Filing for Bankruptcy

This should surprise no one. When you’ve proven you are only good at loosing money the lenders will pull support if you chase your few customers away.

We used them on occasion at our west coast facility. I told the manager last week to end that use.

Now , who is next.

Hate to hear this...

I lived in St. Louis most of my life and down on Hall St, (A big industrial corridor) there are many trucking depots...
Yellow was one of them and there are many folks in the area who are longtime employees...

A girl I dated for years, that I hear from on FB every now and then, pretty sure her dad retired from there 3-4 years ago...

So, with them filing bankruptcy, does that mean all the retires and those still employed pensions are lost???

No, there are several companies that manage the Health & Welfare and Pension funds. Which depends on where in the country someone was employed.

They vary in how well they are funded. Some are not paying full benefits, my understanding is they all are paying something.

32,000 jobs

Couple random thoughts:

This is a major blow to the logistocs industry as a whole. Not because Yellow is a great company, but because of capacity. There is only so much capacity within our system. My company is turning away customers left and right who used to use Yellow but now don't have a carrier. Other companies are doing the same. We simply don't have the drivers, dock workers, trucks, trailers, storage and so on to accommodate a ton of new customers. No other company does, either.

We have been running at full capacity before this news. We are asking people who have time off scheduled between now and the end of August to cancel their plans. For every day off you forfeit, the company will pay about $275 on top of the normal pay and refund the unused PTO time. I've got a week scheduled off in August that I'm looking hard at.

We will hire anyone with a CDL who passes the background check. We are not even interviewing at this point. The new hires are being forced to work 14 hour days and are not happy about it. Many of them won't make it and the problem will continue.

I have friends at Yellow. They make 1/3 less than everyone else in LTL. And their equipment is a steaming pile of garbage. Why anyone worked there is beyond me.

Chapter 11 or 7?

@JoshInReno

I’ve been shaking my head about some of the ‘doom’ surrounding the YRC deal for a couple days.


I mean this respectfully, as you make many good points, but I think this is being taken as a much bigger problem than it is.  


This is, in my opinion, a very temporary setback from a warehousing and logistics perspective, which will be resolved (as another company or other companies will purchase the warehousing assets).    The loss of motive capability is a joke (lots of hungry small companies and owner operators will eat up that freight capacity).


I see this as a good thing for the industry - it takes out a (long time) bottom feeder company  and clears room for newer blood and smaller companies to pick up warehousing assets and freight contracts.   YRCs ancient fleet of DOT-violations-on-wheels can now go to the scrap yard, where they have belonged since at least the mid-20-teens.  


On the off chance I’m reading the situation wrong, feel free to bring it up in the future.   But I don’t think this is the big deal that a lot are making it out to be.

YRC is done. I have it first hand that the entire pricing department was laid off today.

My father is a retired driver, drove for TransCon for years, then they died. Worked at a prison for a couple of years feeding us until one day Yellow called and offered him a team job. He retired from that gig.


I hope they don't plan on screwing retirees.

CH11 means reorganization if they can get financing.

Pension most likely goes to the Pension Board. Could be pennies on the dollar.

The Central States Pension got a $30B bailout earlier this year.

@Lorax


Can we get your take on this YRC deal in here?

I worked for Roadway just before they became YRC. I was a operations supervisor for almost 3 years in their highest volume facility.
It was the only time in my life I walked off a job.
I went on a solo paddling and backpacking trip for 3.5 months to get over it. I came back from that trip, cutting it a few weeks short when I heard about 9/11.
As for working for Roadway (Yellow ran much the same and there was talk of them combining).....
It was brutal. 7 days a week.
No lunch, no breaks, no sitting down, which was easy because desks were waist heightwith no chair in sight anyway. Don't get caught in the bathroom (managers and supervisors would fall asleep on the toilet from running so hard). . The TOM'S would bury you in freight if you were caught doing any of that. That gave them grounds to fire you for imcometence.
They made us wear pedometers to study how much we were managing our doors and checking on things. There were 15 and 17 hour stretches I did 30+ miles. I hobbled. It incompetence. And I could do some huge mile days on the trail with a pack.

The union guys had it better and made way more, but we're treated like shit and always kept one instance away from being "banged out". Even the very best guys. I met some amazing men.
There were the highest paying jobs in the area. They had us all by the balls and they knew it.

The pressure to swing freight for a piece of that ticket as it moved through the facilities was a stupid high stress game at times that didn't make sense. Pulling freight just to run it back in or through another destination just for a slice.
It didn't serve the employees or the customer. The same with playing with the weight of the freight. Light loads were not as profitable as a heavy load. The numbers factored into the "Big E" equation didn't align with the money, so freight sat or people would try to fuck someone else or another facility with the load. I could go on and on about the technical side of things and games they would play in order to make $ for the facility. It would be long, boring and much of the same with the hate filled way management was pitted against each other, the union guys and the same for the union guys pitted against the company. There's a lot of blame to be spread around. And with each taking a part in it, you get the mess they have been in and now are in today.
Basically, their idea of LTL trucking was pricing out moving freight across the country.....and there's nothing wrong with that. But the constant games and trying to fuck over every other facility along the chain and find creative ways to capture more of those dollars associated with that pallet of whatever was being shipped served not the customer, but the facilities it moved through. Then....THAT becomes the business. "Fuck the customer! I mean yeah, we got to get it there I suppose, but first we have to play games with the freight and put our hands on it to get paid!". And every other facility is thinking the same thing. There was no focus on what they were supposed to be doing in the first place....... getting freight to customers despite the "mission statements" and whatever good intentions they tried to project.

It was insanity at a frenzied and often dangerous pace with tired people getting hurt all the time.
I saw an injury (guy lost his leg) and called the yard to open up a door and make a hole for an ambulance, called 911 and had people stationed to wave the ambulance in and bring it right to the door of the injured and started treating the guy (who was 5 minutes from ending his shift,  but was pressured to scan and move freight fast for the last efficiency digits for the stripping foreman, as was the insane norm.
"SCAN! SCAN YOU FUCKING PIGS!" was screamed over the loudspeaker by the shipping foreman with snorting pig noises  as the shifts were ending. "GET THOSE BILLS SCANNED PIGS! SCAN NOW!"

As the guy was hauled away, I was reprimanded for shutting down the dragline the guy was lying on and not having a trailer against the house.
"We have a business to run here" was their angry explanation to me.
I know I did the right thing for that guy. I never even remembered his name. But my actions saved him and I know it. I couldn't believe how nobody around or above me even gave a shit that a guy was laying there bleeding out with a mangled limb.
No souls. No compassion. They were angry and dead inside. They made it a game to target union workers they didnt like for firing and if tou didnt go along with it, they would get you too. I avoided it but almost got fired for not banging out a target of a TOM who wanted a guy fired because he wanted a sweatshirt from the college the guys son played football for. They seemed to hire a certain kind in management. Angry type A frustrated jock guys. A lot of ex-mil too.
There was a Todd and I who were very different. We really didn't belong there, although we were good at what we did and worked well with our union guys.

It was bizarre. Two of my co workers blew their brains out in that short time and three fell asleep at the wheel and wrecked going home. One died.
That was no way to live. It's why I left with no plan.in place and ended up 1000 miles away within a year to rebuild my life after that job and divorce.

@Lorax


Thanks for taking the time to write that up.

@Foxtrot08


Cleanup in aisle 3!


Can you explain to the class why YRC going down is good for the industry?


Thanks.  







@Huskercoop


What drove the higher ratio of supervisors:workers at YRC in your opinion?

Damn $30B? Where the hell did it all go? That many retirees?

Local YELLOW yard close by,  i just passed it on my way to swap an empty for a full. (night shift)

They usually have a dozen or so of the "Short" what- "doubles" trailers?  in a line up - i only saw 2 tonight which is unusual.

The yard is always dark no lights and unkept "dingy".

They have some good drivers-  i ran with one thru the NARROWS of HWY 199 and i dont fuck around and MOVE- and he kept pace

I pass by that YELLOW yard all the time and 1-2-3 am  

BTW, Reddaway is right next door- any word on their Status with this news ?

From WSJ

Yellow, one of the oldest and biggest U.S. trucking businesses, shut down on Sunday, wrecked by a string of mergers that left it saddled with debt and stalled by a standoff with the Teamsters union.

Everything Yellow is gone.

Going to be strange not seeing their trucks on the road after seeing them so often.

@canoeguy


Can you step in and pass along what you were saying about YRC shipping volumes being absorbed readily by other carriers?

I can do that. We ship with another major carrier. The rep who deals with a whole region was telling us that shipping has fallen off rapidly and the other carriers easily absorbed yellow….and are still down.

The 3pl I use is saying Old Dominion was buying their assets out. Apparently Old D was leasing them some terminals anyway

The amount of drivers and management from Yellow that are being hired at every LTL that I'm aware of is troubling.

It makes no sense to me... hire the ones who likely had a hand in the demise of Yellow. And we're hiring a BUNCH of them - especiallymanagement. Front line supervisors all the way up to regional directors.