We would like to bring to your attention a potential shipping risk that could occur soon with TMMI’s primary shipping carrier, UPS.

UPS and the Teamsters Union (representing all U.S. drivers) have been negotiating a new contract for the last several months. They have not reached an agreement as of today, so it has become increasingly likely the drivers could strike in the United States as early as August 1st.

The last time UPS had a strike was 1997 and it lasted 15 days. The consensus is that if UPS strikes, it won’t be a long strike because of potential government intervention and the union’s funding to support a long strike. Please be aware any work stoppage will result in a significant backlog of shipments and will delay service for several weeks once an agreement is reached. This will put a strain on the entire U.S. freight market, resulting in a negative impact to service with all carriers and modes of transportation.

TMMI’s operations team will begin reviewing open orders and may be in contact with your company to identify opportunities to ship order(s) early to avoid this risk. If you know of orders you require in the first half of August please contact your TMMI representative to see if we can ship early to avoid any possible delays.

TMMI will switch current prepay and add orders from UPS (our default) to other carriers such as FedEx, however, FedEx is likely going to allocate capacity based on our normal shipment history with them which is not high for TMMI.  For those customers who we use your UPS account, we will need to work together on a solution for your shipment.