How this black UPS worker challenged powerful union leaders in Philly, and won - The Philadelphia Inquirer
When the meeting was called to order, some UPS workers who had been with the company for decades could barely believe their eyes.
Membership meetings like these are mostly empty. But on this snowy Saturday morning in Bridesburg, a sea of black and yellow satin Teamsters Local 623 jackets buzzed around a packed hall.
For the first time in more than two decades, there’s a new crew running the shop. And at the top of the elected slate is a black man — the first to lead the 101-year-old local — and one who’s spent his entire adult life doing the backbreaking work of a package handler at UPS’s massive East Coast facility by the Philadelphia airport.
When the meeting was called to order, some UPS workers who had been with the company for decades could barely believe their eyes.
Membership meetings like these are mostly empty. But on this snowy Saturday morning in Bridesburg, a sea of black and yellow satin Teamsters Local 623 jackets buzzed around a packed hall.
For the first time in more than two decades, there’s a new crew running the shop. And at the top of the elected slate is a black man — the first to lead the 101-year-old local — and one who’s spent his entire adult life doing the backbreaking work of a package handler at UPS’s massive East Coast facility by the Philadelphia airport.
