Member Spotlight: Thomas Lupton (Teamsters)

Member Spotlight is a recurring blog post series intended to highlight and connect the dots between the programs and priorities of the NC State AFL-CIO and the leaders and activist members of our affiliates who make it all possible.

My name is Thomas Lupton. I’m originally from North Carolina, and I have lived in Western NC since 2007. I’m a UPS delivery driver, a rank-and-file Teamster (IBT), and I serve as the recording secretary of the Western NC Central Labor Council. I've been with UPS for 17 years, and have been delivering full-time since 2014. I think my job is important because I’m a familiar face to my neighbors every day; I deliver essential items like medicine, and the business community here knows me. The pandemic made it clear how important that continuity was for people. And then in 2024 we experienced a natural disaster unlike anything we’ve ever experienced here in Hurricane Helene. I'm 41 years old, and I feel like there's just been one “once in a lifetime” event after another. In a world that asks us to numb ourselves and keep moving like machines, I’m thankful something in me still refuses.

I take union work seriously because I see it as the only reason we have the rights that we have now, and I've seen how those rights have been chipped away for decades. I describe my union work as “revolutionary optimism.” When you provide critique in social situations, sometimes you get accused of pessimism, but I think the opposite is actually true. We are trying to imagine a better way of doing things. We're actually being optimistic instead of thinking that the way things are is the way they've always been, because that is just not true.

For me—growing up working poor, I didn't finish college—there's no way I would be able to live here, provide health insurance to my family, or own a house if it wasn't for having 100 years of collective bargaining behind me. I know what it's like to be crushed under economic stress, and there's just so much power and wealth aligned against working people that going at it alone is impossible. If people want a better life for themselves and their children going forward, which I've always assumed most people do, the only way to succeed is through working class solidarity, strength, and cooperation. We evolved to need community. No person is an island. We have to lean on one another: there's really no other option, and it's the only way forward.