Leaders of local unions that represent UPS and UPS Freight Teamsters met today and approved the two separate tentative national agreements, paving the way for members to vote by electronic ballot starting next month.

Regarding the UPS tentative agreement, “Today’s vote was a very strong indication of the support nationwide from local union leaders and it sends the national agreement, regional supplements and riders to the members for a ratification vote,” said Denis Taylor, Director of the Teamsters Package Division and Co-Chairman of the Teamsters National UPS Negotiating Committee. “This agreement provides all our UPS members with tremendous gains in wages, benefits and working conditions and excellent opportunities for part-time workers to gain full-time employment.”

The tentative five-year UPS contract addresses several major issues:

• Wage increase/increased start rates for part-timers. The tentative agreement provides annual wage increases for full-time and part-time workers and for the first time in many years contains increases in the part-time start rates, a key issue for hundreds of thousands of our members and future members.

• Protects strong health care and pension benefits. UPS Teamsters will continue to receive their health insurance without paying premiums. UPS is required to make up the difference in the event Central States reduces benefits so that members who were covered by that Fund receive the full pension they earned.

• Addresses harassment and excessive overtime. Stronger grievance enforcement for harassment with a sitting arbitrator and monetary penalties, and a new procedure making it easier to get on or off the overtime (9.5) list.

• 5,000 new full-time jobs. The agreement requires UPS to create 5,000 new full-time jobs during the agreement, including a minimum of 2,000 sleeper team jobs by taking work off the railroad, and a new combination driver classification that addresses the changes brought on through the e-commerce revolution.

Likewise, “The UPS Freight tentative agreement provides our members with economic security and job security over the next five years and beyond,” said Kris Taylor, the Teamsters UPS Freight coordinator.

The tentative five-year UPS Freight contract addresses numerous major issues, including subcontracting, wage increases, pension increases, seniority, bidding, penalty pay, increased paid leave for casuals and more.

Early next month, members will receive voting information. The votes will be by secret ballot as it always has been, but this time members will vote via the Internet or phone.

The votes will be conducted through the BallotPoint Election Services voting system. In the packet being mailed in early September, members will find the agreements and a summary of the highlights including questions and answers. But instead of a paper ballot, members will find an individual access code and simple instructions on how to use the access code to vote by telephone or Internet.

BallotPoint is an election services provider which has specialized in electronic balloting and polling since 1999. The company has conducted nearly 4,000 union elections with nearly 2 million votes cast, and have never had an election compromised. Their system is secure and protects the secrecy of each member’s vote. In other words, no one will know how you voted!

The Teamsters Union has used BallotPoint extensively over the past three years to conduct contract ratifications, including the recent ABF Freight election. All of the ratifications were conducted without incident or challenges.

For more information on BallotPoint, visit their website here. 

Join the UPS Members Contract Update teleforum call on Saturday, August 11 at 5:00 pm (Eastern) to learn more about the contract: Call-In Number is (866) 767-0669

*There will be a UPS Freight members contract update tele- forum call scheduled in the near future.

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