Trucking Giant Yellow Shuts Down Operations | Hacker News Reader

Trucking Giant Yellow Shuts Down Operations

wsj.com

19 pointsmfiguiere14 comments

This is a massive bummer - Teamsters helped protect and unionize a good number of ASD folks (my brother included) with Yellow/YRC and helped provide them with excellent jobs and benefits. My heart goes out to everyone affected by the shut down.

Gee I wonder why they ran out of money

Can you expand on this?

A lot of folks in the data processing areas of Yellow were folks on the autistic spectrum, at least in the local branch here, because ASD service organizations helped with interviews and hiring. Because of the nature of the data processing, it fits well with many of the employees lifestyles and comfort, ie: my brother was able to come into work with headphones, he could focus on the data entry and verification, and people in the office were aware of his situation. It took our family a long time to help get my brother into a place like that. Not because he wasn't qualified, but it's hard to find places with reasonable accessibility and understanding about people living with autism.

The Teamsters worked hard to keep everyone employed with good benefits - I had over a decade of relief knowing my brother had a job that gave him independence and a pension. The Teamsters saved Yellow around a decade ago by renegotiating salaries so no layoffs had to occur, which also saved my brother's job at the time.

Like the other comments mentioned I can vouch firsthand that it wasn't the Teamsters that botched the business, it was absolutely executive mismanagement. The union kept that place going for a long time.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply but I was simply using the Socratic method on the obviously bigoted and shitty person I was replying to, who thinks the company went out of business because some of their employees were on the spectrum.

https://archive.is/GTuS7

I always find it entertaining when a union won't bend and then the company goes bust and they all lose their jobs

Yellow’s poor management is what drove the company under, not the union. It’s specifically discussed in the article. Loaded up with debt, took on a $700M loan from the Trump admin during COVID (which the DoD stated they disagreed with) [1], still couldn’t manage the business successfully. The union/employees have given up $300 million a year for over 10 years to attempt to preserve the business (from Yellow’s investor materials); that’s over $3 billion in lost wages.

“Welch said the company’s deal-making debt was its undoing. “We were just taking on too much debt and overpaid,” said Welch, whom lenders had brought back in 2011 after an earlier stint at the company. Digesting the debt “has been a slog for 20 years,” the former CEO said.”

Also:

“Yellow’s current finances and prospect of bankruptcy “is probably two decades in the making,” Chan said, pointing to poor management and strategic decisions dating back to the early 2000s. At this point, after each party has bailed them out so many times, there is a limited appetite to do that anymore.”

https://fortune.com/2023/07/29/yellow-trucking-brink-bankrup...

“Retailers and manufacturers are likely to see higher shipping rates if the company folds, he said. Yellow is known for its low shipping rates compared to its rivals.” [My note: another indicator the business was being poorly run]

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/30/1190960948/yellow-trucking-sh...

There are 3.5M truck drivers in the US. The ~22k union drivers will find other work rapidly at other LTL carriers, they’re less than 1% of total trucking labor force. Likely going to get absorbed into Estes, SAIA, or similar top tier carriers desperate for labor.

[1] https://news.stlpublicradio.org/2022-04-27/overland-park-tru...

How’s the union supposed to bend with the company missed a $530 million payment to the pension?

Given their financial struggles for most of the current century and the way the Teamsters bailed them out during the financial crisis, I’m skeptical of any explanation which absolves management of any responsibility. It especially sounds like their quality issues matter more: you might be able to skimp on that in a bull market but when things get tight customers will have few qualms ditching a low-quality service.

I find it entertaining when people shoot from the hip with no understanding of the situation.

The teamsters bailed the company out during the 2010s.

This anti-union sentiment is just appalling.

Bailed them out how?

By taking a cut in wages

How is adjusting to a market wage the same thing as bailing them out?

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