Working People19 Jul 2023

The Showdown at UPS (w/ Rikki Schreiner & Amber Mathwig)

We are less than two weeks away from what could be the largest single-employer strike in US history. As of this recording, contract negotiations between United Parcel Services (UPS) and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters have reportedly "collapsed"—and the clock is ticking until the current contract expires on July 31. If a deal is not reached and a strike occurs, what will it look like for 340,000 Teamster UPSers to walk off the job? What are the key issues that workers are prepared to strike over? And what can we all do to support them, whether a strike occurs or not? In this episode, we continue our coverage of the historic UPS contract fight by talking to Rikki Schreiner, a shop steward for Teamsters Local 638 in Minnesota who has worked for UPS since 1999, and Amber Mathwig, a part-time UPS warehouse worker and member of Teamsters Local 638.

Additional links/info below...

M4M4ALL fundraiser for East Palestine residents
Savage Joy-Marie's Twitter page, Rokfin channel, YouTube channel, and Patreon
Amber's Twitter page
Teamsters Local 638 website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
International Brotherhood of Teamsters website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
The Upsurge podcast Spotify page, Twitter page, and Patreon
Teddy Ostrow & Ruby Walsh, The Real News Network, "For Women Workers at UPS, Fighting the Bosses Means Fighting the Patriarchy"
Citations Needed, "News Brief: As UPS Strike "Looms," Media Frames Working-Class Revolt as "Threat" to "The Economy""
Teddy Ostrow, Jacobin, "Part-Time UPS Workers Say Their Jobs Are Brutal"
Teamsters for a Democratic Union website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Sean Orr & Elliot Lewis, Jacobin, "UPS Teamsters Are Ready to Strike"
Working People, "Sean Orr"
Working People, "Teamsters in Boston Have a Message for UPS (w/ Thomas Mari, Jane Fallon, Rob Atkinson, JJ Rodriguez, Fred Zuckerman, Julie, & Sean M. O'Brien)"
Working People, ""If You Can't Stand the Heat, Keep Working" (w/ Zakk, Gabriela, & Steve)"
Alex Press, Jacobin, "Inside the Teamsters' Preparations for a UPS Strike"
J.J. McCorvey, Adiel Kaplan, & Annie Probert, NBC News, "UPS Drivers on Track to Get Air-Conditioned Trucks for the First Time"

Permanent links below...

Working People Patreon page
Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)

Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(391)

UAW becomes first major union to divest from Israel

At the 39th Constitutional Convention of the United Auto Workers (UAW) in Detroit, Michigan, union delegates debated and affirmed the aggressive direction the UAW has taken under current President Sha...

26 Jun 1h 4min

FBI raids homes of Michigan students and workers for Palestine activism

On June 10, early in the morning, FBI agents raided the homes of individuals involved in Palestine solidarity activism at the University of Michigan. As Yarden Katz and Stephen M. Ward report at Mondo...

24 Jun 25min

LIVE SHOW w/ Kim Kelly, Alex Press, and Hamilton Nolan

The world as we know it is facing unprecedented crises today that are all converging at once, from "end-times fascism" and full-blown oligarchy to "artificial intelligence," endless wars, and genocide...

18 Jun 1h 12min

Who's afraid of Chris Smalls?

At a live event hosted at Red Emma's Cooperative Bookstore and Coffeehouse in Baltimore, Maryland, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez got to sit down for a deep and wide-ranging conversation wit...

8 Jun 54min

'They were going after everyone': Baltimore security officers fired and removed from schedules after lawful strike

Nearly a year after workers voted to authorize a strike, non-union city and commercially contracted security officers in Baltimore, MD, walked off the job on April 9 on an Unfair Labor Practice strike...

27 Mai 29min

Kim Kelly: Coal miners are dying, and Trump betrayed them

Since the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump and his acolytes, rightwing media, and coal industry barons and lobbyists have obsessively painted the picture of Trump as a friend to coal miners an...

20 Mai 33min

Over 4,000 UAW members on strike at Harvard University

After 14 months of fruitless contract negotiations with the Harvard University administration, over 4,000 workers represented by the Harvard Graduate Students Union (HGSU-UAW Local 5118) walked off th...

12 Mai 50min

Meet the new Pittsburgh Post-Gazette bosses, same as the old bosses

After members of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh won their strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in late 2025, which had lasted for over 3 years, they were notified in January that the paper's wealt...

7 Mai 52min