UPS and the Teamsters' union contract expires August 1. “The big lesson learned from that strike was to diversify,” said Cathy Roberson, the head of Logistics Trends & Insights, a supply chain research firm. Gig companies such as Uber have since entered the market to deliver, too. Walmart, Target and other retailers have also built their own last-mile delivery operations and offer customers the option to buy online and pick up their orders in stores. Shippers have more options than they did in 1997: FedEx and regional carriers have grown since then, and Amazon’s logistics operation didn’t even exist then.
In a worst case scenario, a longer-term UPS strike could cause major disruptions to the US supply chain network.
However, if the strike lasts longer than a week, there will be some empty shelves, higher prices, and slower package deliveries for customers, they say. How bad could it get? Logistics experts predict that a short UPS strike would not be as devastating as it was in 1997 because things have changed in the intervening quarter-century: There are more shipping alternatives, for example. Striking employees of UPS in Chicago in 1997, the last major UPS work stoppage.
0 kommentar(er)
