: The major conflict between the company and the union was on the issue of pensions. As you may or may not know, the Teamsters wanted UPS's pension money to go in the the Teamster fund while the company wanted to create a pension fund for UPS workers alone. It probably would work out better for the workers if their union allowed this. The battle wasn't between UPS and the employees, it was between UPS and the union.
The battle was fought by the rank and file in the Teamsters (many who are Teamsters for a Democratic Union). The Teamsters behaves more like a guild than a union with a large top-heavy bureaucracy which has a lot of perks.This leadership couldn't ignore the militancy of the rank and file and had to act decisively in their negotiations with UPS.The pension fund should controlled directly by the rank and file themselves and neither UPS or the bureaucracy of the Teamsters
should meddle with it.As history has shown , the Teamsters' leadership
has a lousy history as far as being honest trustees of the Teamsters'
pension fund. So much so that when *union* is mentioned nowadays many
people associate Jimmy Hoffa and forget how corporate circles encouraged this type of racketeering behavior in order to destroy
worker control.For the most part one won't find this in history textbooks in American classrooms (except for brief paragraphs) and instead discover such disturbing facts outside of the main institutions
of American society.With this thing called the Internet more people are
finding out the real truth and waking up.They are also recognizing the
jargon and irrational jingoisms of apologists for the corporate agenda.
In the end both the company and the workers got shafted by the union. I must agree with Jen. This is not the kind of union action that is desired by workers.
I agree with that also.For very real reasons.
None.
