Teamsters union General President Sean O’ Brien warned UPS Inc. (NYSE: UPS) Thursday that it will strike the company’s Louisville, Kentucky, operations over the company’s alleged firing Thursday of 35 so-called specialist and administrative employees who joined the Teamsters in the fall.
In a statement, O’Brien said that UPS has until Monday to rectify the situation or else the union will take action. He didn’t specify a resolution, and a Teamster spokesperson wasn’t immediately available to comment.
According to O’Brien, the 35 UPS employees at the company’s Centennial ground hub joined Local 89, one of the largest Teamsters locals representing UPS workers. O’Brien said UPS falsely claimed that management could perform the employees’ work. Local 89 is in the process of filing unfair labor practice charges against UPS over the alleged action.
UPS was also not immediately available to comment.
Local 89 represents more than 2,000 workers at the Centennial hub and more than 12,000 Teamsters at its primary air hub, known as Worldport, in Louisville.
Currently, more than 1,100 Teamsters are engaged in an unfair-labor-practice strike against UPS competitor DHL Express in Covington, Kentucky, the site of the DHL air unit’s U.S. hub.