When it comes to striking, practice makes perfect.

Teamster UPS workers “practice” walking the picket line in Rockford, Illinois.

When our small teacher local was preparing to strike back in 2003 there hadn’t been a teacher strike in our district in 25 years.

I guess you could say we were out of shape.

So, in the days leading up to the strike date we would practice. We did it by working to the clock. We wouldn’t enter the building until contractually required and we would leave not a minute later than quitting time.

It was hard because teachers put in much longer hours than for what we are compensated for and we don’t think twice about it. If the work needs to get done, it gets done.

But with a strike possible that Fall of 2003 teachers would gather early in the school parking lot for coffee and donuts and then walk into school, together.

I was thinking about that experience when I read about the members of the Teamsters who voted nearly unanimously to strike against UPS.

Across the nation UPS union workers have been practicing by setting up picket lines.

Their picket signs say, “Just practicing for a just contract.”

There is a lot of media attention to the SAG/AFTRA strike, as their should be.

The Hollywood actors and writers are fighting over important issues of compensation and the impact of streaming and technology on those that actually make the product.

But less attention has been paid to a potential UPS strike.

If they do walk out in early August, it would be the biggest strike against a single employer in U.S. history.

UPS and the Teamsters Union have less than three weeks to negotiate a new contract.

The Teamsters says UPS hasn’t budged on a key union demand.

Many UPS workers are part-time and make crap while UPS made billions of dollars in profit last year.

Drive down any block to see how the shipping industry has changed in the past few years: UPS, FedEx and Prime trucks clog the side streets of most cities making those overnight deliveries.

This, the union says, means the company can afford to pay its workers more, and say they're willing to strike to get it.

There hasn’t been a UPS strike since 1997.

But now the UPS union members have gotten some picket line practice in.

Perfect!