Preparing to return to work Thursday, United Parcel Service driver Sergio Moreno shaved a few days’ beard and stowed a clean uniform in the back seat of his car.
But Thursday morning he found himself wearing a blue windbreaker and Teamsters union baseball cap, picketing once again in front of a UPS processing plant at 1400 S. Jefferson St., much the same as he had for much of the last 2 1/2 weeks.
Indeed, as the nationwide Teamsters strike faded from the headlines Thursday in the wake of a tentative settlement reached in Washington Tuesday, and UPS workers around the country returned to work, many Chicago Teamsters could only watch from the sidelines.
That’s because Chicago’s Local 705, which represents more than 11,000 drivers and handlers, bargains independently of the national union, and when 15 hours of talks late Wednesday and early Thursday collapsed without a settlement, both sides agreed to wait until Friday to convene again.
For the members, that meant Wednesday and Thursday became simply two more days without pay, spent, in some cases, on the picket line.
“It is uncomfortable,” said Moreno, who has been with the company for 14 years. “It is hard especially knowing that the customers are probably getting more annoyed.”
With the momentum of the nationwide strike dissipating, Chicago Teamsters seemed decidedly less enthusiastic Thursday, as their jobs remained frozen amid seemingly endless games of negotiating-room brinkmanship.
“I’m tired of it,” said Richard Mendez, a part-timer picketing Thursday outside the Jefferson Street facility.
“I want to get to work. When the national settlement went through I thought it was over. Surprise, surprise.”
Meanwhile, area businesses hurt by the strike groaned at the prospect of more time without normal delivery service.
At issue on the bargaining table at Teamsters headquarters on the city’s Near West Side remain many of the same issues that stalled national talks for more than two weeks: part-time jobs, pensions and outsourcing.
“In the past 705 and 710 have followed suit with the national contract, and then they’d tweak it a little bit and that’s what we’re hoping they’ll do this time,” said UPS spokesman Rob Klage, referring as well to Teamsters Local 710, which also bargains independently.
Local 710 extended its contract with the company, and is scheduled to resume talks on Sept. 2. In the meantime, it is honoring Teamsters picket lines.
As for Local 705, the latest round of negotiations began Wednesday at 1 p.m. and continued through the night, breaking off at 5:30 a.m. Thursday.
Though neither side was tipping its hand, union officials said that 15 of 17 major issues had been resolved when talks adjourned Thursday.
Sources close to the talks said issues involving health benefits largely had been resolved, though details were not available.
Still, however, both sides agreed that the major sticking point remained the issue of part-time jobs.
In the national settlement, UPS agreed to create 10,000 new full-time positions from part-time jobs.
“We had a proposal on the table that involved a number of (new full-time) jobs that we thought they could easily accommodate,” said union spokesman Paul Waterhouse.
“They had a number that was lower than that. Their number was too low and we thought they could easily raise their number.
“Our position on the number of full-time jobs is not at all inconsistent with what was achieved at national negotiations,” said Waterhouse.
If the number of full-time jobs to be created in Chicago were proportional to the figure in the national contract, Chicago would see roughly 600 new full-time positions.
There are more than 8,000 part-timers in Local 705, according to the union.
Historically, 705’s independent negotiations have offered both sides a chance to tilt the deal in their favor.
Under the last contract signed in 1993, for instance, the union secured pension benefits in some cases fatter than those in the national deal.
At the same time, however, the Chicago contract also included a clause that denied new part-timers health-care benefits for their dependents until they achieve three years of seniority. Nationally, that standard varied from region to region, but generally benefits were available after two to six months.
Under the new national deal, part-timers and their dependents would receive full coverage after two months, according to UPS officials.
Strikers in Chicago have said repeatedly they would like to see the three-year delay stricken from the new contract.
