Less-than-truckload carrier Yellow Corp. ceased all operations at 12 p.m. Sunday, according to a notice on the gates at its terminals.
Separate internal documents showed the procedures for closing the facilities as well as “talking points” to be used when informing union employees not to show up for their shifts. The documents indicated the company plans to issue a public statement Monday updating “the state of the company and the operation.”
On Friday, Yellow (NASDAQ: YELL) laid off most of its nonunion employees in areas like customer service, information technology and sales. The company stopped making pickups earlier in the week and has been delivering the remaining freight in its network ahead of what appears to be a permanent closure.
After months of negotiations with its Teamsters workforce, the carrier has been unable to reach terms over proposed operational changes it has said were required for its survival. In a breach of contract lawsuit filed last month regarding the matter, the company said it could be out of cash as soon as mid-July.
Most are expecting Yellow to announce it will file for bankruptcy Monday.
Representatives from Yellow had not commented by the time of this publication.
Brian O.
Yellow/YRC/Holland…has broken their side of the bargain contract over and over and over again…this company quit paying into pension fund over a decade ago..if you think a teamster goes to work from day one being hired and is lazy or a bad employee you are wrong…the tactics of this company has been and always was to draw a line against teamsters…mentally and monetarily abusing with the logic being (if an employee is afraid of losing his or her job they will work harder) the company did away with any positive incentives decade’s ago…the company created disgruntled employees and also made horrible business decisions…the union has also misrepresented its teamsters members in shady investments losing pension funds illegally with no accountability…thousands of members and their families got screwed out of their pension money because of corruption….this was inevitable because of greed and poor moral values….
George Haws
Whether the company would have lasted another few years will never be known, but this bankruptcy was 100% avoidable. Imagine you’re an employee working for a company and your own union decides to throw you and your family under the bus because the crybaby whiner contingent thinks they’re too good to work a pallet jack.
If anyone ever goes around handing out union cards in your place of business, remember folks: unions are designed to protect the lazy, the stupid, and the indolent. The only thing they’re good for is dragging everyone else down to the lowest common denominator. They will give you a slight pay bump but then turn around and take it right back out of your check in the form of union dues.
YRC needed to restructure and reorganize to remain competitive. Management certainly bungled their debt service levels in biting off more than they could chew, but they weren’t asking for anything unreasonable in light of the realities of what the market would support. I hope the men and women who lost their jobs for the sake of Sean O’Brien’s ego can find employment elsewhere, but some of them probably won’t.
Joe Lyon
So sorry to hear this I think this should have been negotiated a little more carefully
Dano Dicius
Does the W.A.R.N. Act apply to this closing?
Vic
I hope drivers some how get there pensions..bless all drivers ..and office people who lost there job to..
Joe
Well said they bought roadway and the usf companies with a plan to do this it is criminal I am also a former employee
Former Yellow
Everyone can agree that Yellow has been poorly managed for a long time and needed to change their business model up for a long time. Everyone can also agree that the Teamsters (and non-teamsters) gave concessions for many teams.
However, was NOW the time to dig your feet in and hold your ground? The company wasn’t asking the Teamsters to take a 15% pay cut, they wanted a change of operations and for a very small number drivers to have to work the dock. They were in the process of trying to change their business model, to hopefully become a better organization, more efficient and one day profitable. All the these cries for change, and when they try to change, they are met with resistance. The Teamsters should have agreed to the change, Yellow was willing to give significant raises on the condition of a long-term contract, and the lenders said they would provide funding once the Teamsters were agreed to One Yellow. It is mind boggling an agreement couldn’t have been made. Teamsters have every right to be wary of promises, but IBT could have written reasonable guarantees into the contract and come to a mutually beneficial agreement. SOB had no intention of allowing Yellow to survive, he got exactly what he wanted and the 22,000 drivers will still preach about Saint O’Brien when they are in the unemployment line.
Congratulations on standing your ground.
Dennis
As a Former Union Driver and then watching from afar when a Company asks and receives concessions it makes One think Ok I still got a good job, good pay, good benefits and can support My Family on the promises that down the road the concessions will be returned plus. Then as time passes it comes back to the table and now more concessions. Well the first concessions were never made good. Now they want more and One thinks well You beat Us once now again. Puts the Employees in a very difficult situation.Then those famous words appear “ take it or We close the doors”. Management doesn’t lose they got theirs and now the Employees have nothing.No job, No Pay,Some no Benefits, Pensions maybe.Sad You work hard do Your job and still lose. Mismanagement definitely but it still doesn’t help the Employees, and very a few at the top could care less.