A Look Into the State of Unions

The Teamsters Union’s “historic” 2023 contract with UPS, touted as an unprecedented win for workers and labor, has aged like milk. (WSJ)

Then: At the time, Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien boasted negotiations with UPS had “changed the game,” setting “a new standard in the labor movement.”

• The 2023 contract raised average full-time driver compensation from $145,000 to $170,000 over five years while providing up to seven weeks of vacation and no healthcare premiums for workers.

Now: In January 2024, mere months after the labor agreement, UPS announced it was slashing 12,000 jobs amid revenue projections that fell short of Wall Street expectations.

• Last week, UPS announced further cuts to its workforce and delivery capacity, leading to a 14% drop in the company’s share price.

• The carrier said a “network reconfiguration” could result in “closure of up to 10% of our buildings, a reduction in the size of our vehicle and aircraft fleets, and a decrease in the size of our workforce.”

• This follows the closing of 200 UPS sorting centers last year as part of a push toward automatization and fewer facilities.

• UPS also plans to lay off 404 workers in Commerce City, Colorado, and 304 in Oklahoma City, the company announced last month.

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: “When labor costs rise above what the market will bear, it becomes more efficient to employ robots—who won’t go on strike.”

Related: In a surprising twist, both The Journal’s editorial board and the left-wing World Socialist Web Site have found themselves on the same side in opposing the Teamsters’ UPS contract.

• In February of last year, the WSWS’ Tom Hall lambasted the “Teamsters bureaucracy,” calling the deal with UPS a “bait and switch” built at the expense of rank-and-file workers.

• UPS workers have accused the Teamsters of deliberately concealing the company’s automation and mass layoffs plan to secure passage of the contract, the WSWS reported in December.

The WSWS’ recounting of its conversation with Hugo, a veteran UPS driver and union member:

Bubba’s Two Cents

To be fair to the Teamsters, layoffs are sometimes a natural part of business, and as some industry experts have noted, UPS historically has made cuts to bring down costs following new union contracts.

But I think it is fair to ask, as both the World Socialists and WSJ editors do, whether union leadership truly has the rank-and-file worker’s best interests at heart. Unions are a critical part of the American story, and unions working with Teddy Roosevelt to elevate workers’ wages in the early 20th century became a defining inflection point in who we are today as America, but has the pendulum swung too far in the other direction, turning unions into bloated bureaucracies that have lost sight of their original mission?

Consider what the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, an offshoot of the Democratic Socialists of America, argues about union bureaucratization:

“The more formalized the union bureaucracies were, the more distant from the membership they became, turning into top-down organizations that in many cases lacked genuine democracy.”

This detachment from the rank-and-file is compounded by reports of lavish lifestyles among union leaders.

International Longshoremen's Association President Harold Daggett earns $901,000 annually from union leadership roles and owns a 7,136-square-foot mansion on 10 acres in Sparta, New Jersey, previously listed for $2.9–$3.1 million, the New York Post reported last year.

I’m not sure it’s very wise to throw out blanket statements that criticize unions, which represent about 10% of American workers. To do so would be ignorant to those people who deserve a voice. But it is worth examination on a case-by-case basis, and some of the cases sure look eyebrow-raising.