Following months of negotiations with Teamsters, UPS announced in June that it would install air conditioning in new trucks starting next year. The company said it would send new trucks to the hottest parts of the country first, if possible. The company also said it would retrofit its existing package cars with cab fans, exhaust heat shields, and cargo area ventilation.
“While these improvements will make a difference in the months and years ahead, we had to fight like hell to secure them,” the Teamsters union said in its social media post Thursday. “Chris Begley should still be alive to experience them. All companies, including UPS, need to remember that their past failings to protect workers can have deadly serious consequences in the future.”
Chris Bagley should still be alive and it’s a damn shame the Teamsters failed to protect him from social murder. Only new trucks? Only next year? They drove trucks without fans, heat shields, and ventilation? What the fuck.
The Teamsters could have, at the very least, demand a total halt on driving trucks without fucking fans. “Oh but that’ll cause package delays!” Well I guess we just have to murder drivers for the sake of logistics.
If anyone tells me how great and historic the new contract is one more fucking time I’ll fucking lose it.
The union exists to force the company to do anything in the first place! That’s their only job! If UPS murders drivers it’s because the union didn’t strike and force them to stop.
More drivers will die because they didn’t strike and force UPS to make its fleet safe.
You’re blaming the Union for UPS killing drivers.
Take a step back and think about that.
I’m blaming the union for not striking.
Why do they need to strike in the first place? Because of UPS. You’re falling into the trap.
What trap? You said it yourself, they need to strike.
And they didn’t.
They needed to strike in the first place because UPS was doing something wrong. You’re not putting your emphasis on the ultimate party that is in the wrong. You’re attacking the middleman which is the only reason the workers have any power at all. Either you’re falling for the trap like UPS and other big businesses want you to, or you’re anti-union and are arguing in bath faith.
I’m attacking class collaborators for getting a bad deal when they could have fought for a better one.
Don’t act like unions have to be above criticism. They need to be critiqued so they can improve.
They aren’t above criticism, they are above blame when the Employer is to blame. If you can be confused for Anti-Union, your tactics need to change. This is the exact garbage being pushed to spread apathy to workers forming unions. Teamsters got a lot for UPS drivers.
They share the blame when they collaborate with the employer and act as the company’s PR and HR departments.
The anti-union and splitter interpretation of this reality is that this is a reason to not join the union or to form a splitter org (with blackjack and hookers etc), but I think it’s the opposite; this is a reason to agitate the union membership to transform it from within and to push the union to abandon class collaboration. It’s still a labor organization even if it is captured by corporate and nationalist interests. Unlike idiots who think the Democratic Party can be changed from within, there’s historical and materialist foundation for this tactic. The union needs to be taken back, not abandoned.
You can’t just ignore the fact that the union leadership pushed for a bad contract. Nor can you ignore the fact that every other interested party, from the corporate media to the literal President of the US, pushed for this contract.
Critical support, not blind support.