UPS feels Twitter pile-on amid strike threat, Teamsters negotiations

The general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters hit UPS Tuesday for its “underpaid” and “overworked” employees, responding to a Twitter thread from the company about the benefits of working part time.

“They’re rightfully demanding what they’re owed,” Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien said in the tweet. “It’s time for your company to do right by the #Teamsters and our members’ families. 20 days to pay up.”

His comments come amid high tensions between the Teamsters and UPS. Negotiations on a new contract between the two collapsed last week as the July 31 set date — when the current contract expires — for a Teamsters strike inches closer. 

“Will companies/institutions every learn that these tweets don’t go well?” one Twitter user wrote. “Like people will ALWAYS use these as an opportunity to expose your poor working conditions and/or messed up systems?

Other responses to the thread included Twitter users’ complaints with the company’s heat regulation in their trucks and a screenshot of an article reporting on UPS’s financial misdeeds. 

“Speaking of setting the record straight, we think an ‘average $20 an hour’ for part-timers means either @UPS’s Twitter account has been hacked by someone who doesn’t know what ‘average’ means or the company is simply rounding up to the nearest 20,” the official Teamsters account said in a Quote Tweet.

Another Twitter user spoke about the negative working conditions they said they faced while working at UPS, including “extreme heat with no breaks” and “carbon monoxide poisoning one time.”

“When I went to the doctor for the latter, y’all threatened to fire me!” the Twitter user said in response to the UPS thread.