UPS workers already face conditions of extreme exploitation. Young and largely part-time, they struggle just to survive, often forced into unstable housing arrangements and even sleeping in their cars between shifts. Management relentlessly pressures delivery drivers, while still refusing to install basic safety measures such as air conditioning in trucks.
The job cuts at UPS are part of a wider social counterrevolution driven by the financial oligarchy.
Under Trump, over 100,000 federal workers have already lost their jobs. Medicaid, food stamps, Social Security, and other critical social programs face massive cuts. And vital scientific, health, regulatory, and social service agencies are being gutted by Elon Musk and the "Department of Government Efficiency."
Meanwhile, Trump's tariffs—which both he and the union bureaucracies falsely claim will protect American workers—are in reality a weapon in the drive toward world war and a mechanism to further shift wealth from workers to Wall Street.
The layoffs at UPS signal an escalation of this global class war. Workers in logistics industries are among the first targets, but they will not be the last. With the Port of Los Angeles projecting a dramatic 35 percent drop-off in shipping volume, thousands more layoffs across various industries are imminent. Every worker across the country now asks the same urgent question: "Am I next?"
The trade union bureaucracies, including the Teamsters and the United Auto Workers, have shown themselves incapable of defending workers. Instead of resisting these attacks, union leaders have openly supported Trump's reactionary "America First" policies. The hollow promises by Teamsters officials to oppose layoffs are only intended to cover up their complicity, as thousands of UPS workers have already lost their jobs under the current sellout contract.
Workers need new forms of organization—independent of the pro-corporate union bureaucracies—to fight effectively against job cuts and worsening conditions. Rank-and-file committees must be established to unite workers at UPS, throughout the logistics industry, and across every sector in a coordinated industrial and political counter-offensive.
The emerging movement at UPS is the opening stage of a broader working class struggle against capitalist exploitation. The International May Day Online Rally on May 3, organized by the World Socialist Web Site and the International Committee of the Fourth International, is crucial to developing the socialist and internationalist perspective necessary to unite and mobilize the working class worldwide.
Join us at the rally and become part of the struggle for socialism, workers' power, and the defense of democratic rights against fascism and dictatorship.
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