Sandy Springs-based UPS strike looms as frontline workers fight for better pay, driver safety

A UPS delivery driver wheeling a load of boxes is reflected on the truck on Friday, May 12, 2023, in New York. More than 340,000 unionized United Parcel Service employees, including drivers and warehouse workers, say they are prepared to strike if the company does not meet their demands before the end of the current contract on July 31. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

Living in New York City, working full time and without a car, Jessica Ray and her husband have come to rely on deliveries of food and just about everything else for their home. It has meant more free time on weekends with their young son, rather than standing in line for toilet paper or dragging heavy bags of dog food back to their apartment.

“I don’t even know where to buy dog food,” said Jessica Ray of the specialty food she buys for the family’s aging dog.

There are millions of families like the Rays who have swapped store visits for doorstep deliveries in recent years, meaning that contentious labor negotiations now underway at UPS could become vastly more disruptive than the last time it happened in 1997, when a scrappy upstart called Amazon.com became a public company.