Obviously, the title of this post would seem to demand much more than a few paragraphs to do it justice. However, in the interest of brevity, here is my take on the new contract negotiated by the Teamsters and UPS and its possible effects on the labor union movement in the US.
The new contract union members will soon vote on is basically the wishlist the union presented to management. Full time workers will get hefty raises over the life of the contract and part timers who represent nearly half of UPS employees will start out at $21/hr. with automatic raises at the end of six months. In addition, the company will install air conditioning in its delivery trucks which have been likened to microwave ovens.
Hundreds of thousands of Amazon employees are reading news of this contract and many of them will be open to Teamster organizers. This is the new frontier of labor organizing. If the unions are able to organize a significant chunk of the service industry, union membership will explode. This will have the effect of balancing the power of capital, much as it did in the years following WWII.
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