UPS and Teamsters, the union representing nearly 340,000 UPS workers are trying to reach a new five-year labor contract before the current contract expires at midnight July 31.
Earlier this month, the two sides departed the bargaining table without coming to a consensus on a new contract. Teamsters have repeatedly said they will strike starting Aug. 1 if a new contract is not agreed upon. In June, Teamsters passed a strike authorization vote, giving the union the ability to strike if and when they deem necessary.
In Louisville and nationwide, Teamsters union barns have been hosting practice pickets ahead of what is anticipated to be the largest single employer strike in U.S. history.
As of July 5, no additional negotiations between the union and the company have been scheduled.
UPS employs about 25,000 people in Louisville, one of the metro’s largest employers, and close to 500,000 nationwide. Louisville is home to UPS Worldport, the largest sorting and logistics facility in America, and the UPS Airlines headquarters.
UPS supports the national and global economy, and the company estimates it “transports more than 3% of global (gross domestic product) and about 6% of U.S. GDP daily,” including everything from home-ordered Amazon packages to business shipments and medical necessities. Employees at UPS Worldport play a major role in the company’s economic impact, sorting more than 400,000 packages hourly.
Teamsters Local 89, represents roughly 10,000 UPS employees in Louisville. Stephen Piercey, the communications director for Teamsters Local 89, previously said a UPS strike would be a 24/7 operation at Worldport with union members rotating picket line shifts.
The more than 3,000 UPS Airlines pilots who are members of the Independent Pilots Association would support the picket line, just like it did in 1997, the last time UPS experienced a strike.
Domestically, UPS has five total airport hubs, including Worldport and excluding the company’s Miami location which primarily serves Central and South America. UPS operates roughly 1,200 domestic and 780 international flight segments daily.
If a strike were to occur at UPS on Aug. 1, it could have a major effect on operations in Louisville. Here are five visuals that illustrate the scope of how a UPS strike could impact the company’s domestic airline hubs and just how big UPS Worldport is.
Where are the domestic UPS Air Hubs located?
There are five domestic UPS Air Hubs. The hubs, located in Louisville, Kentucky (UPS Worldport), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (UPS East Coast Hub), Dallas, Texas (UPS Southwest Hub), Rockford, Illinois (UPS Rockford Regional Hub) and Ontario, California (UPS West Coast Hub), are all cities that have international airports.
How many daily flights does each hub have?
Across the globe, UPS serves more than 750 airports. Domestically, the five air hubs alone are responsible for more than 570 flights daily, almost 50% of all UPS domestic flight segments each day.
How big is each UPS domestic air hub?
Louisville’s UPS Worldport facility is the company’s largest air operations facility globally. In the U.S., Worldport is more than six times larger than the company’s next largest domestic air hub in Ontario, California.
How many packages does the facility handle?
In 2022, UPS delivered an average of 24.3 million packages daily for a total of 6.2 billion packages delivered last year. For the company to deliver that quantity of packages to the more than 220 countries and territories it services, the domestic air hubs are heavily relied on to sort and load packages quickly. At UPS Worldport, 416,000 packages are handled hourly.
What geographic area does the air hub serve?
Across the company, UPS services more than 220 countries and territories globally. The only air hub to provide service to all of these locations is the Worldport facility. The other four domestic hubs serve roughly 10-20 states each, with some overlapping areas of service.
Contact reporter Olivia Evans at oevans@courier-journal.com or on Twitter at @oliviamevans_.
