UPS TA

[Guest]

UPS, Airline Mechanics Ink Labor Deal

BY MICHAEL CONNOR

Reuters

MIAMI - United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS.N), the world's No. 1 package carrier, said on Tuesday it had reached a tentative contract with unionized mechanics and other U.S. workers at its in-house airline.

The five-year deal would take the top hourly wage for a UPS aircraft mechanic to $43 from $30.67 but still must be approved by 1,140 members of Teamsters Local 2727, according to a company spokesman.

The same workers last spring rejected an earlier deal despite endorsements from union leaders and forced a second round of bargaining guided by a federal mediator. That failed, four-year deal called for a top mechanic's wage of $40 by 2005.

A vote on the new mechanics' contract, which is separate from a recently approved pact covering 230,000 other UPS workers at Atlanta-based UPS, may come within a month, according to UPS spokesman Mark Giuffre.

Most specifics of the contract covering workers at UPS Airlines were not available from either the company or the Teamsters, a 1.4 million-member union based in Washington, D.C.

But both sides said the contract included pension and other improvements and would, according to the UPS spokesman, take the top hourly wage for an aircraft mechanic at UPS to an "industry leading" $43 by its expiration on Nov. 1, 2006.

The tentative contract includes retroactive pay back to August 2001 and also covers flight simulator technicians, utility workers and maintenance controllers at Louisville, Kentucky-based UPS Airlines, whose 250-aircraft fleet makes it the world's 11th-largest air carrier.

"The agreement means we can continue to focus on growing our business while enhancing good-paying UPS jobs," Vice President Bob Lekites said in a news release.

UPS, which was badly shaken by a 1997 strike in the United States by its drivers, package sorters and other ground workers, plans to next month begin bargaining with the union representing its 2,531 pilots on a contract to replace one not due to expire until Dec. 31, 2003.

On Aug. 29, drivers, package handlers and other Teamsters workers at UPS voted by a 72-28 percent margin to ratify a separate deal calling for a 22 percent increase in wages over six years for up to 230,000 UPS staff in the United States.