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Economy
Yellow Freight Company joins Montgomery Wards and Studebaker
2023-08-01
[Hot Air] OVERLAND PARK, Kansas — Yellow Freight, one of the oldest trucking companies in America, located here in this Johnson County city, hit the end of the road Friday when both union and nonunion office workers at the facility were told they had been laid off.

It was an announcement that comes days ahead of an expected bankruptcy filing by Yellow — a rumor that has caused freight customers to cancel orders and Yellow’s stock to plunge as the probability of liquidation has escalated in recent weeks.

Here in the Kansas City metropolitan area, it meant around 1,000 people were without a job, but that economic pain does not stop at the city limits. As one of the largest freight trucking companies in the country, employing over 30,000 (22,000 of them members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters), the economic impact is going to broaden as it affects the country’s already wobbly supply chain.

The news comes less than a week after the Teamsters reached an agreement with United Parcel Service averting a strike that would have crippled the nation’s supply chain and placed nearly 300,000 union jobs on the picket line.

The 99-year-old Yellow company, which has been hobbled by a series of mergers that left it in heavy debt, has been embroiled in labor talks with the Teamsters for months over a new labor contract. The standoff between the two became so dire at the end of June that the carrier sent a letter to President Joe Biden imploring him for help negotiating with the Teamsters in the same way Biden did with the threatened railroad strike last year.
Related:
Teamsters: 2023-07-30 Yellow lays off huge swath of workers as embattled 99 year-old trucking firm teeters on brink of bankruptcy
Teamsters: 2023-07-22 Yellow Corp trucker goes ballistic at bosses after firm STOPPED making contributions to workers' pension fund - as $1.2billion debt leaves it on brink of bankruptcy
Teamsters: 2023-06-30 A major UPS strike is looming ‐ here's what that means for your packages
Posted by:Besoeker

#13  Yellow stock soars 121% today.
Posted by: Jeremiah Jomosing7109   2023-08-01 19:47  

#12  ZH had an article that this bankruptcy had been brewing for years. Yellow led a too-aggressive acquisition policy, had at least one reverse stock split, and was just in bad shape, probably not unlike J.C. Penney with its mountains of debt.

So, indeed, the covid "relief" money might have plugged a small hole, but the writing was on the wall apparently.

No sympathy for the company. I wish some US airlines would suffer the same fate after getting government handouts only to award C-Suite pukes with bonuses, you know, for jobs well done.
Posted by: DooDahMan   2023-08-01 12:26  

#11  Econ 101: Wages = Marginal Product.

If you want to be paid more than you produce, you will eventually be paid zero.
Posted by: Tom   2023-08-01 12:20  

#10  "Someone always makes money in a liquidation..."
Posted by: Mitt Romney   2023-08-01 11:27  

#9  Someone should track the liquidation of the rolling stock inventory. There may be a story about why this was engineered to pick off existing but still valuable rolling stock that doesn't need to meet the crazy new emissions regs from the Bidet Slash and Burn Industrial Model.
Posted by: NoMoreBS   2023-08-01 11:23  

#8  Big Labor™ is just as destructive as Big Business™

Two sides of the same plugged nickel.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2023-08-01 11:12  

#7  Big Labor™ is just as destructive as Big Business™. My older brother served his navy enlistment and got a job as an electrician (he still wonders why that set of apartments hasn't burned down). One day a meeting was held a dapper individual, flanked by two absolute gorillas (guards against management goons and Pinkertons dontcha know) adviced them to vote to join a 'sympathy strike' against the construction company. It didn't matter about their livelihoods they were supposed to shout "Union Solidarity!" and jump into poverty... Some other union in some other state had an issue and they were supposed to suffer for the cause.

Of course the labor organizer and his goons guards will still get paid in any event... Big Labor™ works for Big Labor™ like any other bureaucracy.
Posted by: magpie   2023-08-01 10:59  

#6  Coldplay predicted this years ago.
Posted by: Super Hose   2023-08-01 10:54  

#5  Yeah, some stuff I could not get in 2020 is being given away now.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2023-08-01 10:12  

#4  actually, thanks to the cooling economy, the supply chain is in decent shape (post the UPS agreement)
Posted by: lord garth    2023-08-01 09:38  

#3  This article forgets to state that the company also got a 700 million covid "relief" payout a couple years ago.
Posted by: Chris   2023-08-01 08:24  

#2  Both corporations and unions need to face new fiduciary responsibility and accountability laws.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2023-08-01 07:41  

#1  QUESTION
Has the Union become a Kiss of Death to US industry and companies?

Sure, I'd be the 1st to agree it was needed during the industrial revolution period into the maybe the 1960's. Given various Robber Barons ROI approaches.

Yes, It was needed, and it yes served as a great promoter of safer working conditions and labor laws, that we use with or without a unionized company today.

But, in the last 50 years, its always increasing demands have created NAFTA and so much Gov. Regulation and Reporting. Which has resulted in 100's of major companies to seek production of products in countries where unions have little say.

Where company can produce and sell a product at a consumer acceptable price and still show a viable R.O.I.to investors.

All of which resulted in US unionized and Non-Union companies going overseas to avoid Unions, unionization or Federal red tape. Which resulted a mass US job declined and Union decline membership since 1960 has dropped by about 60+/-%

Add to this, the unions chiefs seem to donate a lot of the Rank and File dues ($1.8 to $2 Billion $$$$$$ (OpenSecrets) ) mainly to LSD's pockets. Money that should have gone to its members retirement funds and benefits.


Posted by: NN2N1   2023-08-01 05:53  

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