Lost Jobs Won’t Be Filled, UPS Tells Teamsters

United Parcel Service of America Inc. said Friday that it would not restore lost jobs or add new ones until business lost after last year’s strike by the Teamsters union was won back.

“The union must recognize, once and for all, that they are responsible for this. They did this to themselves,” UPS spokesman Norman Black said.

The Teamsters, which represents 180,000 full-time and part-time UPS workers, on Thursday accused the Atlanta-based company of failing to honor the contract signed after a 16-day strike halted shipments last year. UPS had promised to create 2,000 new jobs a year, or 10,000 jobs, over the course of the pact. But the contract also stipulated that a drop in business that caused layoffs would void that commitment.

UPS has said its payroll is down by 16,400 full-time and part-time workers from pre-strike levels. That’s about 4% of the company’s work force, said Black, adding that the Teamsters should take the matter to arbitration. “Unfortunately, we have 467,000 fewer packages a day than we had last year and, as a result, we are today employing 10,000 fewer Teamsters than we were a year ago today,” he said.