union's multi-employer pension plan rather than create its own. UPS executives asked President Bill Clinton to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act, which would force the union back to work, but the President said that the conditions required by the Act had not been met. Some Hoffa supporters claimed that Carey had forced a strike to draw attention away from his legal troubles, but most observers concluded that the union could not accept the company's final offer (which included a 1.5 percent raise for full-time workers, no raise for part-timers, and withdrawal from the Teamsters' multiemployer pension plan). Because the Teamsters' strike fund had run out in 1994, UPS officials believed that the union could not sustain a strike for more than a week. But on August 12, the AFL-CIO announced it would loan the Teamsters $10 million a week until the strike ended. Pressure on UPS to end the strike increased swiftly. The company lost $30 million to $50 million a day as it continued to pay non-striking workers to keep the company running. On August 13, Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman privately intervened in the strike with the support of President Clinton, and was able to get the two sides talking again. Carey and the Teamsters also undertook a sophisticated public relations effort. They depicted the union members as average people (the union's spokespeople were often rank and file Teamsters), and mobilized the public's sympathy for UPS drivers by having strikers drive their regular delivery routes to give their customers information about the strike. They also made strategic use of the Internet, using the union's Web site to issue updates and put pressure on Congress. UPS also engaged in a strong public relations effort (using full-page newspaper advertisements and pressuring customers to ask the President to invoke Taft-Hartley), but most observers as well as some UPS officials agreed that the union had the better P.R. effort. A Gallup poll found that 55 percent of respondents supported the union. UPS had seriously underestimated the union's capacity to wage a strike. Most importantly, UPS officials simply did not believe a strike would occur. But company officials also did not realize the importance of the union's early mobilization efforts, believed the union was too divided between the Carey and Hoffa camps to wage an effective strike, and believed thousands of Teamsters would cross the picket line to return to work. As the strike