The Impact

Small businesses feel brunt of strike

Strike a downer for customers

The Players

UPS negotiators, Teamster president once drove company trucks

The Issues

UPS strike: What's it about?

Interact

UPS Strike Message Board

Multimedia

Tempers flare on picket lines
Vxtreme streaming movie

UPS, Teamsters going back to table

Talks resume in Washington Thursday

August 13, 1997
Web posted at: 8:13 p.m. EDT (0013 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- United Parcel Service and the Teamsters union will resume face-to-face talks in Washington Thursday in an effort to end an 11-day-old strike against the package delivery giant.

Sources tell CNN that the resumption of talks was the result of a request from U.S. Labor Secretary Alexis Herman. UPS and Teamsters officials had several separate conversations Wednesday with Herman, who has been trying to jump-start talks that broke down Saturday.

"I am pleased that both sides have agreed to go back to the bargaining table, and I urge them to stay at the table until they reach a settlement," Herman said in a statement. "The key now is for both parties to find a new way to look at the issues and find the solution."

A L S O :

Rebel workers picket UPS and the local union

The strike by 185,000 Teamsters has snarled package delivery across the country and impacted thousands of businesses large and small. Now, some companies affected by the strike have begun laying off workers, as the dispute's impact begins to ripple across the nation's economy.

Russ Bernie and Co., a New Jersey firm that makes dolls and gift items, said it has cut 100 positions. National TechTeam, a Michigan company that provides technical support to customers tied to UPS's computer system, also laid off 100 workers.

"We can't find enough sources to get out the products," said Curts Cooke, president of Russ Barrie. "We're getting out about 20 to 30 percent of our normal shipments."

UPS: Let strikers vote on contract

UPS officials Wednesday continued their campaign to go around the union's leadership and make their case directly to individual workers.

At a press conference in Washington, company spokeswoman Gina Ellrich renewed UPS's call for the Teamsters' leadership to let its members vote on the company's last contract proposal.

"We feel very confident they would ratify this contract," Ellrich said. "If they didn't, we'd have to take another look at our offer. But we know they would." (714K/33 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)

Gina Ellrich, UPS spokeswoman

10 min., 30 sec. VXtreme streaming video

Ellrich said the company has received thousands of e-mail messages and phone calls from workers, asking for a chance to vote on the contract. She read the contents of some messages but declined to identify the senders, saying UPS wanted to protect their confidentiality.

Teamsters President Ron Carey noted that a vote on whether to authorize the union's negotiating committee to call a strike received a 95 percent affirmative vote, which he has cited as evidence of support among the members.

Ellrich countered that the vote Carey cited was taken before UPS's final contract offer was put on the table -- and was a vote to authorize a strike, not on the offer itself.

"It is extraordinarily misleading for this vote to be characterized as a vote on our offer," she said.

Carey: 'I am not optimistic'

The main sticking points between UPS and the Teamsters are the company's use of part-time, instead of full-time, workers and a UPS proposal to pull out of the Teamsters' multi-employer pension fund, something to which the union objects.

"I am not optimistic," Carey said. "I see no sign that UPS has dropped its strategy of shifting to more low-wage, part-time jobs."

President Bill Clinton has resisted calls from UPS officials and business leaders to intervene in the strike and order Teamsters back to work -- a move the union opposes.

"As a general premise, we take the view that the government should not step in and resolve labor management disputes -- that they are to be resolved by the parties, through collective bargaining," said White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry.

Under the federal Taft-Hartley Act, which governs labor disputes, the president can issue a back to work order if a strike threatens the nation's health or safety. The administration maintains that the strike has not reached the legal threshold necessary for such intervention.

But Ellrich said Wednesday that UPS believes the strike does threaten the nation's health because UPS delivers 75 million packages a day to the medical and pharmaceutical industries.

Correspondent Gene Randall and Reuters contributed to this report.