THE Teamsters union that represents US workers at United Parcel Service (UPS) on Thursday (Dec 7) said it would respond to the firing of about 35 newly-organised workers at the delivery company by filing unfair labour practice charges and potentially striking.

The roughly three dozen affected specialist and administrative workers at UPS’s Centennial hub in Louisville, Kentucky, organised with Teamsters Local 89 this autumn, the union said.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters general president Sean O’Brien in a statement said that UPS laid off those workers despite the ruling of an independent arbitrator and falsely claimed that their work should be performed by management.

“If UPS doesn’t get its act together, they’ll be on strike next. Our union will not hesitate to act, and we will not back down,” said O’Brien, who represented some 340,000 UPS workers in a contract deal reached earlier this year.

UPS said its ratified contract covering Teamsters-represented workers remains intact.

“We are committed to working with the Teamsters to resolve this separate matter with a small number of employees at Centennial,” UPS said, adding that it does not expect disruptions to its Louisville operations. REUTERS

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