Last year, two unions representing workers at three major automakers and UPS negotiated new labor agreements that included big pay raises and other benefits. Union leaders, the United Auto Workers and the Teamsters, hoped the victory would help organize workers across the industry.
The UAW won one vote to unionize a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee last month, but lost one this month at two Mercedes-Benz plants in Alabama. The Teamsters have made even less progress at Amazon and FedEx, UPS's biggest non-union rivals in the delivery industry.
Polls show public support for unions is at its highest level in decades. But labor experts say structural factors make it hard for unions to gain new membership: As a share of the workforce, union membership is at its lowest in decades. Unions also face stiff opposition from many employers and conservative political leaders.
The Teamsters provide an instructive case study: Many of the delivery workers for Amazon and FedEx work for contractors, typically small businesses that are difficult to organize. And those directly employed by FedEx Express are subject to labor laws that require a union to organize all such workers at the company nationwide at the same time, a tougher standard than applies to organizing employees of employers like automakers or UPS.
Some labor experts say the Teamsters have not pushed as hard as the UAW to organize non-union workers since winning a new contract with UPS.
“There just wasn't the energy that we saw from UAW leaders,” said Jake Rosenfeld, a sociologist who studies labor at Washington University in St. Louis.
Teamsters officials say a contract with UPS that raised average annual pay, including benefits, for UPS drivers to $170,000 from $145,000 has helped them gain members. At delivery company DHL, where the union has long had a large presence, it added 1,100 members last year and is seeking to gain another 1,500. The Teamsters are also pursuing a lawsuit against Amazon, which could give them an advantage over the company and its contractors.
“The mobilization has been extremely helpful to us,” Teamsters President Sean O'Brien said in an interview about the UPS contract. “We've set the standard for the industry.”
But the union has suffered losses too: Yellow, a trucking company that employed 24,000 Teamsters, closed its doors last year and filed for bankruptcy.
Amazon and FedEx said they were confident in their approaches to managing and compensating their workers. Amazon said it had made investments to strengthen pay and benefits for its delivery workers. FedEx said its non-union model allows it to raise pay more quickly, while UPS union members are bound by the terms of a five-year contract.
“Our culture, built and tested over more than 50 years, is founded on the philosophy that if we take care of our employees, they will provide great service to our customers, which in turn drives better business results for our company,” Tracy Brightman, FedEx's chief human resources officer, said in a statement.
About 310,000 UPS workers are members of the Teamsters, and many of them see FedEx and Amazon drivers on their routes and talk to them about pay, benefits and working conditions.
“We make way more than anyone else in the industry,” said Essence Carlisle, a part-time package handler at a UPS facility in Louisville, Ky. “I'm definitely going to make a career out of this.”
The UPS contract boosted hourly wages by 26% to more than $21 for part-time workers, who make up more than half of the company's unionized workforce. Carlisle said he makes nearly $24 an hour, working about 20 hours a week and using the time to run a bakery on the side. A friend who works full-time as a driver for Amazon makes about $19 an hour, Carlisle said.
UPS's raises were big, but they didn't increase wages enough to keep up with inflation. The top wage immediately following the latest contract was $44.25 an hour, 22 percent higher than it was five years ago. Consumer prices rose 21 percent over the same period.
UPS also typically hires union members part-time and keeps them on the job for several years, which may discourage some from seeking work with the company.
Still, the Teamsters' contract last year was widely debated online and spawned memes of UPS drivers arriving at customers' doors in designer clothes.
“Whether they were joking or not, people were saying, 'Hey, I want a job at UPS,'” said Juan Martinez, a UPS driver in Southern California.
Martinez said his new contract will see him make $110,000 to $120,000 a year, depending on the number of overtime hours he works, and that the extra money will allow him to spend more on his children's education.
Under the Teamsters' contract with UPS, the maximum hourly wage will rise to $49 by the end of the five-year agreement. Amazon said in January that the average wage for its delivery contractor workers in the U.S. is $20.50. FedEx would not disclose the average pay rate for its delivery workers.
The Teamsters have not made much headway at FedEx or Amazon, even though UPS has paid superior wages for years.
High turnover among Amazon and FedEx delivery and warehouse workers has made it difficult to organize them, with part-time positions filled and vacant an average of two times each last year.
Another challenge is that Amazon and FedEx Ground delivery workers are hired by contractors, and trying to organize dozens of people at each contractor could be time-consuming and expensive, said Rosenfeld, the labor scholar.
Last year, 84 Amazon contractors near Los Angeles joined the Teamsters, but just days before, Amazon announced it had terminated its contract with the company that ran the group, Battle-Tested Strategies, for failing to follow proper safety procedures.
The Teamsters have asked the National Labor Relations Board to rule that Amazon is a joint employer of the workers and order the company to reinstate the contract. The board has not yet ruled.
Teamsters executive director Randy Cogan said a favorable ruling would be a “big deal” and “encouraging for thousands of workers across the country.”
Jonathan Ervin, owner of Battle-Tested Strategies, said he believes Amazon terminated its contract and all employees lost their jobs because of the unionization effort. Amazon spokeswoman Mary Kate Paradis disputed that.
Irvin said workers under Amazon's contract have a minimum wage of $19.75. “If we're going to ask for this to be a job, we should improve the working conditions and pay our drivers a higher wage,” said Irvin, who served in the Air Force for 26 years.
Amazon did not directly respond to the criticism, but noted that its contractors, known as Delivery Service Partners, have created 279,000 driver jobs over the past five years.
“Helping DSPs create a positive overall transaction experience is important to us, which is why we have invested more than $8 billion in cutting-edge technology, safety features, rates, programs, and services for Amazon DSPs and their drivers,” Paradis said in a statement.
Unions have had some success at Amazon, including organizing workers at a Staten Island warehouse, but Amazon is contesting elections there and the union is embroiled in infighting.
There's another potential barrier to unionization at FedEx.
FedEx was organized as an airline, and employees in its express business are covered by the Railroad Labor Act, which requires that unions organize nationwide and simultaneously across the company. Union leaders say it's easier to hold separate votes at each company's locations, as allowed by the National Labor Relations Act, which regulates workers at UPS and automakers.
Still, some FedEx employees are unionized: About 6,000 pilots at FedEx Express belong to the Air Line Pilots Association, and the Teamsters are working to organize mechanics who work on the company's planes.
FedEx said pay raises for UPS employees were agreed to before the pandemic, but that delivery workers benefited from not being unionized because the company gave them bigger pay hikes in 2021 and 2022, when parcel deliveries were strong. A FedEx spokesman noted that the company incurred $1.4 billion in additional labor costs in fiscal 2022.
