AP WASHINGTON -- The Teamsters union and United Parcel Service of America Inc. broke off federally mediated contract talks Saturday, and both sides indicated a six-day-old strike that disrupted deliveries nationwide will become a protracted fight.
"At this point, it appears it's just useless to continue any discussions," Teamsters President Ron Carey said. "It's time for us to start digging in."
UPS' final five-year offer included annual 1.5% wage increases for full-time workers as well as a $3,060 bonus. It also proposed withdrawing from Teamster multiemployer funds and increasing health and pension benefits.
The union, which relies on UPS to help fund the health and pension programs for its members regardless of their employers, rejected out of hand the proposal to set up a separate fund for UPS workers.
Okay, I'm glad you started this thread, John. I would like to see if we can get some people to post any actual occurences/decisions at companies that are suffering because of the inability to get parcels delivered.
I snipped the above quote from a WSJIE article. Since I didn't post the whole article, I am taking the liberty of posting it. It's mostly readily available news anyway. I wanted to point out that the pension fund issue is claimed to be the "real issue", and on this point I think the union position (in bold above) is unreasonable. Why should an employee expect a company other than his own employer to fund his health insur and pension?
Ron Carey is typical of the old-line union bosses, who don't understand business, and don't care either: You don't win customers by abusing on them. And the union is definitely abusing UPS customers, who WILL REMEMBER.
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