We Should Seek A Sensible Balance

The Teamsters Union strike against United Parcel Service has brought to the fore a difficult, important question about the role of part-time labor.

On the surface, this question seems to touch Americans right where they live: Working people want jobs good enough to support their families, leaving enough time after work to raise responsible children, sustain a marriage and volunteer in the community. Businesses need customers with money to spend. People, communities and businesses all suffer if there aren’t enough family-wage jobs.

The strikers at UPS claim the company employs too many part-timers. The company responds that the rush periods and slow times in its daily business cycle create a need for part-timers and that people have been pleased to take the jobs. (Until now.)

Meanwhile, economists chime in that across the nation, some companies are replacing good full-time jobs with part-time jobs that provide lower pay and lesser benefits. During the past few years, the debate over corporate downsizings has led to a spreading awareness that ill treatment of workers breeds disloyalty and poor performance.

And yet, this is not at all a black-and-white issue. Many Americans in recent years have sought part-time work so that they could better tend to family needs. A part-time job is a marvelous steppingstone for those wise enough to realize that the best way to increase one’s earnings is not to strike, it is to secure experience and education that make people more valuable to employers. Plenty of college students have been thrilled to find a part-time job along their way to a career.

Indeed, it may be unfair to hold up UPS as a poster child for concerns with the growing use of part-time labor. According to the company, it has never replaced full-time employees with part-time employees and its part-time workers earn an average of $11 an hour, plus a “comprehensive benefits package of health insurance, dependent coverage, a retirement plan, vacations, holidays and more.” Over the past four years, the firm says it moved 13,000 part-time workers into full-time jobs. And as part of its contract proposal, it has offered to create 11,000 more opportunities for part-timers to move into full-time jobs over the next five years.

That is encouraging. Polarizing as labor disputes can be, the larger challenge for us all is to strike a wise balance so we can keep our economy free and our businesses competitive, while also making families stronger and workers more valuable.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board