United Parcel Service geared up Tuesday to resume operations after a two-week strike as Teamsters leaders endorsed a five-year contract that would provide more full-time jobs and protect the union’s existing pension system. As pickets celebrated the impending end to the walkout, James Kelly, UPS’ chief executive officer, said the terms were “good for our people.” But Teamsters President Ron Carey cast the settlement as “a victory over corporate greed.” “This fight with UPS shows what working people can accomplish when they all stick together,” Carey said.
The tentative pact would combine part-time slots to create 10,000 full-time jobs, limit subcontracting and increase UPS’ contributions to the union’s multi-employer pension and health plans. The union’s 50-member national bargaining committee and officials from more than 200 Teamsters locals unanimously endorsed the contract Tuesday night, sending it to members for a vote and authorizing a return to work.
Meanwhile, a man who reportedly had a grudge against a judge shot and killed her and three other people in a wild, four-hour rampage Tuesday before being killed himself. The dead were two New Hampshire state troopers, the judge and a newspaper editor. Authorities said at least four other officers from various agencies were wounded, one critically, after the chase moved across the Connecticut River intoVermont. Part-time Jucjge Vickie Bunnell, 44, had a run-in with Carl Drega, 67, in a property dispute about five years ago in Columbia, N.H., a tiny town near the Canadian border where she was an official and he lived. After one confrontation, Bunnell obtained a restraining order against Drega, said Kenn Stransky, a reporter at the weekly News and Sentinel in Colebrook. She said he was a time bomb, Stransky said. About 2:45 Tuesday afternoon, two troopers in separate cruisers pulled over Dregas red pickup truck because of an unspecified violation, New Hampshire Attorney General Philip McLaughlin said Tuesday night. Authorities said Drega, wearing a bullet-proof vest, killed both troopers with an assault rifle described as an AR57, then drove in a stolen cruiser to the building that housed both the newspaper and Bunnells office.
About 6:50 p.m., Drega died in a firefight with about 20 law enforcement officers in Brunswick, authorities said. McLaughlin said later it was not clear who killed him.
And finally, President Clinton celebrated his 51st birthday Tuesday with an enhanced appreciation for the simple things, like good health, good times and good knees for jogging. In contrast to the glitzy shindig thrown for Clinton’s 50th last year, Tuesday’s celebrations were decidedly low key. The president spent the day with his family before heading to a private fete at the Martha’s Vineyard home of actor-spouses Mary Steenburgen and Ted Danson.
And while the UPS trucks got rolling, that’s a small slice of what happened on this August 20th 1997 as reported on the CBS World News Roundup.
