It’s a big week for labor! In addition to the SAG-AFTRA strike, it’s looking as though the 340,000 unionized UPS workers are about to strike as well — which will cost a lot more and have a lot more impact than even production for the movie version of Wicked being put on hold (which, to be clear, is an extremely big deal). UPS going on strike means not only that the company doesn’t profit, but that we don’t get our deliveries. Stores that rely on UPS won’t get their shipments, people won’t get their mail-order prescriptions, and a whole lot of people and businesses will be pretty screwed. Analysts say that a 10-day strike of UPS workers could cost Americans $7 billion, making it the most expensive strike in a century.
The thing is, the company made an absolutely absurd amount of money during lockdown, while workers risked their health to deliver, well, everything. They did the work and now they want their fair share, because why should those who didn’t do the work reap all that they sowed? That’s not right.
The main sticking point in negotiations is a higher salary for part-time workers. While full-time UPS drivers make $42 an hour, part-time drivers only make $16 an hour, and that’s some bullshit. A large part of what is driving the strike is solidarity with those workers.
But hey! Why have me explain any of this when you can hear it straight from absurdly handsome UPS driver Juan Trujillo.
“Looks like negotiations have fallen through and we’re gonna be going on strike this month,” Trujillo said. “We make $42 and it is not enough, and we want a piece of that $13 billion they made last year.” He went on to encourage drivers for FedEx, Amazon, and others to join them, as together they could “bring the whole economy to its knees” and get what they deserve. He suggested that anyone with a regular job should be watching them do what they do and see how they get paid what they get paid and the amount of time off they get, because “there’s a great labor awakening right now.”
After some jackasses on TikTok posted an ignorant comment on the video about how delivery drivers don’t deserve $42 an hour, Trujillo made others explaining the need for solidarity with the part time workers, along with the fact that if they are making the company $13 billion a year, the people doing the actual work deserve a cut, not just executives and shareholders.
“We’re going on strike because of part-timers making $16 an hour,” Trujillo said, explaining that the full-time UPS drivers have already negotiated their own raise, which they get every year, but that they were standing in solidarity with their co-workers and demanding they be paid fairly as well.
Apropos of nothing, I would just like to put it out there that I am single and have not seen Salt of the Earth too many times, should someone not be busy while on strike. Just saying.
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