UPS workers have voted to ratify a contract agreement reached last month and, according to the union representing them, they’ve done it in record numbers.
Some 86% of the 340,000 UPS workers represented by the Teamsters voted in favor of the contract, a vote total Teamster officials said was the highest in UPS history.
The deal avoids a potential interruption of package deliveries for millions of businesses and households across the U.S.
The Teamsters said in a statement that 86% of the votes casts were in favor of ratifying the national contract. They also said it was passed by the highest vote for a contract in the history of the Teamsters at UPS, the Associated Press is reporting.
The union said more than 40 supplemental agreements were also ratified, expect for one that covers roughly 170 members in Florida. The national master agreement will go into effect as soon as that supplement is renegotiated and ratified, it said.
UPS said voting results for deals covering employees under two locals are expected soon.
“Our members just ratified the most lucrative agreement the Teamsters have ever negotiated at UPS,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement. “This contract will improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers.”
He said the contract set a new standard for pay and benefits.
“This is the template for how workers should be paid and protected nationwide, and nonunion companies like Amazon better pay attention,” O’Brien said, giving a nod to the union’s growing ambitions to take on the e-commerce behemoth.
Voting on the new five-year contract began Aug. 3 and concluded Tuesday.
Under the tentative agreement, full- and part-time union workers will get $2.75 more per hour in 2023, and $7.50 more in total by the end of the five-year contract.
UPS said that by the end of the new contract, the average UPS full-time driver will make about $170,000 annually in pay and benefits, the AP reported.
“Together we reached a win-win-win agreement on the issues that are important to Teamsters leadership, our employees and to UPS and our customers,” Carol Tomé, UPS CEO, said when the tentative deal was announced.
