Massive Layoffs At UPS A Big Win For The Union!

I've now read a bit about this whole fracas, which has been going on for awhile now. Predictably, the union president tried to fan the flames of class envy. I found this:

"....[T]he Teamsters struck against 23 LTL carriers in 1994....Most of those 23 LTL carriers aren’t in business anymore, and the non-unionized firms that dominate the market now intend to stay non-union, viewing the experiences of the unionized LTL carriers as cautionary tales.

"The trucking industry has moved on from the Teamsters-dominated 1970s, when federal-government prohibitions on competition between firms meant the Teamsters could ask for just about anything they wanted. A minor win for the Teamsters at non-union carrier XPO was reversed...when XPO employees near Miami voted to decertify the Teamsters after only two years of representation. Their last stronghold is UPS...."

Some comments:

"I fully expect UPS to die before the decade's out. Business contacts in shipping departments have been complaining for over a decade about the damaged package rate skyrocketing."

This is significant since a lot of the people whose jobs are union-protected are not drivers but front-counter workers who don't particularly care whether delivery trucks have air-conditioning.

"UPS is an interesting example of a company that will eventually fail partly because of the union and the hindrance it brings to investment. Who would make investments to expand your footprint when there is a union ready to hold you hostage?"

As with any publicly-traded company, UPS's first responsibility is to its shareholders.

It looks like Keurig Dr Pepper drivers voted at 3 separate facilities in Wisconsin to get rid of the Teamsters. According to Freightwaves:

Local 200 has been representing us for the entire 20 years I’ve been working here, and in that entire time, we’ve had four contracts,” Cotts said in the statement. “All four have been poor. Constantly getting five-year contracts, which are of no benefit to us employees. Poor vacation, poor pay, subpar benefits, no real job protections. Our contract wages were way below standard for our industry.”

The article also mentions the union claiming a big win at US Foods but doesn't have information of the contract, and also a potential strike at Anheuser-Busch.

This just goes to show that local leadership for the union matters. Dr Pepper drivers at those 3 locations weren't happy with their contracts, but UPS and US Foods seem to be.

For some reason when clicking the link I'm trying to provide it pulls up page not found on freightwaves despite copy/paste. It may be due to TT censor putting stars in link as shown below.

Teamsters ousted at Dr Pepper Wisconsin, face off against Anheuser-Busch

Just watched the Baseball Series with my brother. In the early 1900's baseball players annually made in today's dollars around $73,000 per year.

Just watched the Baseball Series with my brother. In the early 1900's baseball players annually made in today's dollars around $73,000 per year.

In the 1950's, NFL players had part-time jobs in the offseason. They'd be making what truck drivers are making today if they didn't have the representation they have.

I'll give you guys who vote down the unions another chart with a pat on the back for ya:

The blue area is corporate profits. The red line represents the percentage of profits that go to wages. As you can see, profits exploded while wages sank.

I'll remind you of the previous chart I posted which shows that executive salaries have exploded compared with worker wages:

Also, the article that Rob posted (I fixed the link) is typical of modern news. The catchy headline talks about the loss that the union had in three locations, but 90% of the article is about one win after another the union has had in the past couple years. They've had major victories with numerous companies and I'll bet you're about to see another huge win at Anheuser Busch, who is struggling mightily still after going woke for a time there.

Just a handful of simple charts paints a clear picture of what has happened without worker representation in recent decades. It's shocking to hear workers fall for the corporate propaganda and blame the unions for the loss of jobs instead of seeing the obvious: overpaid management moving American jobs overseas while giving themselves raises they said they couldn't afford to give workers and politicians allowing them to do it.

I'm going to give you a list of things American workers suffer with today:

• Record high corporate profits
• Record high executive salaries
• Record low savings rate for households
• Record high credit card debt for households
• High inflation
• Unaffordable housing
• Record high immigration

This clearly shows that over a period of decades, our politicians and corporate executives have siphoned off most of the corporate profits for themselves, and you guys sit here blaming the workers for trying to get a fair wage.

Don't be so simple. Without collective bargaining, they're picking off workers like fish in a barrel and tricking you into blaming each other for wanting fair compensation.

Now, you might be thinking, "Hey, it's not my problem. I'm a trucker, and I make a great living."

Thank God that's true, for now. But how long will that last?

After all, don't we all 'know' there's a trucker shortage? Maybe overpaid truck drivers are part of the reason we're experiencing so much inflation in our society, right? They could sell that to the American people, who will say that our politicians better do something about this. What could they do?

Well, we do have a few million new immigrants that just streamed across the border the past couple of years. You don't think they'd allow them to get a CDL 'temporarily' just to 'help us through hard times,' do you?

Nah, they would never do that. But even if they did decide to pass some laws allowing that, there's no way they could pull that over on you guys. After all, you're all union-free, isolated individuals. You'll figure it out, I'm sure.

What's funny about it is that you would indeed figure it out. How? You would band together and go on strike is what you would do. Gee, where have I heard that idea before? Interesting how there's always only one real solution to the problem; to unite.

The largest union in the country is the teachers union. 15 years ago, the average teacher salary was 53k. Today, it's 65k. Less than 1k per year increase.

Professional athletes are not a real representation of unions. There's a very small percentage of them on the planet and the richest people are competing for their services because they generate revenue. Those numbers are also earned. For example, Brock Purdy made 900k in 2023. Patrick Mahomes is looking at about 53M a year. Their union should do something about that pay discrepancy. They do the same job, right?

The numbers NFL players make is tied to how many tickets they sell, merch they sell, advertisers they get and bonuses for performing well. Saying it's solely because they have a union is ridiculous.

The numbers NFL players make is tied to how many tickets they sell, merch they sell, advertisers they get and bonuses for performing well. Saying it's solely because they have a union is ridiculous.

I guess that doesn't apply to workers at Apple, Google, Microsoft, or any of the other corporations who are raking in tens of billions or hundreds of billions of dollars per year while their employees make $20/hr at the stores, right?

If the NFL players are getting paid based on the merch they sell, how did that system get put into place? Do you think the owners were just generous and said, "Listen, I would love to make $50 million this year but I'll settle for $20 million so that the players, who did the real work, can get better pay."

Yeah, that's why it's the way it is. It wasn't through forced negotiations, it was corporate generosity.

You guys go ahead and keep defending your positions, but all of the charts clearly show who's losing this battle.

Like I stated, it's because there are so few and billionaires are competing for their services.

Is there a limited number of cashiers in the world that Walmart and Target have to compete for?

My local Walmart DC has billboards up all over the place that advertise a starting wage of 27/hr. That's because the work is hard, not everybody can do it and they're competing with other warehouses for the limited amount of people able to keep up the intensive pace.

If the unions really are that effective, why does your largest union sector put up the lowest pay increases over time?

You ignore the failures of every other union and remained focused on UPS (which is laying off union employees all over the country) and the NFL. Those aren't real world examples.

Things just keep getting more interesting

Ford is looking at the Ky plant that makes the expensive units going on strike again

Molson coors Ft worth plant talking strike.

All this while we have the best self proclaimed pro union president in history.

I was always told as a youngster. Follow the money and the truth won’t be far away.

We are seeing unprecendented greed all over the place. Our Gov’t, big corporations, and the unions.

Personally I think if we could find a way to curb the ability for these 3 factions to interact where they see fit, and get them out of bed with each other we all would be better off.

I don’t know the answers, but common sense should apply, but I think that will never happen.

You ignore the failures of every other union and remained focused on UPS (which is laying off union employees all over the country) and the NFL. Those aren't real world examples.

What failures are we talking about here? Union wages have exceeded non-union wages in blue-collar jobs for decades. Union workers have had better job security and benefits than non-union workers on blue-collar jobs for decades. Even non-union workers benefit from the power of unions when the union operates within their sector. The power of the unions is so scary to business owners that they'll give their non-union workers whatever union workers get just to keep the unions out. If unions are so ineffective, how do you explain this phenomenon?

The failure we should be talking about is the failure of worker's wages to keep up with executive pay and corporate profits.

So, I guess what I'm wondering is, if you don't want unions, then what action do you propose workers should take? Obviously, the executives and politicians have worked together to move most of the wealth of our society from the lower and middle classes up to the upper class. That is undeniable. It's clear to see in the statistics. It's causing a massive drop in quality of life for most Americans and a massive decline in the average household's financial standing.

I can't imagine that you're ok with this. No one should be happy about this, except the upper one percent.

As I've stated, I'm not interested in forming a union, and I'm not calling on truckers to form a union or anything of the sort. What I'm trying to do, above all else, is point out the fact that forces within our society have conspired to drain the lower and middle class of their wealth and move it to the upper one percent. Not only are many people unaware of it, but they're actively helping the upper 1% by falling for the propaganda the elites hope would keep us from uniting.

You see it in the mainstream media on an hourly basis. They constantly promote some group within our society as "better than" or "more deserving" than another, causing us to fight amongst ourselves instead of recognizing what is being done to us. The corporations have done the same thing. They've put out anti-union propaganda, hoping the workers would fall for it and refuse to unite. When this happens, management has a free ride because they are united. So it's a united management against a divided workforce, exactly as they had hoped.

Do people not recognize this? Don't workers realize that as they wave goodbye to the unions they voted out, the management is throwing the party of the century because now they no longer have anyone holding them accountable or demanding better pay and treatment for the workers?

Have you never heard the expression "divide and conquer"?

Personally I think if we could find a way to curb the ability for these 3 factions to interact where they see fit, and get them out of bed with each other we all would be better off.

Clearly, a corrupt union leadership is of no help to the workers. The workers must hold the union leadership accountable.

I mean, think about this: if the workers can't figure out how to hold their own union leaders accountable, how are they going to hold corporate management accountable without a union?