Negotiations between UPS and its unionized workers are set to resume Tuesday - less than a week before the current contract between the two sides expires (July 31).
“This rally was planned prior to (the announcement of resumption of negotiations). This is to rally our troops and let this company know and hear us loud and proud here in UPS’s back door in Atlanta at Local 728 that we’re willing to do whatever it takes to get the contract that our members deserve,” Matt Higdon, president of Local 728, tells WSB Radio’s Tina Douglas.
Higdon says unionized workers in metro Atlanta have been practicing walking the picket lines and are fully ready to walk out if the time comes.
He says the Atlanta-based shipping giant needs to share its $100 billion profit from last year, with all its workers.
“That’s the face of UPS, but without those hub workers on the insides of these buildings sweating it out and working hard every day, loading and unloading these trucks, they don’t roll,” Higdon says.
“UPS knows and they see the writing on the wall, and they understand that on August the first, if we don’t have the contract that these members deserve, those picket signs will turn into real ones instead of practice ones,” Higdon adds.
UPS has previously said it already offers “industry-leading pay and benefits” to its union workforce. But still, it is prepared to boost compensation.
In part of a statement from the company Friday, it says it aims “quickly to finalize a fair deal that provides certainty for our customers, our employees and businesses across the country.”
Saturday’s rally of Local 728 workers is set to begin at 10 a.m. at the Teamsters’ headquarters on Lakewood Avenue.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.