Solidarity with the Teamsters

The UPS pilots union is ratcheting up pressure on the company to settle with the Teamsters before the union goes on strike at the end of the month.

The union representing UPS pilots says they will not cross picket lines if Teamsters drivers and package sorters walk off the job when the current contract expires Aug. 1, resulting in the immediate shutdown of the express logistics company’s global air operations.

UPS has 3,300 pilots who are represented by the Independent Pilots Association (IPA), a separate union from the Teamsters.

“If the Teamsters are on strike, we will honor that strike and we will not fly,” IPA spokesman Brian Gaudet told FreightWaves. 

UPS pilots are allowed under their collective bargaining agreement to honor primary picket lines and did that for 16 days during the Teamsters’ strike in 1997.

In 1997, 100% of our pilot group respected your picket lines by not ‘turning an aircraft wheel’ on behalf of the company, IPA President Robert Travis said in a July 3 letter to Teamsters President Sean O’Brien that was posted on the IPA’s website on Tuesday. The IPA will “honor any potential IBT [International Brotherhood of Teamsters] strike and act in sympathy with our fellow workers at UPS by not working. No one wants a work stoppage, but should a legal IBT strike be initiated, you and the IBT can count on the IPA for support.

This is good. There is some suggestions that UPS might cave here and avoid the strike. That would be smart because the Teamsters are very likely to win that strike. The pilots here have just given UPS a very real incentive to just make the deal.