Delivery Workers Labor Relations

United Parcel Service's deep financial resources helped it weather the Teamsters' 15-day strike, but the nation's largest shipping company now faces new challenges: restoring worker goodwill and regaining business from newly skeptical customers. Getting its operations back in gear and moving backlogged packages shouldn't take long. With a tentative settlement in hand, workers are expected back on the job by midweek.

It was the news that striking UPS workers in Orange County had waited for, and it didn't matter that it came from a 9-inch television set propped on someone's pickup truck. "A tentative agreement has been reached tonight between UPS workers and . . ." began the TV anchor, whose voice was soon drowned by whoops from three dozen Teamsters: "Alriiight!" "YES!" "YEAH." They hugged. They shook hands.

Picketers at the United Parcel Service hub here pumped their fists in the air late Monday and danced and hugged one another as a settlement ending their 15-day strike was announced. As some details were announced, they cheered every provision--especially wage increases for part-timers, safety assurances and changes in the pension plan. "This is history," said Lou Ortiz, a retired UPS truck driver. "We made history tonight." The first hint of a settlement came shortly after 7 p.m.

Under pressure from President Clinton and businesses crippled by the near-shutdown of the nation's largest carrier of packaged goods, leaders of the Teamsters union and United Parcel Service said early today that they had reached a tentative agreement to end a 15-day-old nationwide strike. A full complement of the company's trademark brown delivery trucks could be back on the roads on Wednesday, officials said.

Leaders of the striking Teamsters and the United Parcel Service on Sunday offered hints of progress in their marathon negotiations, though there appeared scant hope for a quick end to the 15-day-old strike. "We're talking about the issues, and that to me is progress, trying to see if we can find some areas of agreement, and the talks are moving along," said Teamsters President Ron Carey.

Weary negotiators for the striking Teamsters and United Parcel Service kept talking Saturday but failed to reach any agreement that could end the union's walkout against the nation's dominant package delivery service. "They've been talking basically nonstop," a Labor Department spokesman said. "They are working hard on the issues."

The Teamsters union strike against United Parcel Service is a defining event not only for labor-management relations but for the entire U.S. economy. It is comparable to the air traffic controllers' strike of 1981, in which President Ronald Reagan fired the strikers, hired replacement workers and sent a signal to U.S. business that reverberated for a decade and longer. The message of the air controllers' strike was that U.S.

The Teamsters and United Parcel Service continued marathon talks on Friday with scant signs of progress in settling the strike against the nation's biggest package delivery service. Pessimistic about any quick solution, the Teamsters called on locals around the country to "build strength on the picket lines and in the community." Teamsters President Ron Carey asked American workers to wear blue ribbons on the job Thursday to demonstrate solidarity with the 185,000 striking Teamsters.

Plagued by enemies within his union and troubled by a federal grand jury investigation into the financing of his narrow reelection win last year, Teamsters President Ron Carey didn't need any more burdens. But he took on yet another stiff challenge when 185,000 Teamsters walked out against United Parcel Service on Aug. 4. Since then, the 61-year-old Carey has directed a strike that, for better or for worse, could prove to be a defining moment for organized labor in the late 1990s.

In the island town of Avalon, the UPS strike almost halted the local newspaper's flawless 83-year record of punctual delivery. In Los Angeles, a truck mechanic can't get to three broken-down buses and a Mack truck because his technical manuals are lost somewhere en route. In Hollywood, an 18-year-old woman can't get a Hebrew religious book she needs before she heads off to study at a university in Israel.