UPS Strike Ends in Rare Labor Victory, Teamsters Win Part-Time Worker Protections

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters ends a 15-day strike against United Parcel Service on August 19, 1997, winning a contract that creates 10,000 new full-time jobs from part-time positions, increases wages for part-time workers by 36 percent over five years, and maintains the union pension fund. The strike represents labor’s most significant victory in decades, achieved through public support, strategic framing around “Part-Time America,” and the credible threat that 185,000 workers could shut down the nation’s package delivery system during peak summer shipping season.

Teamsters President Ron Carey and the union’s communications team brilliantly reframe the dispute from wages to the broader issue of corporate reliance on part-time and contingent work. By 1997, 60 percent of UPS workers are part-time, earning half the wages and benefits of full-timers while doing identical work. The “Part-Time America Won’t Work” slogan resonates with a public increasingly aware that the economic recovery has produced millions of low-wage, no-benefit jobs. Polls show 55 percent of Americans supporting the strikers versus only 27 percent for UPS.

The victory demonstrates that strikes can still succeed under specific conditions: overwhelming public support, genuine economic leverage over an employer dependent on continuous operations, and a reformed union leadership committed to member mobilization. However, the UPS strike proves exceptional rather than transformative. Ron Carey is subsequently disqualified from union leadership over campaign finance irregularities, replaced by old-guard leader James Hoffa Jr. The broader legal and economic environment that enables permanent replacement, NAFTA-facilitated offshoring threats, and weak NLRB enforcement remains unchanged. The UPS victory provides a brief glimpse of revitalized labor power but fails to spark the broader organizing wave that would be necessary to reverse decades of union decline.