UPS calls police on workers

Commerce City, CO – In the early morning hours of June 21, police were called to the United Parcel Service (UPS) Hub in Commerce City to remove a group of rank-and-file Teamsters who were passing out educational materials to their fellow workers.

These Teamsters, members of Teamsters Local 455 and the Colorado chapter of Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), were in the parking lot that day to spread the news of what was happening on their shop floor and to educate their coworkers of their contractual rights, as well as to collect statements for an upcoming grievance hearing. Within an hour of setting up their table, preload manager Edward Cordova ordered these workers to leave, threatening to call the police if they did not comply.

One of the union members tabling that day, Salem Chadwick, was informing workers of her recent termination. She was fired in response to her filing grievances about UPS supervisors taking work from Teamster package-handlers, as well as her winning a sum of over $1400 of back-pay after being laid off from UPS for over a month.

Chadwick was joined by Katherine Draken, a Teamsters union steward representing her in her upcoming termination hearing. After management and company security threatened to call the police on them, Chadwick, Draken, and the growing crowd of workers who had by then left the building, refused to budge. Management then called the Commerce City Police Department to try and remove them from the parking lot.

“Management knew we weren’t doing anything wrong,” said Katherine Draken, “they called the cops to intimidate us into leaving, but we know our rights, and I’m not leaving.”

After an hour of back and forth between management, security, the police and Teamsters union representatives, Salem Chadwick agreed to leave the premises to avoid further police interference, while the remaining workers continued passing out information.

Keegan Estrella, a rank-and-file Teamster and TDU member, was among those who refused to leave the table. “We have a right to be out here,” said Estrella, “but it’s not surprising that management would stoop to the level they did. It shows that they’re scared of people getting organized.”

Since this incident, Chadwick has won her termination case against management and has returned to work with renewed vigor to continue the fight.

“Management wants to intimidate me,” Chadwick said after she won her job back, “but everything they try just pushes me to fight even harder.”

#CommerceCityCO #CO #Labor #UPS