In late April, logistics giant UPS announced it would cut 20,000 jobs and close 73 sorting facilities by the end of the year, blaming “changes in the global trade policy and new or increased tariffs.”

The layoffs come as the profit-hungry company raked in revenues of $21.5 billion in the first four months of this year alone. What’s more, UPS is obligated by its contract with 330,000 Teamsters to create 30,000 new union jobs. Management is trying to shift the blame onto tariffs. In reality, they aim to close over 200 sorting facilities and cut even more jobs by 2028 as part of an automation plan that predates Trump’s trade war.

In the hands of the capitalists, automation means nothing but job losses and a race to the bottom for the entire working class. UPS Teamsters must organize and strike now to defend jobs! Plenty of other workers, both organized and unorganized, face threats from automation. With a program of fighting demands, the Teamsters could get millions to join the struggle.

“Hell of a fight”?

How have union leaders reacted to the cuts? Teamsters President Sean O’Brien issued a statement following the announcement:

United Parcel Service is contractually obligated to create 30,000 Teamsters jobs under our current national master agreement. If UPS wants to continue to downsize corporate management, the Teamsters won’t stand in its way. But if the company … makes any attempt to go after hard-fought, good-paying Teamsters jobs, UPS will be in for a hell of a fight.

Despite these nice-sounding words, the union’s leadership hasn’t taken any concrete action to stop the shutdowns. As reported by a Teamster-communist in this issue, these closings are already taking place, and the O’Brien leadership hasn’t put up any fight—hellish or otherwise!

The goal of UPS’s “Network of the Future” automation plan is to make more profits while employing less labor. If Teamsters want to protect their jobs, they’ll need to launch a struggle on an even greater scale than the successful 1997 strike against UPS. / Image: Teamsters Local

“Network of the Future”

The goal of UPS’s “Network of the Future” automation plan is to make more profits while employing less labor. The company is pouring billions into the project. If Teamsters want to protect their jobs, they’ll need to launch a struggle on an even greater scale than the successful 1997 strike against UPS.

But union leaders have been caught flat-footed by the threat of automation. The Oregonian interviewed Teamster National Vice-President John Palmer about the closure of a Portland sorting facility. He admitted that the union’s 2023 contract didn’t do a sufficient job of protecting workers:

If you’re going to get displaced, based on your years of service there ought to be some sort of severance … when you have a corporation like UPS that makes billions of dollars in profit every quarter. Leadership, having seen this coming, should have had a strategy.

But “some sort of severance” is far from enough to defeat this attack on working-class living standards. The union should demand a shorter workweek with no loss in pay and staffing levels that, at the very least, maintain the present workforce.

Who benefits from automation?

Ever since capitalism came into being, profit-hungry capitalists have used new technologies to make labor more productive. Increased productivity leads to higher profits in the short-term, and allows capitalists to replace skilled workers with unskilled workers, pushing down wages and increasing profits even further.

The implementation of new technology is inevitable. The question is whether productivity gains will be used to line the pockets of the rich, or to lighten the burden on workers and society as a whole. Ultimately, this is not just a bread-and-butter union issue, but a political question of who controls the factories, warehouses, and other means of production.

As long as the capitalists are in control, the profit motive and market competition will force them to increasingly automate production at our expense. Under a workers’ government with a democratically planned economy, greater productivity could be used to make work easier, reduce working hours with no loss in pay, and create abundance for all.