Upcoming contract negotiations are expected to lead to a strike.

Out of all of America’s major package delivery services, UPS is one of the most prominent, handling around 21.5 million packages every day and moving approximately 6% of the United State’s GDP yearly. Suffice to say, then, that were something to impede or halt the UPS’s regular delivery services, it would have a major impact on the American economy. This is why business analysts are concerned about the upcoming contract negotiations between the UPS and the Teamster’s Union.

New negotiations are set to occur this coming spring for the Union’s July 2023 contract, but even so far ahead of these negotiations, rumblings of a potential strike have already begun. “Do our members wake up every day wanting a strike. I’d say no. But are they fed up? Yes they’re fed up,” union President Sean O’Brien told CNN Business last week. “Whether or not there is a strike, that’s totally up to the company. We’re going to utilize as much leverage as we can to get our members the contract they deserve.”

“We want a contract that provides wins for our employees and that provides UPS the flexibility to stay competitive in a rapidly changing industry,” UPS said in a statement this month. “UPS and the Teamsters have worked cooperatively for almost 100 years to meet the needs of UPS employees, customers, and the communities where we live and work. We believe we’ll continue to find common ground with the Teamsters and reach an agreement that’s good for everyone involved.”

As approximately 350,000 of UPS’s 534,000 global workforce are Teamster-represented, a wide-scale strike would absolutely cripple the company’s ability to deliver packages. A Teamster strike against the UPS could very well be one of the largest single-business strikes in the history of the United States.