Random stuff that doesn't smoothly fall under any of the previous posts

1. Some striking workers became violent. What act did that break? Answer: Landrum-Griffin Act.


2. Compare this strike to parts fo the movie Hoffa: The International Brothehood of teamsters both played central roles in the strike and the movie. Hoffa depicted many strikes, some of which became violent like the UPS strikes in Boston and New York. Other then that there really wern't any similarities. The UPS strike didn't have any scandals or anything, even though they did have to do with pension funds like Hoffa.

In the end...

In reality, I don't think any side won the UPS strike. The UPS workers got a pay increase, but they did not get the full time jobs that they wanted. UPS in general lost tons of money during the strike. In the end, I feel that the workers were slightly more victorious becuase of the pay raise. As to the question of who was right, I would say that some UPS workers would have to feel pretty strongly to strike. Although they were recieveing some money by the teamsters during the strike, it was not as much as they normally would have recieved from work. If the hours were bad enough for people to want to strike even without getting paid as much as normal, then they have a legitimate reason to strike.

Effects of the Strike

The strike by UPS had a huge effect. Since UPS represented 5-7% of the gross national product, even the president urged union and manageent to come together. South FLorida was hit extremely hard during the strike. Fruits, which are a huge part of Florida's economy, were not being delivered and were rotting away, costing the state millions of dollars.

UPS delivered 12 million packages a day, much more then its competitors like Airborne Express (1.3 million), US Postal Service (3 million) and FedEx (2.8 million). All of these competitors benefitted from the absence of UPS, picking up its dropped business. RPS, or Roadway Package System, was an example of a small company that made huge gains during the strike, shipping 20% more packages then before the strike. RPS was later bought by FedEx and turned into FedEx Ground.

The UPS Strike

In August of 1997, UPS, backed by the International Brothehood of Teamsters, went on a strike that lasted for 15 days. The Teamsters, lead by then president Ron Carey, wanted to make some of the part time positions (held by 58% of UPS workers) into full-time positions, end the subcontracting of jobs, and increase wages. UPS responded by saying this was a way to distract from teh fact that they were going to withdraw from the teamster pension fund and create their own UPS fund.

In the end, an agreement was reached. UPS management agreed to raise the base wage of part timers, but not to raise the number of full time jobs. They did not put anything into the agreement about pension funds.

Who is UPS?

The United Parcel Service, more commonly known as UPS, is the largest package delivery company in the world. UPS was founded in 1907 as the American Messenger Company by Jim Casey for $100. Now, the multi-billion dollar company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and delivers more then 15 million packages a day to more than 200 countries and territories. UPS also has 338,000 employees, 147,000 cars, vans and trailers. 197 jets and 302 chartered jets.