AREA FEELS UPS STRIKE

Local Teamsters Union members carried picket signs instead of packages Monday, joining union members across the nation in a strike against United Parcel Service.

Picketers in Cape Girardeau declined to comment as they sat on lawn chairs in the hot sun.

The union went on strike at midnight Sunday after negotiations with UPS broke down earlier in the day.

The 60 Teamsters at the UPS facility near Cape Girardeau Regional Airport belong to St. Louis-based Local 688. They deliver and pick up packages as far north as Brewer, as far west as Marble Hill and as far south as Benton.

The walkout's impact has already been felt in the area, as the Cape Girardeau Post Office and the Federal Express office both had busier days on Monday.

The strike tripled the volume of parcels handled at the Cape Girardeau Post Office, said Matt Peters, customer-service manager. About 90 percent of the parcels are priority mail.

For the duration of the strike, the post office will only accept four packages per walk-in customer "unless you call Kansas City" for permission, Peters said. That phone number is 816-374-9109

He said the post office is guaranteeing delivery in the same time as normal. So far anyway.

Not at the Federal Express office on Southern Expressway. A woman behind the counter there said Federal Express has waived all guarantees during the strike.

The deluge of packages caused the shipper to close at 5 p.m. rather than the usual 7. And the office turned away business from businesses that weren't regular customers.

Area shippers also felt the impact of the strike.

Hobart Sales and Service, a food service equipment company, usually ships its spare parts by UPS. Monday, Hobart's office manager, Jean McClellan, took five packages to Federal Express for shipment.

"They told us five packages was the maximum for the day," she said. "I appreciate what I can get. It's important to our customers. When their equipment is down, they have to have a part."

An employee of Motorcycle Stuff, a motorcycle parts wholesaler based on Nash Road, drove half way to Sikeston Friday to meet a customer who needed a motorcycle tire because he feared the part could have been stranded if UPS employees went on strike, said Steve Wiggs, operations manager.

At closing Monday, about 200 shipments remained on the loading docks, packaged and ready to go, Wiggs said. Carriers other than UPS would only take 150 of the 350 orders filled Monday. They will probably take the same number today, meaning that even if Motorcycle Stuff doesn't fill any new orders Wednesday, it would still have a backlog of 50 pieces if the strike continues, Wiggs said.

Horizon Music ships more than 200 packages a day, most of them by UPS, said sales manager Dave Boyer. The supplier of cables to musicians has spread its business among different shippers in case something like the UPS strike happens. Roadway Package Systems, a Horizon customer, is picking up much of the slack.

Many UPS customers said they don't know how the strike will affect them. Grace Parry of A Touch of Grace, an herb shop, said all her suppliers but one use UPS. Her ability to keep inventory in her store will depend on whether her suppliers can find alternate shippers.

The walkout's impact was expected to be severe in the St. Louis area, where UPS employs 3,300 Teamsters at a main complex in Earth City and a satellite center in St. Louis itself.

UPS in St. Louis ships about 100,000 parcels a day.

In the Kansas City area, UPS has about 2,300 employees at four facilities, including a regional hub at Lenexa, Kan., and another large facility at Kansas City, Kan.

Pay, pensions and the full schedules worked by "part-time" employees are the main sticking points between UPS and the Teamsters, who represent nearly two-thirds of UPS' 302,000 U.S. employees.

Paul Naraz, a package car driver in St. Louis and a UPS employee for 24 years, said one of his top complaints was the company's use of subcontractors, which kept its many part-time workers from moving up to full time.

The part-time workers work as much as 60 hours a week, he said, but without the full pay and benefits full-time workers get. Part-time workers start at about $8 an hour, he said, while full-time workers make more than $19 an hour.

"(UPS) could most definitely afford to pay more, no question about it."

On the picket line outside a Columbia UPS office Monday, union member Daryl Kirkpatrick said he realized the inconvenience the strike was causing customers and he asked that they be patient.

"We apologize. We tried to negotiate for four months on this," he said. "As long as we give extensions, UPS will try to starve us out. It undermines the union spirit."

Nick Clark of Boonville, for one, was understanding, although it meant having to stand in line at the Columbia post office to mail his 83-year-old mother's faulty computer back to the manufacturer. He was told to expect a two-week delay.

He didn't mind because his sympathies were with the workers.

"I hold this against the company. I don't hold this against the workers," he said.

(Some information for this story was supplied by The Associated Press.)