WASHINGTON — Teamsters union leaders are heading back to the bargaining table after UPS gave the union a new contract counterproposal "with significant movement on wages," the union said Friday.
The union is negotiating a new contract for more than 340,000 UPS workers before July 31, when the current contract expires. Earlier this month, workers authorized a strike that could happen as soon as Aug. 1 if a final agreement isn't reached.
The new offer wasn't enough to convince the Teamsters, which will continue negotiations.
"UPS came back with real movement, but it isn’t enough. After they left the room, our national committee had a long dialogue and the universal consensus was to continue our leverage campaign," said Fred Zuckerman, Teamsters general president.
A strike from UPS workers would be the largest single-employer strike in U.S. history, according to NBC News.
"We are encouraged the Teamsters are ready to continue negotiations and discuss our most recent proposal," UPS said in a statement Friday. "Productive discussions are critical at this stage of the process. We look forward to the union’s input so we can reach a timely agreement and provide certainty for our employees, our customers and the U.S. economy."
Talks had stalled earlier this week when union leaders walked away from the national bargaining table and demanded a final offer.
If workers end up striking, it would be the first time since a 15-day walkout by 185,000 workers crippled the company a quarter-century ago.
UPS has grown vastly since then and become even more ingrained in the U.S. economy. The company says it delivers the equivalent of about 6% of nation’s gross domestic product. That means a strike would carry with it potentially far-reaching implications for the economy.
The company delivers around 25 million packages a day, representing about a quarter of all U.S. parcel volume, according to the global shipping and logistics firm Pitney Bowes. That’s about 10 million parcels more than it delivered each day in the years leading up to the pandemic.
The union has been in negotiations with the package carrier since April 17.
Earlier this month, UPS had reached a tentative deal with union leaders that secured delivery drivers with air-conditioned trucks for the first time.
The tentative agreement aimed to finally address delivery drivers' concerns with extremely hot temperatures. Heat-related concerns have been at the top of many UPS workers' complaints as temperatures continue to rise across the nation. In recent years, more than 100 UPS workers have been hospitalized for heat-related illnesses, NBC News reported.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
