[1/4]People hold placards during a rally held by teamsters employed by UPS in downtown L.A., as an August 1st strike deadline against the company nears in Los Angeles, California, U.S. July 19, 2023. REUTERS/Mike Blake
LOS ANGELES/WASHINGTON, July 19 (Reuters) – The United Parcel Service (UPS) (UPS.N) contacted the Teamsters to restart negotiations covering roughly 340,000 package handlers and delivery drivers, the U.S. union said on Wednesday, in a move to avert a potentially economically damaging strike on Aug. 1.
The union and the world’s largest delivery company will set dates soon to resume negotiations next week, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters said in a statement on Twitter.
“We are prepared to increase our industry-leading pay and benefits, but need to work quickly to finalize a fair deal that provides certainty for our customers, our employees and businesses across the country,” UPS said in a statement.
A key sticking point in the talks is pay increases for experienced part-time workers who are making roughly the same or even less than new hires because starting wages jumped due to the labor shortage in the last few years.
Any disruption to the business of UPS would be broadly felt because the company handles about 20 million packages a day – about quarter of the parcel shipments in the United States. Those include deliveries for online retailers like Amazon.com (AMZN.O), high-value prescription drugs for doctors and hospitals, and inventory for millions of other large and small businesses.
A strike could be one of the costliest in at least a century, with the impact of a 10-day strike topping $7 billion, according to one think tank.
UPS pilots, who belong to a different union, would also stop flying in solidarity with the striking workers.
Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese and Josie Kao
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