distributed hundreds of thousands of pro-union stickers, and forced local unions to build effective communications networks. Shop stewards at UPS received a seven-minute video about the negotiations, and delegates to the Teamsters convention in July 1996 received a "Countdown to Contract" booklet which outlined the union's negotiating and strike strategy and suggested ways locals could put pressure on the company. The union also established a strike Web site which it updated every few hours, established a system for faxing negotiating and strike bulletins to locals, set up a toll-free hot line for striking workers, and worked to ensure that part-timer workers supported full-timer workers and vice versa. The UPS strike preparations also fed into Carey's effort to rebuild the union's organizing capacity. Carey proposed tripling the union's organizing budget to 10 percent from 3 percent, getting 10,000 union members to be volunteer organizers, and securing a commitment from 150 of the union's 651 locals to hire full-time organizers and set aside 15 percent of their budgets for recruiting new members. If the union could win most of its negotiating goals at the bargaining table, Carey intended to use the new UPS contract to help organize workers at Federal Express and Overnite Transportation. As the August 1, 1997, strike deadline approached, the talks broke down. On July 30, the company presented its final offer, which the union rejected. Officials with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service met with the two sides on July 31: Both sides agreed to return to the bargaining table, and the union agreed to extend its strike deadline by four days. Carey presented a new proposal to the company on August 2, but UPS officials rejected it. Talks resumed on the evening of August 3. UPS officials later said they offered to make significant compromises similar to those contained in the eventual contract (including withdrawal of its pension proposal), but Carey disputed that account and said the company's last proposal contained little that was new. Carey's strike preparation efforts paid off when talks between the company and union broke down and 185,000 union members struck on August 4, 1997. The strike involved more workers than any other strike in the 1990s. Carey focused on just a handful of contract issues: That UPS create full-time positions rather than part-time positions in the future, convert several thousand part-time workers to full-time, increase part-time pay significantly, and remain in the