The Upsurge

Originally published on June 29, 2023.

Happy Pride Month! In this bonus episode, we're sharing the efforts that LGBTQ+ Teamsters are engaging in to fight for liberation at UPS, other Teamsters employers, the union itself, and beyond.

We spoke with Andrew Rivas, a UPS package car driver and political coordinator of Teamsters Local 533 in Reno, Nevada. He is also on the board of the relatively new Teamsters LGBTQ+ caucus. Andrew told us about the initiative, what it's like to face and fight against discrimination in the workplace, and specifically what the LGBTQ+ Caucus is demanding in the UPS contract negotiations.

*

Originally published on June 15, 2023.

The 1.2-million-member United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) is one of the largest and most powerful private sector unions in the country. Unfortunately, it has embodied some of the worst elements of business unionism over the decades. But a reform movement is burgeoning to change that.

We've covered the role of Teamsters for a Democratic Union in bringing militancy and democracy to the Teamsters union. Now, the independent organization Essential Workers for Democracy is looking to play that role in the UFCW. We spoke with Enrique Romero Jr., the group's organizing director and a rank-and-file grocery worker at Fred Meyer in Bellingham, Washington.

*

Originally published on May 8, 2023.

Hollywood television and movie writers are on strike! In this bonus episode of The Upsurge, Teddy and Ruby will take you to the picket lines in Manhattan. Hear from a number of writers – including Ruby's dad! – why they laid down their pens.

*

Originally published on April 13, 2023.

Matt Cavagrotti is a part-time UPSer out of Teamsters Local 519 in Knoxville, Tennessee. But unlike most of his part-time union siblings, he heads to the airport for work.

Matt is one of more than 15,000 "air workers" at UPS, who are responsible for sorting, preloading and unloading the millions of packages aboard the over 2,000 daily flights to 700+ airports around the world. Air workers are integral to UPS's revenues, and yet they're among the most exploited in the entire company workforce – and have been since the late 1980s.

This is because their conditions are governed under the egregious concessions of Article 40 in the national collective bargaining agreement at UPS – a "stain" on the contract. Alongside other air workers, Matt is organizing to reform Article 40 and break a lesser known division in the Teamster ranks.

In this bonus episode of The Upsurge, Matt unpacks the history and impacts of Article 40 in the national UPS contract, and why air workers deserve solidarity just like any other UPSer.

*

Originally published on March 30, 2023

On Dan Arlin's second day back as a package car delivery driver at UPS, after a three-year stint driving tractor-trailer trucks, he was fired – without explanation – and walked off company property. The 23-year veteran of UPS is a pro at his job. He knew he had done nothing wrong, but the company didn't like one thing: his union activism.

Harassment and retaliation is a way of life at UPS. After he was fired in March 2022, Arlin was committed to getting his job back. And indeed, fighting tooth and nail for eleven months, Arlin was finally reinstated on Valentines day this year.

In this bonus episode of The Upsurge, we dug into Arlin's remarkable story, which is one of both pain and perseverance, struggle and solidarity.

*

The Big Three have fallen like a house of cards.

The UAW's historic Stand Up strike has come to an end – for now, at least. After forty-four days on the picket line, the Auto Workers have reached tentative agreements with each of the Big Three automakers. GM was the last domino to fall on October 30, just days after Ford and then Stellantis acquiesced to their own tentative deals.

50,000 strikers have returned to work, and all 146,000 Big Three union members are now voting on the contracts. While it's up to the workers to decide whether the deals are adequate, one thing is already clear: the UAW has turned the tide on decades of concessionary bargaining.

For this episode, we invited Barry Eidlin back on the show to unpack the gains and wider implications of the UAW's tentative agreements. Barry Eidlin is an associate professor of sociology at McGill University, who studies class, labor, politics and social movements. He is the author of Labor and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada, published by Cambridge University Press in 2018.

We explore why the agreements may represent a shift toward a "new kind of unionism," how the UAW's prospects for organizing the rest of the auto industry may have changed, and what listeners should be following in the rest of the labor movement.

*

Nearly five weeks into the UAW's historic Stand Up Strike, there are just under 34,000 Big Three Auto Workers on strike in assembly plants and parts depots across the country. The latest escalation came on Wednesday, October 11, when the union called on 8,700 Ford workers at the Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, Kentucky, to walk off the job. 

For this episode, we're bringing you a UAW Strike update. You'll hear from two guests: Chris Budnick and Lisa Xu. Chris is a striking Ford worker at the Kentucky Truck Plant and the co-chair of Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD). Lisa is an organizer at the labor movement publication and organizing project Labor Notes, and she was previously an organizer with UAWD. 

Chris and Lisa bring us up to speed on the strike escalations, discuss how non-striking Auto Workers are participating in the Stand Up, and unpack the massive concession made by General Motors last week – the folding of their battery plants into the UAW's master contract with the company. 

Finally, we take a step back to reflect on the Stand Up Strike overall. We take stock not just of what was won contractually so far, but also of how far the union has come in the past year, and where it's going. 

*

The UAW's Stand Up Strike is alive and growing. More than 18,000 auto workers across the Big Three – Ford, GM and Stellantis – are on strike across twenty states, and just a few hours after this episode posts, thousands more will likely join them. The Fiery Labor Fall is here.

In this episode, we bring you on the ground of UAW picket lines and rallies across three states – Michigan, Ohio, and New York. You'll hear the perspectives and stories of over a dozen rank-and-file auto workers, as well as direct interviews with UAW president Shawn Fain and other union leaders. 

Follow Teddy as he zig-zags across states to ask the workers themselves what they think about the strike. UAW auto workers explain the stakes and key demands of their fight, how it's gotten to this point, and what the renewed militancy of their union means to them. 

*

The hot labor summer isn't over yet. 

In a week's time, the United Auto Workers may launch a strike of 150,000 of its members if the Big Three automakers – Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) – fail to meet the workers' demands in a new contract by September 14. 

You see, the Big Three made a quarter-trillion dollars in profits over the past decade. And with non-union electric vehicle and battery manufacturing on the rise in the United States, this may be a make-or-break moment for the union. So, with a more militant leadership at its helm, the UAW is demanding more than they have in a long time: serious wage increases; the elimination of tiers; the return of pensions, COLA, and retiree healthcare; and a 32-hour workweek.

For this episode, we unpack the auto workers' demands, their stakes for the auto industry and the broader working class, and the burgeoning EV transition. We also explore how during this round of negotiations, the union is doing something it hasn't done in a very long time. Inspired by the Teamsters, the UAW is conducting a contract campaign, with rallies, practice pickets, and all.

To discuss all this and more, we spoke with two UAW activists in Metro Detroit. Luigi Gjokaj was an assembly worker at Stellantis since 2010 and is the newly elected vice president of UAW Local 51. Jessie Kelly is a skilled moldmaker at General Motors and alternate committeeperson at UAW Local 160.

You'll also hear from auto workers in Metro Detroit and Chicago, who attended rallies and practice pickets to drum up unity before the strike deadline.

*

On Tuesday, August 22, the Teamsters union announced that its members voted to ratify the national UPS contract by 86.3% –  and with record turnout. Workers won significant raises, the abolition of the two-tier driver system, air conditioning in package cars, thousands of new full-time jobs, and more. 

In our previous episode, we discussed the gains of the tentative agreement and the years of Teamsters' organizing it took to make them possible, including the past year's contract campaign which built a credible strike threat. In this episode, we dug deeper into the various layers of members' reactions to the contract, as well as what's required of the membership to enforce it and build on it moving forward. 

We invited Greg Kerwood, a UPSer from Local 25 in Somerville, Massachusetts, back on the show to share his point of view. Greg explained what he's heard from the membership, how social media may have distorted members' views, and why it's important to translate the disappointment of some workers – including his own – into productive organizing on the shop floor. 

We also share some news on the future of The Upsurge…

*

UPS Teamsters nationwide are voting on the tentative agreement for the largest private-sector labor contract in the United States. The vote will end on August 22. A majority decision will determine whether the contract is ratified, or the national negotiating committee will return to the bargaining table and potentially call a strike.

In this episode, we explore the highlights of the tentative agreement and what its gains, such as the abolition of the driver two-tier and substantial wage increases, mean for workers' lives. We also dig into how the TA is proof that years of Teamsters organizing, including the past year's contract campaign, have reaped significant concessions from the company — something workers and other unions are already taking note of. 

Lastly, we discuss why raised member expectations, the COVID pandemic, and unsustainable costs of living have left some Teamsters disappointed with the current tentative agreement — and why this may actually be encouraging.  

You'll hear from two guests: Sean Orr is a UPS package car driver and elected shop steward out of Teamsters Local 705 in Chicago. He is also co-chair of the International Steering Committee of Teamsters for a Democratic Union. Al Bradbury is the editor of Labor Notes, which is a media and organizing project that has been empowering rank and file workers to put the "movement" back in the labor movement since 1979.

*

On July 25, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters reached a tentative agreement with UPS just days before the current contract was set to expire on July 31. If a new deal was not reached this week, 340,000 UPS workers were prepared to hit the picket line on Aug. 1 in what would have been one of the largest strikes in US history. The contract negotiations process has been a roller coaster, filled with the twists and turns of bad offers and parties walking away from the bargaining table. What brought us to this point? What are the key issues workers have been prepared to strike over? Will the rank and file approve the latest tentative agreement, or is a strike still on the table?

In this special July 25 live panel discussion with Teamster UPSers — a collaboration between The Real News, In These Times, and The Upsurge podcast — we'll discuss the latest developments in the contract negotiations and what's at stake for UPS workers and the wider labor movement.

*

With one week till the strike deadline, UPS and the Teamsters have agreed to resume negotiations on July 24. A deal is still possible and workers' pressure is proving effective.

The Teamsters have already won tentative agreements on several key issues. UPS has pledged to end two-tier pay for drivers, install air conditioning in new trucks, and curtail forced overtime. But the Teamsters aren’t celebrating yet. Instead, there is cross-classification unity for the union's remaining demand: higher pay for part-time workers. If UPS refuses this demand, then, as Teamster General President Sean O’Brien puts it, they are choosing to “strike themselves.”

In the first part of this episode, we bring you to one of several rallies happening at Teamster locals all over the country. In Long Island, solidarity abounded as Sean O'Brien, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the new president of the UAW Shawn Fain rallied for a just contract at UPS.

Next, Rand Wilson, a Teamsters for a Democratic Union organizer from Episode 2 returns to the show, alongside Misty Baker, a ten-year part-time UPS worker out of Local 651 in Lexington, Kentucky. You'll hear about the organizing going on around the country, the remaining issues in contract negotiations, and the propaganda UPS is putting out to pit worker against worker, and worker against consumer. 

*

The United Auto Workers' contract negotiations at the Big 3 automakers – Ford, GM, and Stellantis – just began. Their current labor contracts expire in mid-September, and the new UAW leadership has been crystal clear: they're not afraid to take 150,000 of its members out on strike if their demands aren't met. This would be less than two months after the potential strike of 340,000 Teamsters at UPS. 

In this bonus episode, we discuss the renewed militancy of the UAW, and the reform movement, Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), which shocked the labor world for taking control of the union leadership earlier this year.

There is no labor movement resurgence without the resurgence of labor in manufacturing, but the UAW has also been a leader in the upsurge of higher education organizing over the past five years. 

To discuss all this, we spoke with two newly elected UAW officers: Brandon Mancilla, Director of UAW Region 9A, and Dan Vicente, Director of UAW Region 9. 

*

Negotiations between UPS and the Teamsters have collapsed after disagreement over part-time wages. With less than a month from contract expiration, the largest single-employer strike in US history is looking more and more likely.

We have another two-part episode this week. First, an update on the contract campaign. The Teamsters gave UPS two deadlines for their last, best, and final offer on proposals. UPS didn't meet either of them. So the union is upping the ante with practice pickets around the country. 

Could a deal materialize or is a strike imminent? We asked Stephen Franklin, a veteran journalist who is the former labor writer for the Chicago Tribune, and an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School of Labor and Employment Relations.

Next, a deep dive into gig work at UPS and subcontracting more broadly. The Teamsters want to rid their workforce of so-called personal vehicle drivers (PVDs), workers who deliver packages out of their private vehicles and work off a smartphone app, much like other gig workers. We spoke with UPS workers from Georgia, Utah, and California, and a former gig worker from Indiana, about why gig work and other subcontracting is an existential threat to the union.

Gig work is often pitched as flexible for the worker. But in reality, it's a breakdown of standards that many Teamsters want to uphold at all costs. Even if that means going out on strike.

*

The results are in: 97% of UPS Teamsters voted to authorize a strike if their demands are not met by August 1. Local unions around the country will practice picket lines starting next week. The clock is ticking.

For this episode, we've got a two-parter. First, an update on the contract campaign and negotiations, which have moved onto big-ticket economic items this week. UPSers across the nation tell us why they voted in favor of strike authorization. Local 623 secretary-treasurer Richard Hooker Jr. explains how the vote went down and a major tentative agreement: air conditioning in the package car. Greg Kerwood of Local 25 returns to the show to explain why the Teamsters and the broader labor movement need a strike.

Next, long-time organizer and the Executive Director of In These Times Alex Han gives us a crash course on the threads of labor militancy over the past two decades. Alex breaks down the political, social, and organizational legacies of the labor movement between 1997, the last time UPSers struck, and 2023, when they may strike again in much larger numbers. At the center of our conversation: the Chicago Teachers Strike of 2012.

We often hear that COVID-19 pushed workers over the edge, that the widespread death and disease was the viral spark for a new labor upsurge in the United States. But according to Alex, the seeds for this moment were sown over the last twenty years. 

*

Amazon: The company we hate to love, for its convenient next-day deliveries, and we love to hate, for its egregious treatment of the workers that execute that miracle.

It really needs no introduction. Amazon is a corporate giant with 1.5 million employees, most of which are in the Teamsters' bread and butter industry: logistics, meaning warehouse workers and delivery drivers. Only, these workers are almost entirely non-union. But the problem with Amazon is not just its own non-union pay and working conditions. Left unchecked, Amazon may just start a race to the bottom for the working class as a whole.

The Teamsters, alongside other unions and worker collectives, are trying to change that. And in April earlier this year, 84 of Amazon's delivery drivers and dispatchers in Palmdale, California joined Teamsters Local 396 and won a first contract. This is a huge deal, but it's not an uncomplicated victory.

In this episode, you'll hear from one of those Amazon drivers, Arturo Solezano, about their working conditions, and why he and his now-union siblings joined the Teamsters. We also spoke with Alex Press, staff writer at Jacobin magazine, who unpacked why Amazon is a threat that needs to be taken seriously by the Teamsters and the rest of organized labor. 

Finally, you'll hear an update on UPS contract negotiations from Greg Kerwood, a package car delivery driver from Teamsters Local 25 in Boston.

*

UPS is a patriarchal corporation – on the corporate and labor side. Whether it's sexual harassment or pregnancy discrimination, women at UPS confront particular workplace issues because of their gender. We spoke with Michelle Espinoza, a feeder driver out of Teamsters Local 135 in Indianapolis, about the gender discrimination she's battled at the company and the work she's doing to help other Teamster women.

*

The word "logistics'' has somewhat of an impersonal ring to it. When you hear it, you think: massive container ships, cranes, eighteen wheelers, aircrafts, conveyor belts, spreadsheets, contracts, and of course, boxes. It's almost as if all of this infrastructure that moves our goods around the world, around the clock, is running by itself. 

But undergirding "logistics" is one indispensable element: Workers. Millions of them, without whom the colossal flow of goods and services would come grinding to a halt.

In this episode of The Upsurge, we ask how our modern logistics giants, like UPS – and the Teamsters that keep it running – came to wield so much power. It's a story of gradual but gargantuan changes in the global economy, the "modernization" of production and distribution. But it's also a tale of struggle over the management and organization of work between unions and corporations

Negotiations on the national labor contract at UPS have begun. And while CEO Carol Tomé has insisted that the company and the union are "not far apart on the issues," their behavior at the bargaining table suggests otherwise.

In bargaining sessions for regional contracts across the country, UPS is sometimes just not showing up, they're demanding concessions from the union, and they're playing dirty to get what they want — a workforce that looks more like the mostly non-union Amazon, FedEx, or Uber. That's why the Teamsters have taken negotiations outside the bargaining room and into the workplace, with rallies, parking lot meetings, and action trainings. Meanwhile, workers say UPS is fighting back with layoffs and other forms of intimidation. 

In this episode, we bring you inside and outside of the bargaining room. On the inside, we speak with two of the most militant Teamster principal officers in the union, Richard Hooker Jr. and Vinnie Perrone. On the outside, you'll hear from Teamsters general president Sean O'Brien, as well as from rank and filers at rallies in Massachusetts, California, Rhode Island, and New York.

The clock is ticking to August 1.

*

Things are shifting for the labor movement in the US. In the past few years, we've seen increases in unionization campaigns, strikes, and public approval of unions. But do these upticks in labor activity amount to a labor upsurge?

Justin Alo looks and sounds like your friendly, everyday UPS delivery driver in San Marcos, California. He drives the brown package truck, he wears the brown uniform, and he delivers, well, packages.

But there are some key differences between him and other drivers. For example, he makes substantially less money per hour, he has fewer job protections, and he has to work on Saturdays. In other words, he's performing equal work but for unequal pay and benefits. That's what they call the "two-tier" at United Parcel Service.

In this episode of The Upsurge, we explore what it's like to be the face of UPS: a package car delivery driver. We cover the highs and lows of the job, including UPS's hyper surveillance of drivers, and the shocking lack of AC in package trucks.

But in particular, we unpack the second tier driver position: the "22.4." We spoke to drivers from California, Illinois, New York, Kentucky and Georgia to learn why the two-tier is so central to this year's contract fight – and why tiered work in general is a cancer for all unions. Hear how Teamsters are organizing their younger members to abolish the two-tier once and for all.

*

It was a brutally hot day in New York City last summer for Chris Cappadona, a UPS package car driver with no AC in his delivery truck. Early on his route, his hands started to lock up, and he found himself unable to breathe. Desperate, he jumped out of the back of his vehicle, but the hundred-plus-degree weather gave him no relief.

Thankfully, nearby sanitation workers saw him struggling, gave him water, and probably saved his life. Like many UPSers last summer, Cappadona was hospitalized for heatstroke.

In this first bonus episode of The Upsurge, we take you to a rally in Manhattan on February 10. There, New York lawmakers, joined by Teamsters and labor groups, introduced a bill that would protect workers like Cappadona from the dangerous working conditions caused by extreme temperatures – both cold and hot.

You'll hear from Cappadona himself, as well as Matt Leichenger, another UPSer who helped draw attention to the issue through organizing; Vinnie Perrone, president of Teamsters Local 804; and NY state senator Jessica Ramos, one of the politicians who introduced the bill.

*

Elbe Lieb is a UPS worker in Bloomington, Indiana, but you wouldn’t know she worked for the company if you saw her on the street, or even if you saw her on the job. That’s because Elbe isn’t one of the package car drivers that we all interact with. She is part of the company’s “silent majority” — the part-time warehouse workers.

In this episode of The Upsurge, we're doing something different. This is the first of a two-parter on what it's like to be a UPS worker. The company likes to boast that it offers full-time jobs with middle-class wages, but they almost never mention that workers like Elbe, the part-timers, makeup over 60% of their workforce. They're the backbone of the company, but (surprise, surprise) they sure aren’t always treated like it.

The part-timers we spoke to were from all over: Tennessee, California, Indiana, and Illinois. All in different hubs, with different regional contracts, working under different union leaderships. But in all of them, part-timers are organizing themselves in preparation for the potential strike in August.

*

In 1997, Rand Wilson was in the war room. Though his opponent didn't really know that a war was afoot.

In the Parcel and Small Package division of the Teamsters union, Rand was strategizing to prepare 185,000 UPSers to strike, if they needed to, when their labor contract expired that summer. By August, they were prepared, and they did strike. And in the end, they won.

In this episode of The Upsurge, we speak with Rand Wilson, who was a communications coordinator of UPS Teamsters' contract campaign in 1997. Now an organizer with Teamsters for a Democratic Union, Rand takes us through the history of the national UPS strike that year, and its implications for the 2023 contract campaign.

UPSers Antoine Andrews and Tony Rosario also return to share their experiences on the picket line of the last "strike of a generation."

*

On August 1, 2023, there's a chance Antoine Andrews won't show up to work. He won't step foot in the United Parcel Service (UPS) hub in Canarsie, Brooklyn where he's worked for 26 years. He won't hop into his iconic brown UPS truck and deliver packages to the businesses and households on his regular route.

No, he'll be on strike – with nearly 350,000 of his coworkers, in what could be one of the largest strikes in United States history.

Welcome to The Upsurge, a podcast about UPS, the Teamsters union, and the future of the American labor movement. In this inaugural episode, we speak with Antonio Rosario and Antoine Andrews, two union activists who each have worked at UPS for over 25 years. We discuss life in the brown uniform, why UPSers may launch a massive strike this summer, and its potential impacts across the broader labor movement.

Coming off "peak season" at UPS, Rosario and Andrews also explain what it's like to be a logistics worker during the busiest time of the year. Spoiler alert: It's rough.

***