Some UPS Employees Urge Vote

The 11-day nationwide strike that has virtually paralyzed UPS heated up in Los Angeles on Thursday when a small group of delivery employees denounced their union’s actions, while Teamsters officials dismissed the news conference as a public relations ploy staged by the delivery company.

“I have lost confidence in those who represent me,” said Frank Ontiveros, a San Marcos package driver expressing his frustration with the union’s stand.

Ontiveros, dressed in his regimental “browns,” joined 19 other full- and part-time workers who said they resented the Teamsters not letting them vote on their own contract proposal.

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Teamsters officials called the news conference “divisive” and said that it would accomplish little or nothing. “The fact that they can whip up half a dozen people in L.A. is not going to change the position of the union,” Teamsters spokesman Rand Wilson said from Washington.

Asked by reporters if UPS offered them any compensation for appearing at the event, the employees emphatically said no, explaining that they only wanted to voice their opinions.

“[Teamsters President] Ron Carey keeps telling us that 95% of the UPS drivers are for the strike,” Kevin Kreitzer said. “If that’s true, why doesn’t he let us vote?”

At a union rally Thursday evening in West Covina, Victor Maldonado, a driver in San Gabriel, said that the issue of voting was more complex. He said that if a vote were held now, part-time employees, who might not be concerned with long-term issues such as pensions, might go along with the company offer.

Wilson agreed, saying it would be illogical for the union to call for a vote by all its members during the negotiating process when a vote to call the strike was held at the outset.

“That’s just a divisive tactic by UPS to distract the public from the real issue, which is that this company that made more than a billion dollars in profits last year can afford the good full-time jobs that the Teamsters want,” Wilson said.

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But the employees at the downtown news conference said they did not trust the union’s stated motive for striking: namely that UPS was hiring part-time workers at the expense of full-time employees who get full benefits.

“People with other full-time jobs don’t even come close to the benefits I get,” part-time worker Hank Osowski said.

Christopher Gordon, another part-time employee, said he received full medical, dental and vision benefits. “My wife is having a baby in three weeks,” said Gordon, but the hospital bill should cost about $100.

Wilson said benefits for UPS employees vary around the country.

Workers at the news conference said they believed that the union called the strike because it wanted UPS to continue paying into a multi-employer pension plan. UPS officials say that the plan required that the company subsidize non-UPS Teamsters as well.

UPS leaders assert that by providing a pension for only their own workers, their employees will receive an average of 50% more in retirement benefits. “This is a situation where Teamsters don’t want employees to have better pension benefits,” said UPS spokeswoman Candice Traeger. “And they’re afraid to let them vote.”

But the multi-employer pension plan was designed to allow workers to switch from one job to another. While their service within the industry accumulates, they would remain in a common pension fund.

Union officials said that in the Western United States, the Teamster’s proposed pension provides significantly higher benefits than anything UPS is offering.

“There is not a single Teamster member in the Western U.S. that won’t suffer under the company proposal,” said Craig Merrilees, Teamsters spokesman.

But Ontiveros doesn’t buy it. He said that at his UPS facility in San Marcos, workers who want to end the strike have begun to organize. He would not specify how many have joined, but said “our goal would be to have 60% of the employees in our building.”

Employees at the news conference said that they feared reprisal by Teamsters “thugs” if they were to cross the picket lines.

The strike by 185,000 Teamsters has crippled the package delivery giant, which normally handles 12 million items daily.