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Tempers flare on picket lines
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Rebel workers picket UPS and the local union

Teamsters leader: 'They're scared'

August 13, 1997
Web posted at: 8:15 p.m. EDT (0015 GMT)

From Correspondent Christine Negroni

WASHINGTON, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- A handful of UPS workers in this town of 16,000 have given the UPS strike an interesting twist: they are picketing their local union.

One of them is Todd Shuop, a UPS driver who says he wants to go back to work. He said there are a lot of other UPS workers like him.

"I think the whole union's not being heard," he said.

Marcy Munnell, a loader, agrees. "I felt like I was finally doing something I believed in," she says after picketing the headquarters of Teamsters Local 585, located 30 miles from Pittsburgh.

More than a dozen teamsters joined Shuop and Munnell carrying signs urging that the union allow the rank-and-file to vote on the latest offer from UPS. It is a demand that the Teamsters Union has so far declined.

Unions have played a key role in the economy of this part of Pennsylvania for a long time, but now they are in decline. While some companies are no longer unionized, others have gone out of business.

That weakening of organized labor explains, to some extent, the willingness of people like Shuop and Munnell to challenge the Teamsters.

A L S O :

UPS, Teamsters going back to table

"Unions have lost some power," says Park Burroughs of the Washington Observer "They're not as strong as they used to be here, and union members are not stupid. They see this happening, that unions do not have the power that they once had and that their position for bargaining is not as strong as it used to be."

'It doesn't feel like I had a choice'

Shuop and Munnell still take their turns on the regular picket line, but Munnell says it's a show of solidarity she does not really feel.

"I feel so frustrated because it doesn't feel like I had a choice in this," she says. "I didn't vote."

Munnell says her UPS salary from two part-time jobs not only contributes to the family income, it is also the only source of health insurance for her husband and daughter.

More than half of the nearly 185,000 striking Teamsters are part-time workers like Munnell. They make an average of $11 an hour, while full-time workers receive an average of $20 an hour.

On Thursday, all striking Teamsters become eligible for strike benefits of $55 a week.

Shuop, a driver, says his paycheck supports a family of three. He needs the money, he says, and that's the reason he picketed the union office -- an act that made front-page news.

"We're not trying to break the union," Shuop said. "We're trying to bring the union together for a vote."

Union leader: 'They're scared'

Roy Marshall, president of Teamsters Local 585, said he thinks he understands.

"They're obviously very scared," he says. "Strikes are very scary things ... the uncertainty of the future. And also, too, the talks of stalemating is causing a lot of concern."

No Teamster has crossed the UPS picket line here, but Shuop says he would if he could convince the rest of Local 585 to go along with him. But he admits that the chances of that happening soon are not very good.