
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, November 9, 1993                   TAG: 9311090065
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

UPS CONTRACT WITH UNION HITS A SNAG

The hard-fought labor contract between United Parcel Service and the Teamsters union hit a constitutional snag in the vote tally from the rank-and-file, forcing negotiators back to the bargaining table.

On Monday, Teamsters union leaders - previously confident that their four-year contract would pass the 165,000-member UPS rank-and-file - acknowledged that the pact hit a brick wall.

While the national contract was approved by more than a 2-to-1 margin, six of the 16 regional supplemental agreements were rejected. As a result of a constitutional Teamsters amendment passed in 1991, all supplements must be approved for the master UPS contract to be ratified.

Ironically, it was then-outsider Ron Carey who pushed the constitutional amendment to give local units more power against the Teamster hierarchy. It was Carey, as president of the Teamsters international, who had to ask both sides back to the bargaining table.

"There is no national contract until we can get these things worked out," said Mario F. Perrucci, chief negotiator on the Teamsters UPS national negotiating committee. "We're going to go back and get the parties together and see if we can work out these issues that seem to be the sticking points." - Wire report

by CNB