 drivers” are far lower than regular full-time drivers. 

Sean O’Brien, President of Local 25 in Boston and lead negotiator of the package division was fired from that role by James P Hoffa Jr. for a confrontational style of negotiating in 2017. The “Vote No” movement and anger resulting from the sellout 2018 contract built the apparatus of the successful 2021 Teamsters United campaign which was organized in 2018 and spent the following three years campaigning to achieve victory with O’Brien at the top of the ticket.

In 2023 the current UPS contract is up. The TU Slate took aim at the tiers within the contract as a major sticking point for negotiations, as well as strengthening contract language for the part-time workers who make up a significant portion of the UPS workforce. Some 300,000 members work at UPS and the UPS national contract is what other unionized firms often look to as a standard for Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) across industries. 

While many activists believe the IBT will authorize a strike on UPS in 2023 through a membership vote, there is no guarantee the trigger will be pulled. It’s not likely that the regular bargaining process will eliminate the current tier structure or provide substantial gains for part-timers without a strong commitment to internal organizing. The time for that organizing is now!

Critics of the Teamsters United slate argue the low turnout numbers show the lack of engagement in the union and underlines its decline. However, this is a double-edged sword. It is a tragic fact that fewer members voted in this election since the start of internal elections in 1991. It is also an opportunity for a new generation of Teamsters to effectively engage with the union and transform its consciousness towards a class struggle orientation unheard of in the go-along get-along business unionism of the past. Moreover, Teamsters locals with the highest victory margins for TU, such as 705 in Chicago, and 804 in New York, among others, did show an increase in overall turnout from the previous election. 

The OZ Teamsters United slate has been criticized for being insufficiently dedicated to reform, with only a quarter to a third of the slate coming from the decades-old reformist caucus, Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). However, because TDU activists were some of the most dedicated and crucial members among the rank-and-file driving turnout for the election, and because TDU remains able to mobilize large numbers of rank-and-file leaders, it had a disproportionately important role in platform construction and in the victory of OZ, which suggests it will continue to play a major part in the OZ administration.

[Pullout quote: Organizing in good faith with the incoming leadership alongside independent rank-and-file meetings, committees, social media groups and networks is the most viable path.]

More pointed critiques have alleged that TDU itself has abandoned the mantle of militant, member-focused reform in order to be part of the broader O´Brien Zuckerman / Teamsters United coalition. While it remains to be seen what role TDU will take in the organization as a member of the coalition, what cannot be denied is that before a single vote was cast TDU accomplished two critically necessary reforms which, even had OZ been defeated, would still have put immense power back into the hands of rank-and-file members when it comes time to negotiate contracts. 

Mandating rank-and-file workers be on all Teamsters bargaining committees, and eliminating the now infamous Two-Thirds rule were major victories. For these were tools the Hoffa administration used to approve the previous UPS contract that introduced two-tier pay, despite a majority of the membership rejecting that contract. 

While no grand pronouncements can be made at this stage about the future of TDU, OZ/Teamsters United, or any other tendency within the Teamsters, organizing in good faith with the incoming leadership alongside independent rank-and-file meetings, committees, social media groups and networks to mobilize our brothers and sisters towards a necessary showdown with UPS in 2023 is the most viable path to putting the fight back into our union.

What do we need to accomplish?

The last time UPS was struck successfully was 1997, when an unprecedented contract campaign fueled by rank-and-file participation led to a 15 day strike. It succeeded in disrupting 5 percent of Gross National Product, winning 10,000 new full-time positions, a 50 percent increase in pension contributions, and the biggest pay increases in any UPS contracts before or since.

Major contract wins like these, achieved through the self-activity and struggle of workers ourselves, is exactly what we need if we are going to build the militancy of the Teamsters, and demonstrate to unorganized workers that their best shot at a better life is through a union. 

While UPS Teamsters, especially full-timers, are proud of the high pay and look forward to a dignified retirement, in order to secure that income we rely on, it became the norm to work 50+ hour weeks, even for high-seniority “Regular Package Car Driver” (RPCDs). 

The second tier drivers, known colloquially as “22-4’s”, named after the contract provision that describes their lower status, work six day weeks often and maxing out on hours (working the Department of Transportation maximum allowance for commercial drivers) at 60 per week is a standard occurrence. 22-4’s can be forced to work the 6th day and have no ability to “bid” for a route of their own. Worst of all are paid a full $10 less per hour at the top of their wage progression than regular drivers (RPCDs), despite performing the exact same job, often covering the delivery routes of RPCDs when they take a vacation or sick time.

The issue, however, is beyond contractual terms. Overwork has become ingrained in the culture of many UPS shops, where even top-scale RPCDs accept 10 and more hour days as the norm because of the lucrative overtime pay. It’s analogous to a quote from a striking John Deere UAW worker:“You can make a lot of money if you live there”. 

The base salary at 40 hours per week for a top-scale driver is around $76,000 per year, not counting benefits or pension contributions. Workers rely on their overtime pay to boost their annual earnings to well over $100k per year. It’s the kind of money that allows UPS drivers  long-term financial stability with associated benefits like homeownership, sending children to college, and even living in single-income households. In order to access that standard of living though, what they give up is the time to enjoy it. 

UPS drivers miss out on time with their spouses and children, have less time for leisure activities, and because of the demands of the high volume holiday Peak Season, many have come to dread the holidays.   Instead of the season signifying time spent relaxing with family and friends, it has come to represent shivering in a poorly-loaded package car in the dead of night or cramming endless package volume into trucks, trailers, and delivery cars among the chaos of an overloaded UPS hub. 

UPSers need a better deal. We must demand a contract that will expand the pay and benefits that have been stagnant in the 25 years since the 1997 strike to the point that overtime pay becomes truly punitive on the company, so workers can have both generous pay AND the time to enjoy it with their families. Asserting those demands, building the internal support necessary for them, and holding our new leadership to the promises that swept them into office will be the work of socialists and labor activists within the IBT and the communities where we live and work. 

How can the Socialist Movement Pull the Trigger?

The 1997 contract campaign initiated by the administration under former Teamster president Ron Carey relied on mobilizing rank and file Teamsters. It’s a model that we should learn from and in many ways seek to emulate. However, we have a tool in our belt that Ron Carey never had: The emergence of a nationwide socialist movement committed to building working-class power through militant trade unions. 

DSA has committed itself at its 2019 and 2021 conventions to wholeheartedly supporting labor struggles and organizing, as an aspiration to once again merge the socialist movement with the labor movement. Though we are still in the early stages of our labor organizing in DSA, we have made some major strides in supporting labor struggles.

Chapters such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York DSA were early leaders in engaging with and encouraging militant organizing, experimenting with building community support during the teachers’ strikes. Since 2020, chapters across the country have learned from those early lessons to develop various methods of using the socialist movement support to assist workers in their struggle against the boss. 

For instance, Portland DSA  has begun developing a model of socialist labor activism and organizing that could be replicated to build an integrated national network that can help to mobilize the UPS workers who make up one of the most strategic blocs of organized labor in the American economy. 

Socialists should agitate for a more militant direct confrontation against the capitalist class, making clear the irreconcilable conflict between worker and boss. Wrenching workplace control away from management is a struggle that every driver and package handler can take up to disrupt global capital.       

Democratic Socialists Have a Role to Play

The Portland Model of Engaging in Workplace Organizing at UPS

In Portland, labor activists have developed a workplace cadre model other DSA chapters should consider implementing as part of the broader national strategy to reawaken the labor movement in the US. In six months of intense campaigning for the OZ slate and back-breaking labor on the job site, we’ve assembled a team of over a dozen DSA members in workplaces represented by the IBT. We meet regularly and are working on mapping our workplaces, planning to support contract campaigns for smaller shops within the local, building meaningful relationships with union officers, and having regular organizing conversations with rank-and-file workers to begin increasing the average worker’s knowledge and engagement with our union.

We are organizing through the guidance of our Labor Working Group in a body called the Logistics Sub-Committee. With the re-emergence of a broader socialist movement, we can direct members of DSA into UPS and work on building rank and file power on the shop floor in preparation for the 2023 contract negotiations. UPS has a low barrier of entry and with the broad economic trend known as “the great resignation” underway, it is relatively easy to convince workers in DSA to leave dead-end jobs and become employed by “big brown” with the promise of high wages, job security, healthcare, and a role in organizing for what is shaping up to be a historic contract campaign. 

UPS is a high-turnover shop, but with early intervention by higher seniority employees we have been able to prepare new recruits for the pre-seniority period by focusing on stress management, physical safety, and a social support system to aid in adjusting to a demanding workplace. It is best to recruit people to UPS either well before or after peak season as there are typically informal layoffs by the company at the end of that season.

Once DSA members have entered the workplace and reached seniority, we need to actively organize projects within the workplace and the local, building relationships among rank-and-filers and with local officers to aid our understanding of the political situation within our union, and build our own competency ahead of the contract campaign. While the IBT election provided us with the perfect opportunity to do all of this–operating in good faith with local leadership that had a stake in a victory for the OZ slate–socialist organizers will need to be creative going forward

Our long term goal is to develop an empowered rank-and-file capable of implementing militant, democratic unionism. The shared projects of reform and aggressive contract negotiation have allowed us to organize openly among our coworkers, make asks of union officers to assess their political priorities and test limits of their solidarity, and gain familiarity with the Teamster bureaucracy all without backlash from our leadership.

Now that the IBT election is over we are orienting toward smaller contract campaigns as dry-runs for UPS in 2023. 

Our hope is that getting involved in campaigns at smaller shops will allow us to gain valuable experience on how to execute a contract campaign, and should the workers decide to strike we hope to turn UPSers out to the picket lines in support of our brothers and sisters to gain the invaluable experience of walking the line, something few of our coworkers have ever done. 

Additionally, the Portland DSA Labor Working group is earning a reputation among local unions as a capable and valuable ally for workers striking their bosses ever since the stunning success of our campaign to support BCTGM Local 364’s strike at NABISCO-Mondelez. 

In an early demonstration of how our groundwork is paying off, members of our cadre, with support from longtime activists of the Labor Working Group, successfully pushed for Teamsters Joint Council 37 to endorse UFCW Local 555’s strike of Kroger owned grocery chains just days before they walked out. DSA members on picket lines were able to turn trucks away from the delivery docks and teach striking workers to do the same. 

We believe this kind of engagement is invaluable for assessing the organizing needed, helping to build the muscle we will need in 2023.

Taking the Portland Model Nationwide

The Portland Model involved active recruitment of unemployed and underemployed socialists, cadre building in the Labor Working Group, organizing rank and file workers, assessing local leadership, participating in strike support and other actions helped drive rank and file Teamster engagement. But we need a national network to expand and improve this work 

Informal networks have already developed in the years preceding this Portland push but we believe it is best to formalize these networks as part of a broader campaign through the DSA’s Democratic Socialist Labor Commission (DSLC) to help socialists build influence in Teamster locals across the country in preparation for 2023.

While we are optimistic about our chances at helping to build the militancy and capacity of our local ahead of 2023’s negotiations, we have benefitted immensely from connections with experienced organizers locally and across the country.  Many of those connections are fellow DSA members and lifelong trade union activists, creating an informal network of UPSers and DSA labor organizers from which we have drawn much  inspiration. Formalizing that network and building its capacity will be essential for socialists to play a meaningful role in what has the potential to be the largest labor struggle in more than 25 years. 

An essential resource for this project will be a labor staffer to help coordinate the work of DSA UPSers 

In order to form the national structure needed to play a meaningful role in the 2023 contract negotiations and, if successful, follow it up by using the reinvigorated socialist movement rooted in workplaces across the country into the struggle to organize employers like Amazon and FedEx, we will need to hold a conference to prepare to support UPS Teamsters in our contract campaign and potential strike. 

A conference could bring forward and debate concrete proposals on what form this work will take, involve existing national bodies such as the DSLC and National Political Committee (NPC) and solicit support from DSA’s national staff. Perhaps most importantly, holding a conference would also serve as an opportunity to promote the project within the organization, drawing labor organizers into supporting the project while educating potential rank and filers on how to get hired at UPS, form cadres, survive their pre-seniority period, and begin shop floor organizing with their coworkers. The conference could also inform members of other unions on the upcoming struggle against UPS. A reinvigorated, fighting Teamsters union would have an impact on many other labor struggles. In our time on picket lines at Nabisco and UFCW, both the power workers feel and the pain on the faces of the bosses when Teamsters honor the picket line was instrumental in helping those workers extract concessions from their employers.  BCTGM workers told us every day, “When you go out, we will be there for you on day one.” 

The process of building that seniority early will strengthen our position as Teamsters if we do walk out and bolster the standing of DSA as a serious and committed partner capable of providing meaningful support. 

With the transition to OZ leadership taking place in mid-March, we call for a conference to be held not more than a few weeks afterward, perhaps the first weekend of April. This will give the necessary time to organize it while allowing as much time as possible for the work ahead of us. 

If a labor staffer is hired they should be brought up to speed with the work of our comrades organizing within UPS, and dedicate some of their time to working with the newly formed Logistics Subcommittee of the DSLC. The staffer should help build out an organizational structure within the subcommittee for specific workplaces UPS, Amazon, FedEx, DHL and other delivery firms. For UPS and DHL both Teamster represented, these structures should be geared towards launching effective contract campaigns to engage the rank and file. Amazon and FedEx efforts should be focused on recruiting salts for long-term union organizing.  

Additionally, we will likely propose a regular feature of DSA’s Democratic Left print and website should contain regular updates on the project’s union organizing efforts. Organizing by DSA members in New York and Chicago has already provided inspiring examples of shop floor militancy that are needed in so many workplaces, and having a platform distributed to all DSA members to keep them up to date on what will be a massive class-struggle campaign can help to unify and mobilize the organization. 

Get a job at UPS, Build the union, Engage in the class struggle with 300,000 Teamsters

Get a job at UPS and engage in the struggle of 300,000 Teamsters, coordinating with dozens of DSA members across the country. Be the eyes and ears in your shop and local, and become a rank-and-file leader. UPS has locations across the country, all of them offering at least $15 an hour for inside pay, health insurance, and if you decide that this is the role for you then UPS is a place you can have a long term career in a union shop. This can be a great way to build your DSA chapter’s presence in the labor movement and it’s an opportunity for YDSA members: UPS offers an “earn while you learn” program which pays $5,000 per year towards your studies. Get paid to strengthen the labor movement and build a home for socialist politics in a strategic, powerful union. 

Our contract expires in July 2023. Join us in organizing a massive grassroots contract campaign. The ideal time to get hired is Spring through Fall of this year. These are entry-level jobs that don’t discriminate based on education. Build the union, and maybe even a career. 

The journey towards unionizing Amazon will be led through Big Brown. Take the journey with comrades.