Case Study: The United Parcel Service

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The United Parcel Service (UPS) is a US fortune 500 company founded in 1907, which is becoming one of today’s largest global largest provider of parcel delivery, with approximately 12 Million package a day and that of 80% of it prior to strike in United States. One of the major strategy of the UPS was to hire workers part time, which was indeed an attractive job to young workers, later on provided work with union negotiated wages and benefits. However there was little chance for part time workers to get advancement regardless of workers’ contract terms. The International Brotherhood of Teamster (IBT) which is a labour Union in the US and Canada formed in 1903 by bringing together several of local and regional locals of teamsters. The IBT represent …show more content…

The negotiations 2.1. The UPS workers strike was base on two main points, expanding the use of part time workers and taking the control of their pension fund by teamster union. First UPS were generating billions of dollars of profit a year but the had the no courage to payback or to support the part time employees. UPS wanted to hand out more work to the lower income employees and the UPS wanted to provide the high way drivers subcontracts in order to cut down the promotion opportunities to workers and this would lead to bigger issues to the company. UPS started to offer and increase for the lower income employees now than the past. Meanwhile, UPS knew that if no raise were provided to part time workers the gap between part time and fulltime employees would increase. However the concern of IB teamster union was that UPS didn’t want to hire part time workers for full time shifts, rather than this teamster wanted better opportunities for workers by safekeeping of UPS from giving away job in peak operation hours. UPS had also their vision clear and set on using part time workers to complete full time work with very less benefits growth. However the teamster union entrust the UPS to provide job security and better job opportunities, which they …show more content…

Overall assessment and result of negotiation UPS and teamster Union comply on 5 years contract, which settled the strike and put and end to it with following points. • Thousands of part time jobs were reformed to full time job. • Thousand of jobs should be available for non-union employees and contractors. • Reducing the salary gap between part time employees and full time employees, which is from 8,0$ to 8,5$. • The drivers working on holidays would receive remuneration. • Increasing the maternity and paternity leaves which are approved by medical leave act. This UPS strike 1997 can show us that low wage employees can accomplish their demands, when the play as team. Nevertheless the UPS workers show that, what you can achieve when you have the world behind you. The reasons behind the agreement: • Discrepancy between the Teamster and UPS comes because UPS was at a position of weakness • UPS was losing millions of dollars daily by not delivering packages • UPS was not well prepared for the strike, which put the Teamsters in strong position to build pressure on UPS to meet their demands • UPS bargaining power were not strong, which forced them to to make a deal in favor of the

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