UPS, Teamsters take break after SurePost agreement

UPS Inc. and the Teamsters union will resume national bargaining June 5 as each side spend the week negotiating the ultimate two supplemental agreements covering employees in Louisville, Kentucky, and Northern California.

The hiatus comes as each side reached a tentative agreement to scale back the scale of UPS SurePost packages eligible for handoff to the U.S. Postal Service, in line with a report in Supply Chain Dive confirmed by a Teamsters spokesperson. The agreement, which should be ratified by the Teamsters rank and file, will increasingly redirect more SurePost packages to regular package automobile drivers over the lifetime of the contract, the spokesperson said. No details were provided.

In an email to FreightWaves, Kara Deniz said that “we’ve reached (a) tentative agreement … to scale back the general size of packages eligible for SurePost delivery — so more existing volume goes back onto Teamster trucks somewhat than coming off.”

Under terms of the present contract, a package handled by the Postal Service must meet certain weight and cubic criteria to maneuver as SurePost. In the event that they are exceeded, the package is eligible to be redirected into the ussystem for delivery by a union driver.

In a communique last week, the union said it had spent hours “repeatedly pushing back on attempts to weaken employee protections across the SurePost program.” Several rounds of proposals were exchanged to push UPS to comply with put more boxes on union package cars, the Teamsters said.

Under SurePost, lightweight packages sure for residences are inducted deep into the postal system for final-mile delivery by letter carriers. The Teamsters have long pushed to eliminate SurePost since it siphons delivery business from its members.