UPS, pilots ratify long-awaited labor agreement

After five years of negotiations, UPS pilots have ratified a new labor agreement that will put their wages near the top of the airline and airfreight industries. Key components of the agreement include immediate increases of 14.65 percent and a signing bonus in place of retroactive pay to the tune of US$60,000 for captains, and $40,000 for first officers. In addition, the agreement provides 3 percent annual wage increases over the life of the contract, for “a compounded increase of 29.04 percent.”

“Important gains were made in all areas of the contract to include improvements in the critical area of pilot scheduling,” said Independent Pilots Association (IPA) president Robert Travis. The IPA is the collective bargaining unit representing the more than 2,600 pilots flying for UPS.

On the corporate side, UPS expressed satisfaction that “our crewmembers have accepted this win-win contract offer,” said Brendan Canavan, UPS Airlines president. “Together, we have succeeded in taking care of both our people’s needs and our business objectives.”

Negotiations, however, were often tense. In April, pilots opened a strike center near UPS’s headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, in the event negotiations broke down. In Germany, dozens of UPS pilots refused to fly for a day in April in solidarity with striking German airport workers.

The UPS-pilot ratification comes on the heels of another successfully concluded a tentative contract deal between Southwest Airlines and its pilots. The latter deal was hailed by Forbes as one of the highest-paying in the business. These developments draw attention to other ongoing calls for better terms or new contracts in the industry.

Join us for networking and discussion of logistics innovation at Air Cargo World’s new ELEVATE 2016 Conference, Oct. 10, in Miami. Click here for details.