New tentative five-year agreement with Teamsters at UPS Freight

It’s been a summer of labor success at United Parcel Service.

Besides scoring a “handshake agreement” covering 275,000 Teamsters at its small parcel unit, UPS also has a tentative deal for a new five-year Master UPS Freight Agreement that covers about 11,000 Teamsters-represented UPS Freight (formerly Overnite Transportation).

Details of the agreement have yet to leak out. Kris Taylor, the Teamsters union’s UPS Freight coordinator, said no further details will be released until leaders from Teamster local unions that represent UPS Freight members meet in the next few weeks to decide whether to recommend the contract.

These so-called “Two-Person” meetings are typical to review the tentative agreement and approve sending it out for a membership ratification vote.

UPS and the union agreed to an extension of the current UPS Freight agreement to allow for the ratification process to take place.

This comes on the heels of another, separate five-year tentative agreement covering 275,000 workers at the UPS small parcel unit. That agreement would boost the hourly rate of the typical UPS package driver to just over $40 by 2022.

UPS said its goal for the freight and small package agreements was to reward employees for their contributions to its success while enabling the business to remain flexible to meet its customers’ needs.

Meeting these goals for both the freight and small package agreements, UPS said it was “poised for continued growth supported by greater flexibility” to meet the needs of its customers.

Discussions continue over small package supplements and local agreements. UPS said “strong progress” has been made on many local small package agreements and supplements, including a handshake agreement covering more than 100,000 Teamster-represented UPS employees located in the Central Conference, the Southern Conference, and Oregon / Idaho, among others. Other local agreements and supplements continue to be negotiated.