On Friday, the chocolate brown United Parcel Service trucks began hitting the road again in the Chicago area.
But it will be several days before Atlanta-based UPS is able to get its operations back to normal here, officials said late Friday.
“It should be midweek next week before we have a feeling of stability,” said Christine Owens, district manager for metro Chicago UPS operations. “As of today we have called back 50 to 60 percent of the full-timers.”
UPS officials in Atlanta said they hope that operations will return to normal as early as Monday in the rest of the country.
The return to work in Chicago came after Teamsters and officials of privately held UPS reached agreement on a contract for the 11,200 UPS workers represented by Local 705 shortly before midnight Thursday. Agreement on the national contract was reached on Tuesday after a 16-day strike by Teamsters.
“We’re very happy with the settlement even though we would have liked more in terms of full-time jobs,” said Paul Waterhouse, a spokesman for Local 705, which took down its picket lines within a half hour of reaching the agreement.
Under the local agreement, UPS agreed to create about 600 new full-time jobs by combining existing part-time positions. The company also said about 500 additional full-time jobs will come available for part-timers through normal attrition and retirement.
According to Jerry Zero, secretary-treasurer of the local and a member of the bargaining committee, the company also agreed to the creation of 40 to 50 new full-time “combination shifter” jobs at the company’s Hodgkins hub. Virtually all of the 5,000 people employed at the hub currently are part-timers.
Local Teamsters had been hoping for a generous settlement on the full-time issue because UPS had agreed on a national basis to create 10,000 full-time jobs out of existing part-time positions. It had also promised to create as many full-time slots through attrition and retirement.
But UPS officials blasted Local 705 for its decision to participate in the national strike. Only Local 705 and Local 710, which represents UPS drivers and sorters in downstate Illinois, negotiate separate contracts with UPS. While Local 705 went out on strike with Teamsters nationally, Local 710 extended its contract and kept working until picket lines forced it workers to stop.
“We could have achieved the exact same results without a strike,” said Bob Dennen, UPS North Central region manager. “A strike was never necessary. In fact, UPS and Local 705 were never at an impasse with their negotiations prior to (the start of) the Aug. 4 nationwide strike.”
Just as Teamsters in the rest of the country are learning that not everyone will be returning to work immediately, it will take time before all local workers are recalled.
“Layoffs are hard to determine,” said Jerry Nerone, UPS labor manager and chief negotiator. “We are shooting to get all the drivers back to work.
“As the volume grows, the people will come back. Hopefully, we will be hiring soon,” he said.
Nationally Thursday, UPS delivered 5 million packages, or about 42 percent of its typical daily volume, said spokeswoman Susan Rosenberg. The company picked up about 16 million packages.
The company predicted that it would deliver about 8 million packages Friday and pick up another 15 million.
Despite the apparent rapid recovery, the company still says that it could lose about 5 percent of its pre-strike volume to competitors, which would result in about 15,000 job cuts.
