UPS workers across the country have told me the same thing. When the new year turned, the six-day weeks dragged on, taking a physical and mental toll on workers, who struggled to have a life outside of work; to make dentist appointments; to see their spouses and children without the fatigue of 12-hour workdays. Without sufficient staffing, the barely tolerable seasonal crunch at UPS transformed into an intolerable chronic squeeze. “It’s been nonstop,” said Steve Dumont, a 12-year veteran of “Big Brown” in Williston, Vermont. “It’s literally been like Christmas peak season for the last three years.”

Next year, however, these workers may finally win some relief. The collective bargaining agreement, or CBA, between UPS and its workers, who are unionized with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, is set to expire at the end of July, and forced or excessive overtime will be a central issue. The UPS national CBA is the largest private sector labor contract in the country. And with a militancy in the union not seen since the 1990s, the Teamsters leadership has warned UPS that it isn’t afraid to call a strike. With a nearly 350,000 strong workforce, it would be the largest strike against a single company in U.S. history. Transporting 6 percent of the country’s GDP, these logistics workers have incredible leverage.

In 2023, UPS workers will demand higher pay for part-time employees, as well as the elimination of the two-tier system introduced in their last contract from 2018, under which package car drivers in the lower tier receive inferior wages and fewer benefits. But they will also fight against forced overtime, rampant harassment by supervisors, and dangerous working conditions. With forced overtime, “it’s not about the money,” Hamil said. “It’s a quality-of-life issue where we can go home and we’re not totally exhausted.”

Since the pandemic began, the dismal working conditions across American workplaces have come under greater scrutiny, particularly by workers themselves. “The pandemic exposed this gap,” said Barry Eidlin, an associate professor of sociology at McGill University who studies class and labor movements, “between rhetoric and reality of these workers being considered essential but then being overworked, underpaid, and disrespected.”