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Big Brown grounded as Teamsters strike UPS
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Web posted at: 12:07 a.m. EDT (0407 GMT) WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Teamsters union went on strike against United Parcel Service early Monday after talks collapsed and a midnight deadline passed. The talks broke up at about 10 p.m. Sunday when Teamsters President Ron Carey -- once a UPS worker himself -- stormed out of the offices of the federal mediator, where the two sides been talking. He said a strike was imminent. "To stay there any longer would just be repetition," Carey said. "Somebody's got to stand up and say 'Enough is enough.' That means there's a strike at 12:01." A few minutes later, Dave Murray, the chief UPS negotiator, said: "We're extremely disappointed the Teamsters have chosen to walk out. We think it's highly irresponsible." John Calhoun Wells, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, had tried to avert a strike by arranging talks that began Sunday evening. But he said the talks "fell a little bit short." "We didn't succeeed, and that's deeply disappointing," Wells said. Strike will have wide effect
The strike is the largest job action in the country since March 1996, when an 18-day walkout by 2,700 workers at two General Motors Corp. brake factories brought GM assembly plants to a standstill, idling 177,000 workers. "This is going to affect hundreds of thousands of people and it's going to have an impact on our nation's economy," Wells said. "The economy is going to have five percent of its GNP not moving," Murray said. He said UPS would use management and non-union employees to deliver packages already in its possession. The company's international operations, which are not covered by the Teamsters' pact, would continue to operate. The Teamsters-UPS contract is the largest labor pact up for negotiation this year. Atlanta-based UPS employs 301,000 people in the United States, 185,000 of whom are represented by the Teamsters, including package sorters, loaders and drivers. With its trademark shiny brown trucks, UPS normally handles about 12 million packages a day, an estimated four-fifths of all those shipped by ground nationwide. The company said last week that the threat of a strike was costing it about $5 million a day in business lost to competitors such as the U.S. Postal Service and Federal Express Corp. A protracted strike also would prove costly to the union. As striking Teamsters are eligible for $55 in weekly strike benefits after the first week on the line, an extended strike could cost the union about $10 million a week. Consumers and businesses that ship goods via UPS would feel the pinch. The company's closest competitor, Federal Express Corp., handles just 2.4 million packages daily. Analysts say FedEx and the Postal Service wouldn't be able to handle the extra volume. Pilots also to walk off the job
UPS pilots, represented by the International Pilots Association, were slated to strike as they had pledged to walk out with the Teamsters. "In the event of a Teamsters strike, IPA members will perform no company duty of any kind. This includes no flying, training or company directed deadheading after the initiation of a strike," said a telephone recording at IPA headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky. In Atlanta, UPS spokesman Norman Black said that if the 2,000 IPA pilots did not show up for work, the company would try to maintain some level of air traffic by calling in 138 management-level pilots. UPS flies out of 80 U.S. airports, and normally delivers 1.6 million packages a day by air. Differences remain wideAlong with increases in pay and pensions, the Teamsters have demanded limits on subcontracting, better safety and health provisions and more full-time jobs. Some two-thirds of the drivers, sorters and other UPS workers represented by the union work part-time. Wells said the two sides remained apart on a number of issues, but declined to elaborate. On Saturday the Teamsters made what they described as slight changes in their latest offer based on 15 hours of bargaining last week overseen by federal mediators. The union wants the company to provide thousands of new full-time jobs. The company has offered to create 1,000 new full-time jobs from part-time positions over the life of a proposed five-year contract. In what it called its "last, best and final" contract offer on Thursday, the company offered to boost pay for both full- and part-time workers by $1.50 to $2.50 per hour over five years. Under the company proposal, a profit-sharing plan would provide a first payment of $3,060 to full-time employees and $1,530 to part-time workers in 1997. The Teamsters' contract expired at midnight Thursday, but talks continued until dawn Friday and then resumed that afternoon for six hours. Carey left the bargaining table Friday, saying he was frustrated by the lack of progress. "We have a last best and final offer that remains on the table," Murray said. "That's the one we believe they should send out to their members." Reuters contributed to this report. 
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