[PEN-L:11748] Poll: Sympathy is with strikers not management

[Michael Eisenscher <meisenscher@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition -- August 14, 1997
 Polls Show UPS Strikers
 Have Wide Public Support

 By CHRISTINA DUFF
 Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

 RICHMOND, Va. -- A real-estate agent with a fondness for Oliver North
 and school-prayer bumper stickers, Renee Shipley is your basic union hater.
 "The time for unions," she says, "has come and gone."

 Ms. Shipley, however, can't help but feel "a wee bit sorry" for a certain
 brawny, brown-suited guy who, until he went out on strike 10 days ago,
 picked up and delivered packages at her building, always with a nod and a
 cheery grin. Once, she says, he even put down his load to help her carry an
 unwieldy ficus tree back to her office, and he used his own handkerchief to
 clean up a bit of spilled dirt. "It was just the sweetest thing," she says.

 A Change of Heart

 An unlikely supporter of the United Parcel Service of America Inc. strike that
 has idled 185,000 UPS workers since Aug. 4? Not really.

 For the first time in many years, the public at large seems to be siding with
 strikers. About 40% of the 506 Americans surveyed by the ABC News
 Nightline poll conducted Monday night said they back the Teamsters in their
 fight to win more higher-paying, full-time jobs. Just 30% back the company.
 The result jibes with a Fox News poll finding that 44% of 906 registered
 voters sympathize with the strikers, while 27% side with UPS.

 Greg Tarpinian of the union-supported Labor Research Association says the
 poll results reflect a "big change" from strikes of the past couple of
decades --
 from Caterpillar Inc. to McDonnell Douglas Corp. -- when labor people felt
 the country was against them. The public, he says, supports the union's
 argument that its part-timers need to work full time if they are to earn a
decent
 living and get adequate benefits. UPS full-timers earn on average $20 an hour
 and get full benefits. Part-timers get $11 an hour and reduced benefits.

 "This is a turning point," says consumer-researcher Carol Farmer of Boca
 Raton, Fla. After being slapped around by corporate restructurings, she says,
 the public is "wondering, "Oh, god, what's next?" and realizing that at some
 point people have to draw a line in the sand."

 Many Nonvoters

 The vote of confidence is particularly noteworthy because it is unclear exactly
 how much support the UPS Teamsters have among their own rank and file.
 Every union member at UPS was sent a ballot for last month's strike vote. Of
 those ballots returned, 95% were votes to strike if negotiations failed to
reach
 an agreement, but the turnout, which the union refuses to disclose, apparently
 was small. UPS says that more than 8,000 union members have crossed
 picket lines. The union disputes that. Teamsters President Ron Carey has
 refused to allow a rank-and-file vote on what UPS calls its last, best and
final
 offer.

 Granted, the public doesn't hold union leaders -- or business executives, for
 that matter -- in particularly high regard. At the end of last year, for
example,
 only 16% of Americans surveyed by the Gallup Organization said they thought
 union leaders had "high" or "very high" honesty and ethical standards. Just
 17% thought business executives had "high" or "very high" standards. But that
 poll result represents a gain for unions and a loss for business. In 1985, 13%
 of respondents vouchsafed the high honesty and ethical standards of union
 leaders, while 23% had the same to say for business leaders.

 The "Norma Rae" bug has bitten even in this conservative, Southern city. For
 one thing, people say, the economy is going great guns, so it is about time
 workers got theirs.

 "Shareholders should suck it up and share the wealth a little bit," says Dale
 Phillips, technical-services administrator for the Virginia Department of
 Environmental Quality, who is outdoors enjoying a smoking break.
 Brandishing his cigarette, he says he normally considers national unions to be
 "as corrupt as the businesses they strike against." But with profits and
 executive salaries skyrocketing, he says, UPS workers have a point. "The
 booming economy doesn't mean a damn thing to the UPS guy in the truck,"
 Mr. Phillips says.

 But there is something else involved here in reactions to the strike --personal
 relationships. Just about everyone knows a UPS delivery man, by sight or by
 name. As Mr. Phillips says, they are "pretty well Johnny on the spot." (On the
 other hand, how many people can say they have ever seen a UPS manager?)

 "You kind of get chummy with them," says Mike Strother of the deliverers. As
 a mail clerk for the advertising firm Martin Agency here, he runs into two UPS
 guys in the mail room from time to time. Even while walking briskly, as they
 are required to do, and lifting big boxes, they are always ready to exchange a
 word or two about Orioles baseball or the Tyson fight, he says. "UPS is
 getting the full benefit of their grunt work, and they're not willing to
pay the full
 benefits. I think it's unfair."

 This pro-striker stance is particularly unusual because the public is
 inconvenienced in obvious ways by this job action. A tired-looking worker at
 that other big delivery service, Federal Express Corp., tells Claire Stoney she
 simply can't guarantee overnight delivery because the company is so
 swamped. "I'll find me another way, then," Ms. Stoney sniffs, snatching back
 her package and, while whirling around to leave the downtown FedEx office,
 she accidentally whacks the man in line behind her.

 Ms. Stoney, walking off, says she still isn't mad at the UPS man. The day-care
 worker and mother of two says, "You don't want companies to start pulling a
 fast one."

 Of course, there are others in Richmond who aren't sympathetic. Developer
 Philip Halsey, sweating in his royal-blue dress shirt, wants to know what
all the
 whining is about. "They're paid a lot," he says, "to drive around in a brown
 truck and deliver packages." He motions toward a street of expensive little
 downtown shops. "Have you checked with them?" he says.

 Indeed, small-business people are the most put out by the strike, because they
 have less leverage and fewer shipping alternatives than large corporations.
 Over a Tex-Mex lunch, Nancy Chase, a federal government worker, says her
 sister, who owns Sunshine Bolt & Tool Supply, can ship just four parcels a
 day now and is watching inventory pile up. "I have a hard time being
 sympathetic with the union," she says.

 But again, it's all in who you know. Ms. Chase's lunch companion and fellow
 government worker, Fai Brown, listens to her friend complain and then softly
 says that her own husband used to work for UPS. "They're working for it, I'll
 tell you. They work so hard," she says.

 Even small businesses concerned about their shipments seem to have a soft
 spot for the UPS strike. Lisa Powell, manager of Toymaker of Williamsburg,
 has a big problem with the toys she sells: Her last shipment of Beanie Babies
 sold out in an hour and a half, and it is anybody's guess when the next one
will
 arrive. But she doesn't blame the UPS man; her roommate is one. "Yeah, he's
 paid well," she says, "but he never gets quite enough hours," and after being
 there four years he isn't any closer to being full time. Since the strike
began, he
 has been doing landscaping work, she says, and is going for job interviews.
 He may never to go back to UPS.

 Michael Zell, the co-owner of Nathan's, a 62-year-old men's clothing
 business, says he has had to hand-deliver custom-made suits and shirts
 because of the strike. He says "principle only goes so far with someone who's
 practical like me."

 But he likes his usual UPS man, too, and is friendly enough with him to joke:
 "What are you guys squawking about? You get to wear short pants to work!"
 Says Mr. Zell: "I sympathize with people who feel they're not getting their
just
 due."