UPS, Union Reiterate Positions as Talks Resume

Teamsters President Ron Carey threatened Thursday to walk out of new talks with United Parcel Service of America Inc. if he sees no progress, and UPS Chairman James Kelly repeated a call for union members to vote on the latest company proposal.

The two men, reiterating their positions of the last few days, spoke as they resumed negotiations in Washington to see whether they could end the 4-day-old Teamsters strike against UPS, the nation’s largest freight carrier.

“We’re very anxious to end this very unfortunate strike,” Kelly said as he entered the talks. “We will do everything in our power to end it. However, we do have a last, best and final offer on the table. We want our people to vote on it.”

Details of the UPS offer are being sent to all UPS International Brotherhood of Teamsters employees, Kelly said.

Carey said that union members have been hearing the same message for five months and that their walkout demonstrates their rejection of the UPS offer.

“If they just put their pen where their mouth is, we could get this settled,” he said.

“If we’re making progress, I’ll stay till the weekend,” Carey said.

The company and the union agreed Wednesday to resume talks at the request of Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services Director John Calhoun Wells. Both sides downplayed expectations for the meeting, and neither side said it was budging from its position.

Since the strike began Monday, Atlanta-based UPS has lost 90% of its business.

UPS spokeswoman Gina Ellrich said that about 7,000 of the 185,000 Teamsters union members crossed the picket lines to work Thursday but that the company was still losing tens of millions of dollars a day.

Meanwhile, shippers have sought alternative methods of getting their goods to customers. For example, mail-order clothing retailer Lands’ End Inc. is sending merchandise as priority mail through the U.S. Postal Service. And J.C. Penney Co. is asking customers who normally get catalog orders delivered to their homes to pick them up at the nearest JCPenney store or distribution center.

Jerry Jasinowski, president of the National Assn. of Manufacturers, said that several manufacturers say the strike is “interfering with their just-in-time operations.”

As a result, the manufacturers--many of them small businesses --may have to halt production if they can’t ship their goods. Some NAM members already have reported they have ceased production, the association said.

UPS and the Teamsters are at odds over pension benefits, salaries and the company’s use of part-time workers. The union says the company is increasingly using part-timers to avoid having to offer full benefits. About 60% of the company’s workers are part time.

The 76,000 full-time workers at UPS receive about $50,000 a year in wages, the company said, while its 109,000 part-timers make about $16,000.