News about labor unions

UPS raised its full-year financial guidance, expecting to benefit from high prices and resilient demand through the holiday season. CEO Carol Tomé intends to lead the company for at least two more years to negotiate a new labor deal with its unionized Teamsters drivers. Bloomberg's Lee Klaskow says UPS is shifting away from low-margin business-to-consumer packages tied to Amazon toward higher-margin areas such as data centers, healthcare, pharmaceuticals and automotive, with high-tech volumes up around 30% even as overall volume fell. UPS shares are up about 4% year to date, versus about 30% for FedEx and about 25% for DHL, and the stock is still seen as a show-me story amid restructuring and execution risks. The commentator also expects costs to go up in the coming negotiation, while the fuel-cost discussion in the article is cut off.

On October 22, 2026, Teamsters General President Sean M. O'Brien joined hundreds of Amazon Teamsters and New York City officials, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani, at City Hall to urge Council Speaker Julie Menin to schedule an immediate vote on the Delivery Protection Act. The bill, authored by Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, would require companies like Amazon to register facilities with the city and ban subcontracting for last-mile drivers in the five boroughs. The union says Amazon relies on third-party Delivery Service Partners to shield itself from liability, and the bill has backing from a majority of the City Council and the mayor. Amazon has spent over $8 million on a campaign against the bill, its largest lobbying effort in New York City and state history.

Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Arizona, proposed raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $20 an hour by 2030, in phases starting in 2027, as part of a 32-page middle-class jobs plan. The Employment Policies Institute, a conservative nonprofit, estimates the plan would cut 2.3 million jobs nationally. Critics including the Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry and the Goldwater Institute argue the increase would hurt entry-level workers and that skills, housing and childcare would be better priorities. The plan also aims to triple union membership by 2035, while Arizona's unionized employee rate was 4.1% in 2025. Arizona's own minimum wage is $15.15 an hour.