For the last quarter-century, United Parcel Service has been synonymous with parcel post in America.
While the post office mouthed the words “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” UPS and its drivers arguably lived the words.
That image won’t change even if the Atlanta-based corporation begins hiring replacement workers to sort some of the millions of packages that are stacked up in its hubs around the country, experts agreed on Sunday.
“The question is: Do people want to get their packages or do they side with part-time workers?” said Douglas McCabe, a professor and expert on labor-management relations at Georgetown University in Washington. “I think people want their packages.”
Ray Hilgert, professor of management at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis, agreed.
“By and large, the public is so used to it happening they would just shrug and say here we go again,” he said.
But Labor Secretary Alexis Herman warned Sunday against any move by UPS to begin hiring replacements for the 190,000 striking Teamsters and urged in separate telephone calls to leaders of both sides to resume negotiations in the week-old strike.
Federally mediated contract talks broke off Saturday. With no end in sight to the walkout that has paralyzed the nation’s biggest package delivery company–UPS delivers 80 percent of the packages shipped in the United States–Herman urged UPS not to begin hiring substitutes.
“I certainly believe that that is one action that could escalate this strike, that could make it more difficult,” Herman said on the CNN program “Late Edition.”
Company officials, who on Saturday said they would do “whatever it takes to keep our business strong,” on Sunday appeared to be trying to back away from that threat.
“The last thing we want to do, the last thing I want to do, is replace UPS workers,” UPS chairman and chief executive officer James P. Kelly, said on the CBS program “Face the Nation.”
“We want the strike to end and we want them back on the job,” said Kelly, still leaving open the possibility that replacements could be brought in, saying the company is losing “hundreds of millions of dollars a week.”
For the last week, UPS has been advertising for workers on sports networks around the country. The company didn’t return calls seeking an explanation for the commercials.
Since the strike started last Monday, management personnel, aided by 5,000 Teamsters who have crossed picket lines, have worked at reducing the backlog of 15 million packages that were in UPS system when the strike erupted. The company normally delivers 12 million packages daily.
At the center of the impasse is the company’s extensive use of part-time workers.
Sixty percent of the company’s 190,000 Teamsters employees hold only part-time positions.
The union wants to add 10,000 full-time employees from the ranks of the part-time work force, a demand the company has rejected.
The company wants the union to allow members to vote on a proposal it offered July 30, a demand the union has rejected.
Under that proposal, the wages of full-time employees would increase by 30 cents an hour for each of the next five years to an average of $21.50 per hour in 2002.
Part-time employees would receive a 50-cent-an-hour raise in each year of the contract, which eventually would boost their hourly pay to an average of $13.50.
Myron Roomkin, a professor specializing in collective bargaining at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Business, warned that replacements could suddenly energize picket lines.
So far, most of the incidents reported have involved scuffles with police over traffic blockades.
“If they bring in strike breakers it will become a very nasty situation,” said Roomkin, adding that bringing in replacements likely would get the AFL-CIO, which has pledged financial support, directly involved.
“It will play to the AFL-CIO class consciousness and the low wage campaign on which it is embarking. This will make it very nasty,” Roomkin said.
While the company couldn’t bring in large numbers of replacements, he said it could be done selectively at key hubs around the country.
“There are organizations that find these kind of people,” Roomkin said.
Teamster President Ron Carey, interviewed after his “Face the Nation” appearance, said that union officials are working to keep tempers cool, but added ominously, “Desperate people do desperate things.”
Arthur Sloane, a professor of industrial relations at the University of Delaware, said he believes the threat of replacements is just a negotiating ploy.
“I don’t think it is a very meaningful kind of statement,” he said Sunday. “This is part of the grand game of bargaining.”
“It just isn’t something I would see them doing,” Sloane said, predicting that President Clinton will be forced later this week by rising pressure from the nation’s governors and business leaders to seek an injunction under the Taft-Hartley Act which would send workers back to their jobs.
Clinton, despite calls for his intervention by three governors and dozens of corporate executives, has refused to get involved, saying the strike should be settled at the bargaining table.
