The Real Reason For The UPS Teamsters Strike

I've been hearing a lot of people still wondering why the Teamsters union sent the UPS workers on strike. Some say it was because Teamster president Ron Carey wanted to retain the right to handle the pension fund. Some people say it was because the Teamsters union wanted more full-time jobs created. That's what some people say.

Here's the real reason the UPS Teamsters union went on strike. You won't hear this from Palestinian Pete Jennings, Left of Lenin Ted Koppel, or Dan Rather Liberal.

The Carey for President campaign was in big trouble. Ron Carey's opponent, Jimmy Hoffa's son, was collecting more campaign contributions by a factor of 5-1 over Mr. Carey.

Everyone knows that usually the candidate with the most money wins, (except for the Republican Revolution of 1994). Teamsters and other union members alike were sick and tired of Ron Carey. The Teamsters union was so corrupt that the AFL-CIO, (American Federation of Liars - Clinton is Ours), threw them out.

Remember that Carey was supposed to be the savior of the corrupt Teamsters union. Carey got together with his people and devised a scheme to get more money for his campaign.

He couldn't divert Teamsters money directly to his campaign effort. That is illegal, and the federal government was watching this election process closely. So close that it cost the American taxpayers over $22 million in the process.

Carey wanted to ask other union presidents to help him out with campaign donations, a sort of "comrade-at-arms" gesture. The law states that an individual deemed as an "employer" cannot make a donation to a union candidate. Since union presidents are deemed as employers, that idea was out. Carey even asked if the union presidents' wives could make donations. The laws states that they could, but they have to prove that the wives got the money from an independent income, so that idea was also thrown out.

Here's the scheme the Carey campaign came up with. Everyone knows that the unions and the Democrat Party have been in bed together for years. Democrat politicians have their own fund-raisers. The people who give to them are corporate CEOs and alike. They make very large contributions and expect very large favors in return.

Carey couldn’t divert Teamsters money to his campaign, but unions are allowed to give money to Democrat political candidates. The Carey campaign told their usual bedfellow Democrats that the Teamsters would give twice as much normal so long as the Democrats persuaded their contributors to give their donations to the Carey campaign.

The result was that the Democrats got more money than usual, and Carey won by a slight margin with the extra money his campaign received due to this scheme.

The federal government figured this out and deemed the election null and void. The feds called for a new election. Carey took the UPS Teamsters out on strike so that he could fill their heads with the usual Marxist union crap, declare victory for the "working man", and make himself look like a hero to the rank and file of the Teamsters union. This way he could guarantee a lot of votes by the lemmings in the union.

Now, let's examine what Mr. Carey accomplished for his Teamsters. The average UPS driver makes around $19.95 an hour. That comes to $700.00 a week. They were out on strike for three weeks, which comes to about $2,100.00. This means that as of the day the UPS Teamsters went back to work they are making $2,100.00 less this year than they were making before the phony strike.

UPS agreed to give a 3% increase in pay. This comes to about 60 cents an hour. It will take UPS workers almost two years of working just to break even with what the strike cost them.

Mr. Carey is also bragging that he got UPS to agree to create 10,000 new full-time jobs in the next five years. If you study the job creation history of UPS, they usually create 13,000 jobs on their own in the same time period. So, Mr. Carey lost 3,000 new full-time jobs by this negotiation. He would have done better if he did nothing at all.

If a UPS worker retires today with the Teamsters controlling the pension he would receive around $1,200 a month. If UPS controlled the pension that same retiree would receive around $3,400 a month. Mr. Carey wanted the Teamsters to control the pension money so that he could retain power. Power to spread that money around to other Teamster union shops. UPS said that they wanted to keep the money within UPS to better benefit their employees.

The rank and file of Teamsters workers should do one thing. Get rid of Mr. Carey. Throw him out on the street and forget about him. He has done more harms than good for his fellow Teamsters. He exploited them for his own gain. He forgot that he was elected to represent his constituents. Kind of like Democrats politicians who pander to crazy special interest groups over their own constituents for the benefit of power and greed.

Publius2