At noon on July 25, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) issued a press release announcing that the union had reached a tentative agreement with package giant United Parcel Service (UPS). The contract, covering 340,000 workers in every ZIP code in the United States, is the largest private sector union contract in North America, involving a company that handles twenty-five million parcels a day — equivalent to one quarter of all US parcel volume and 6 percent of GDP.

The deal came six days before the contract was set to expire on July 31, which was surprising given the brinksmanship that had characterized negotiations up until that point. Since kicking off the contract campaign in August 2022, Teamsters general president Sean O’Brien — who won election to the union’s top leadership position in 2021 as part of a union reform coalition that promised to take more of a fighting stance against UPS — stated that if a deal was not ratified by July 31, 2023, Teamsters would strike on August 1. On June 30, the IBT announced that UPS had pledged to come to a deal by July 5, which would have given UPS Teamster members time to ratify the contract by August 1. But at 4:00 a.m. on July 5, the IBT announced that talks had broken down, with the company claiming that it had “nothing more to give” after delivering a contract not much improved from an early one riddled with takeaways.

The early-morning breakdown was not expected. With no further talks scheduled, O’Brien directed negotiating committee members to return home and prepare for a strike.