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.
I get your anger, and I’d just argue that the best place to put that anger is solidarity. Anything less and they’re winning.
The institutions we use to fight for workers will always suck at least a little bit. Even people who mean well still suck at least a little bit. But we gotta fight with the tools we have, not the ones we want.
I don’t mean “shut up and take it,” I mean show up tomorrow ready to keep fighting.
Keep fighting? The contract won’t be up for negotiation again for a long fucking time. This was a chance to fight and they blew it.
Solidarity to the drivers. The rank-and-file needs to retake the union from class collaborationist sellouts, the fight isn’t just against UPS but against its agents within the union.