A 90-minute protest in honor of a fired employee has cost 250 workers their own jobs at UPS, the Huffington Post reported.
While the postal company fired twenty of the workers on Monday, 230 other workers were informed of their impending dismissal once their replacements were trained.
UPS, one of the world's largest shipping and logistics companies, saw their workers plan a protest in February after a dispute about working hours got a long-term employee fired.
"The workers, who are based in Queens, N.Y., walked off the job when Jairo Reyes, a 24-year company veteran and union activist, got in a dispute with the company over the number of hours senior staff could work, according to the New York Daily News," the Huffington Post reported.
On February 14, the company fired Reyes. "That was my Valentine's Day gift from UPS," Reyes told the Queens Courrier.
Claiming that the protest on February 26 was "an unauthorized work stoppage," a UPS spokesperson confirmed the firing to the Huffington Post.
"We simply cannot allow employee misconduct that jeopardizes our ability to reliably serve our customers and maintain order in our delivery operations," UPS spokesperson Steve Gaut wrote in an email to HuffPost. "For this reason, the company is releasing employees involved in the work stoppage."
The local branch of the Teamsters union, representing the Queens workers, described the firings as "arbitrary discipline" in a statement on their website.
"UPS's actions this week were a heartless attack on drivers and their families," the Teamsters Local 804 wrote.
The company has been demanded by local officials and union representatives to rehire the workers. The millions in New York government contracts currently awarded to the company has also been requested to be revoked by the city, the Huffington Post reported.
NYC Public Advocate Letitia James, who will protest alongside the Teamsters at New York City Hall Thursday, said that UPS also "receives millions of dollars every year in reduced fine and fees for parking tickets."
