This Thursday on CNN This Morning, anchor Victor Blackwell interviewed Sean O’Brien, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who plan to strike if UPS does not meet their demands in a contract negotiation. Pointing out that UPS already heads the industry in pay, Blackwell pressed O’Brien on why the strike was necessary and how it could hurt UPS drivers, which included members of his family.
The Teamsters Union includes 340,000 UPS employees, and UPS delivers six percent of the United States’ GDP. The strike would halt a large portion of the economy.
UPS pays its workers more than anyone else in the industry, with $93,000 starting salaries and $95,000 average salaries. Blackwell asked O’Brien why the union threatened to strike when they already made above average wages:
I have several truck drivers in my family, so I know the work. Let me ask you about this. You talked about they're being well compensated. You acknowledged in your Senate testimony that the starting salary for some of those drivers -- $93,000 a year -- at the top of the industry. So people who are at home hearing that UPS might be -- the workers might be going on strike, and they're already at the top of the heap starting for this, they question why. You tell those folks who are going to be inconvenienced what?