In 1997,the Teamsters strike at United Parcel Service(UPS) challenged and won against the insidious problem of "contingent" or "two-tier" employment,in which employer cuts costs by relying on temporary and part-time workers.Working stoppages in America declined from 3,111 in 1977 to 385 by 1995,even as real wages lost 15% of their value-data that,as if on a diagnostic chart,revealed an ailing U.S. labor movement.So,the Teamsters victory was a much-needed morale boost and the labor movement regained some valuable ground.(Dray)Based in Atlanta,UPS was the nation's largest shipping company,with 302,000 American employees at twenty-four hundred sites and an annual earnings of $1.1 billion. As many as 80% of the companies new hires were part-time,which allowed UPS to deny them full benefits and pay them $9 an hour in contrast to the $20 it paid full timers.The Teamsters complained that workers were kept at part-time status for years without promotion,and that as many as ten thousand part-timers actually worked full-time hours.(This practice continues for many workers today in numerous companies)(Dray)
Two thousand pilots who flew UPS planes agreed to honor the strike as 185,000 Teamsters walked off the job.Polls showed the public supported the UPS strikers by a margin of 55% to 27%,and that people saw the issue of downsizing and contingent employees as a nationwide problem.One pollster noted,there was a strong perception that management is less fair and less loyal to workers than it used to be.(Dray)
The Teamsters enjoyed the support of the rest of the labor movement.The AFL-CIO had even stepped forward to offer financial resources to the Teamster strike fund.One innovative bit of activism the teamsters pursued against UPS was to call on their friends around the world.While UPS was dominant in America,it was still in an expansion mode in Europe.The Teamsters had links and transport unions in Europe that was part of what was called UPS World Action Day that staged brief demonstrations or work stoppages.The message to UPS was clear that failure to resolve the Teamsters strike on terms acceptable to workers might bring global consequences.With forces of big labor,public opinion,and coordinated sympathy strikes,UPS had its back to the wall.Fifteen days after the walkout began,UPS capitulated,agreeing to shift ten thousand part-time workers to full time and raise part- time salaries 37%. The company also agreed to maintain the present pension system.(Dray)
In November 2009,the U.S. sportswear company Russell Athletic made a startling announcement that it would reopen one of its Honduran clothing factories it had closed ten months earlier in reaction to the unionization of the company's twelve hundred workers.It took this unusual step,which included rehiring the workers,as the direst result of a national campaign by the United Students Against Sweatshops,American activists who pressured Boston College,Columbia,Harvard,NYU and ninety-two other colleges to suspend the lucrative sportswear licensing agreements that allowed Russell to imprint sweatshirts and other clothing with the school's names and logos.The students targeted college retailers and picketed major college sporting events.(Dray)
What was encouraging about the anti-sweatshop effort was that it had overcome perhaps the main obstacle that thwarts U.S. labor organizing today,the power of American corporations to disperse operations to developing countries where there are cheaper workers and few if any labor regulations."Just like capitalism",Roland Munch insists,"trade unions as a social movement are capable of mutation,transformation and regeneration".Trade is global,capital is global, and labor too must become global.The freedoms and protections we take for granted today in the workplace have not been handed down by anyone or distributed ready made but were organized around,demanded,and won by workers themselves.The new mutation of the movement will come as technology/communication is used to form worldwide responses to abuse from the fundamental capitalists that use competition as the scapegoat for exploiting workers around the world.
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