Strike votes are a common part of labor negotiations, designed to give the union negotiators leverage while trying to reach an agreement. They typically pass overwhelmingly, and the majority of contract negotiations are concluded without a strike. If a strike does come, it would be the largest against a single employer in America’s history. More than 330,000 Teamsters work at UPS\n \n , making it the largest unionized employer in the private sector.
But UPS profits, revenue and volumes fell in the first quarter compared to a year earlier as the company warned it is seeing signs of a slowdown in shipments. One of the major pushes for the union is to close the gap between pay scales for different classes of employees, which allowed UPS to begin regular Saturday deliveries in 2019. According to an analysis by Deutsche Bank, the gap is about $6 an hour for the most senior employees and less than $1 a hour for new hires.