Pam Robertson is frustrated with the Yellow Corp. The Blue Grass, Iowa, woman had almost 30 years with the transportation company as an office worker when Yellow Corp. filed for bankruptcy in early August. Today, she – like many other Yellow employees – is left with many unanswered questions about her benefits, including her pension […]
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Pam Robertson is frustrated with the Yellow Corp.
The Blue Grass, Iowa, woman had almost 30 years with the transportation company as an office worker when Yellow Corp. filed for bankruptcy in early August.
Today, she – like many other Yellow employees – is left with many unanswered questions about her benefits, including her pension and many days of unused vacation time. “I’ll probably never see (the vacation days),” she said.
But perhaps the greatest frustration is the lack of communication from the company. The Quad Cities native said she has received little information from the company and that almost all the updates on the Yellow Corp. bankruptcy have come through the company’s Facebook page.
“Of course, this is horrible. You have thousands of people out of work. … No one knows what they are doing. No one is telling us anything,” Ms. Robertson said.
Ms. Robertson called the lack of communication surrounding the Yellow Corp.’s closure both embarrassing and frustrating for her and other former employees.
That frustration for many workers began on Sunday, Aug. 6, when Yellow Corp. filed for bankruptcy after years of financial struggles and growing debt. The Nashville, Tennessee-based company had 30,000 employees across the country. (The Teamsters represented about Yellow’s 22,000 unionized workers including dozens in the Quad Cities.)
“It’s with profound disappointment that we are closing after nearly 100 years in business. Today, it’s not common for someone to work at a company for 20, 30, 40 years, but many at Yellow did. For generations, we provided solid, good-paying jobs and fulfilling careers. … ,” the Yellow Corp. posted on its Facebook page on Monday, Aug. 7.
The post continued: “We are crushed by today’s announcement, yet we are grateful to our tens of thousands of employees who took care of our customers until the end. Yellow employees are professionals who, despite heavy hearts, worked diligently to clear the docks, deliver the remaining freight, and close our terminal doors one last time.”
A full news release on the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing can be found here.
In the release, leaders with Yellow Corp. placed much of the blame for its financial troubles on its dealings with the union.
“All workers and employers should take note of our experience with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) and worry,” said Yellow’s Chief Executive Officer Darren Hawkins. “We faced nine months of union intransigence, bullying and deliberately destructive tactics. A company has the right to manage its own operations, but as we have experienced, IBT leadership was able to halt our business plan, literally driving our company out of business, despite every effort to work with them.”
Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien called the bankruptcy news “unfortunate but not surprising” in a separate statement — pointing to the financial chaos at Yellow. “This is a sad day for workers and the American freight industry,” he said.
Since that bankruptcy filing, there has been a flurry of activities and news centering on the company’s finances. Some of those developments include:
- Apollo Global Management is selling off a $500 million term loan given to Yellow Corp. and dropping plans to extend financing to fund the freight group's bankruptcy, the Financial Times reported last week. Apollo had been working on a deal to lead a $142.5M debtor-in-possession, or DIP, financing for Yellow.
- A lawyer for Yellow Corp. said the company appraised its assets at $2.1 billion and received multiple inquiries from interested buyers. It is considering alternative bankruptcy loans from hedge fund MFN Partners LP, the company’s largest shareholder, and rival trucking company Estes Express Lines, according to the Reuters news service.
- Top executives at Yellow Corp. sold their vested restricted stock, mostly received as compensation in 2020, reaping $1.47 million in cash, according to the Kansas City Business Journal.
- According to Iowa Workforce Development, 184 Iowa employees were among the layoffs from the Yellow Corp. bankruptcy, including 92 in West Des Moines, 49 in Des Moines and 30 in Council Bluffs.
- Those former Yellow Corp. employees have received an Iowa Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act Notice letter. Part of that letter states the company shut down regular operations on July 30, and that Yellow Corp. employees are permanently laid off as of that date. “The company was not able to provide earlier notice of the (shutdown) as it qualified under the ‘unforeseeable business circumstances,’ ‘faltering company’ and liquidating fiduciary’ exceptions set forth in the WARN act,” according to a portion of the letter.
