Photos: Tampa UPS workers practice for strike that could start on August 1

No one should be surprised that organized labor has practice strikes, and on Friday morning Tampa Bay-based United Parcel Service (UPS) union members prepared for what could be one of the largest strikes the country has seen in decades.

Outside the UPS Customer Center near Ybor City and flanked by the local chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, members of Tampa’s Teamsters Local 79—many waving “Just practicing for a just contract” signs—gathered to review their demands and rehearse a picket line ahead of what would be the first major UPS workers strike since 1997.

As Florida labor reporter McKenna Schueler pointed out, Teamsters’ current contract agreement is effective through July 31. It is the largest private-sector union contract in the U.S., covering hundreds of thousands of UPS delivery drivers and warehouse workers nationwide, including 3,000 in Central Florida.

The union is demanding better wages, heat and safety protections, and what Orlando Weekly described as, “The elimination of a ‘two-tier system’ in UPS that established a lower pay rate for new hires, creating division among workers.”

If the union and UPS don’t reach an agreement by the end of the month, local workers could be part of the nation’s second-largest single-employer strike in U.S. history come Aug. 1.