United Parcel Service and Teamsters union representatives met with Labour Secretary Alexis Herman on Monday, but there was little sign of a break in the eight-day-old strike.
As the negotiations took place, a UPS driver died when his truck toppled off a freeway ramp in Nashville, Tenn. In Miami, police said they had charged four UPS workers with attacking a fifth who was working in defiance of the strike.
Herman called the two sides in after talks ended abruptly on Saturday. I made it clear that everyone involved must show greater flexibility and a willingness to compromise, Herman said, describing the meetings as serious but offering no indication of progress. Teamsters President Ron Carey told reporters after his meeting with Herman that he was ready to go back to the bargaining table, but only for serious negotiations.
Im not going to spend any more time out there chit-chatting, Carey said. On Saturday, Carey said further talks would be fruitless because UPS was unwilling to improve its contract offer.
UPS negotiator Dave Murray said the company was not changing its offer despite Hermans calls for flexibility. We still believe that the correct solution to this is for the Teamsters to put our people back to work and send our offer out for a vote, Murray said.
UPS called a news conference for 2 p.m. (1800 GMT) Tuesday in Washington to discuss the strike.
UPS wrote to all Congress members Monday, asking them to urge the White House to end the strike. But White House spokesman Mike McCurry told reporters that while the strike was a concern, the conditions for federal intervention under the Taft-Hartley law had not yet been met.
The standard in the statute hasnt changed in the last week its imperil the national health and safety and we monitor the strike conditions and the economic conditions to see if that standard has been met, McCurry said. So far it has not.
In Nashville, a UPS driver was killed when his tractor-trailer toppled off a freeway ramp and fell onto busy Interstate 65. The company said the man was a long-time UPS driver-trainer who was substituting for a regular driver because of the strike.
Miami police said they charged four striking UPS drivers in connection with an attack on another UPS driver with an ice pick as he was making deliveries.
Police said Roderick Carter, working in defiance of the strike, was attacked Thursday when his UPS truck stopped at a traffic light.
Angel Mielgo, 30; Orestes Espinosa, 30; and Benigno Rojas, 28, were charged with attempted murder. Adran Paez, 25, was charged with aggravated battery.
All are UPS workers, police spokeswoman Nina Fonticiella said. This is the only incident weve had like this, but tension is mounting.
Teamsters spokeswoman Nancy Stella said the union did not know the details but said: We are urging our locals to refrain from violence.
UPS normally handles 12 million packages a day. Federal mediator John Calhoun Wells has described the strike as the biggest in the United States in the past 25 years.
Atlanta-based UPS, which before the strike delivered about 80 percent of all packages shipped by ground nationwide, said it wanted to avoid hiring replacement workers but declined to rule out such a move.
Other package carriers have leaped into the gap left by the strike. UPS spokesman Ken Sternad said analysts estimates that the company had lost $300 million last week were not inappropriate.
Sternad said the strike damage was harder to quantify the longer it went on. The company was losing customers to competitors and some would be lost forever.
Economists said a protracted strike by United Parcel Service workers was certain to hurt the economy and might help persuade the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates steady despite recent signs of accelerating growth.
If the strike were still under way (and) the Fed took action, it would pile on whats already a bad situation, said Everett Ehrlich, president of consultancy ESC Co.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the Teamsters has not yet asked the labour federation for financial support.
Well wait for the request. But we will support them in every way we possibly can. And its safe to say that that includes financial resources, he said.