COMP NEWS – UPS workers are set to deliver one of the biggest strikes the U.S. has seen in over half a century.
Jason Flynn loves one aspect of his part-time job as a UPS package sorter: He was able to get it in 15 minutes.
What he doesn’t love, he said, is earning $18 an hour pay to move 70-pound packages every few seconds, the “noxious” air from the exhaust of trucks and the “supervisors yelling at you to keep it moving.” Since suffering an injury earlier this year, Flynn said he has been able to work only one or two shifts a week at his Chicago facility, and has to supplement his UPS pay with dog-walking or food-delivery gigs.
“I have to constantly make up the money elsewhere,” the 32-year-old told CBS MoneyWatch. “I’ve been in near-poverty for a long time…. I would bike 40 minutes each way to work instead of taking the train,” adding, “I haven’t paid my rent yet this month.”
Flynn is among the thousands of part-time employees at UPS pushing for higher pay as the Teamsters union, which represents 340,000 UPS workers, and the delivery giant resume contract negotiations next week. If no deal is reached by July 31, the union has vowed to walk off the job in what would be America’s biggest strike in 60 years.
The chief issue driving the strike is a matter of pay, particularly the significantly lower pay that part-time workers compared to their full-time counterparts.
The major outstanding issue is pay, particularly for part-time UPS workers, who make up 60% of the company’s workforce, according to the Teamsters.
Part-time workers at UPS start at $16.20 an hour, according to the company. UPS notes that part-timers make an average of $20 an hour after 30 days on the job, while enjoying the same health care and pension benefits as full-time workers.
However, that starting pay is far below what full-time UPS workers make for doing the same job, many part-timers note. While neither the union nor UPS have disclosed the latest pay proposals on the bargaining table, some workers are pushing for starting pay of $25 an hour — the same amount they were making in 1983 when adjusting for inflation.
“I don’t think it’s asking anything crazy to have equal pay, doing the same jobs as full-timers inside the building,” Flynn said.
To read more about the impending UPS strike, click here.
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