Just one more thing

Why come on here w/ a name that no one can identify and talk ####. If you have something to say then saying it w/out hiding behind a name that no one knows.

If your going to accuse someone of doing something then at least let that person know who you are. It's not you work for MSXN now no one can touch you.

I agree with the moderator..we need to keep it civil on here. Well, I am way to angry to be any more polite than I am being so I am going to excuse myself from this forum.

Before I go, I want you all to hear just how management at Mid-States really looked out for us and MANAGED to keep their jobs..

Information came to me by way of the Class Action lawyers concerning our insurance. This information was important so I faxed a copy to the STL terminal via the company fax machine. MANAGEMENT in STL contacted Hartmann's (with in minutes) about the fax. Hartmann called the district manager, reamed him out who in turn called my manager and reamed him out. So my manager informed me of the situation and I told him, that I was doing managements job, that he and those complaining should be informing me, not the other way around. He said, well, Hartmann said we should not be using company equipment, the fax machine, to pass that info a long (childish to say the least)....IRONIC!! I told him to tell Hartmann I would be glad to pay for the fax and I was on my own time not being clocked in yet...My boss and the District manager had been coming to me having my wife email them with up dates on the law suit, using the company computer. Then they dared to confront me about informing others!!!

Now that was management at Mid-States! Run and tell the Hartmann's someone was informing the employees about the company non-provided insurance! I guess we did not have a right to know anything. Sounds just like management, only they did not want to know anything!! (Officially)

I wish you all the best, even those of you that were in MANAGEMENT.

I guess we all are victims in one way or another. There is life after Mid-States, I just wish the medical bills would stop reminding me though....

Ah CJ knows exatly who I am. Everybody knows the bulldog in Aurora. CJ knows where I stand with him. Day the company closed or maybe the day after.....ah never mind its not worth ashing over. No hiding behind a name here. I had my say and will move along like everybody else here, ins bills not paid, out 3 pay checks. Annette just because you dont see things in Cin. doesnt mean they dont happen elsewhere. Like I said I didnt see him spit in any womans face, but I have seen his interactions with others. So dont suggest I said he did this, it was mentioned in a post way before I came here. Some have been victims for years by the Hartmanns. They stuck around through it all, whey they stayed some of them 9 plus years is beyond me. Good luck all.

Well well well #### is hitting the fan and some people are offended!!! Cj you wouldnt know the truth if God himself told you!!!! How many terminals did you go thru at Mid-States??? You got to be kiddn me!! Dont come here and insult everyone and act like some ( CHOIR BOY)!!! Wonder what the Madison Terminal employees would say about your threatening to hit a former office gal??? Wonder what her brother would say??? Seeing he was the one being held back from stomping a mud hole in your #%#^!!! Everyone knew Joe Baker was your mentor until he blind sided ya thats when you woke up to Joe Baker !! Let me see what did Joe tell you, oh yea, get people to fear you and they will do anything to keep there job!!! isnt that how it worked Cj!!!!!!!!!!!!You really should watch what you say to people human nature gets the better of them and they are all to willing to share conversations with others!!! Pisses me off when low lifes like yourself try to come off like some kind of innocent by-stander!!!You can keep tyring to sell your manure all you want to everyone bottom line some of us KNOW better!!SOME OF US KNOW BETTER!!!!!!!
Let me leave all former Mid-States employees with this:
Start getting use to the fact that you will not see any money!!! Mid-States owes me $2000.00 that I paid out of my pocket for med bills and I havent worked for them over two years. It is money my wife and I could really use but realize that that possiblity has come and gone!! If you do it will be a freakn miracle!!! (HOPE) Hope is just a word to me now!! I hoped for years that Mid-States would turn itself around and become a thriving company!!! I hoped that we could make Mid-States one of the number 1 LtL carriers in the Nation!!! I to loved my job and the challange that came with it and working with so many good people!!! It is really quit sad to see it all gone!!! May God watch over each and everyone of you and I pray that all of you find the strength and courage to make it thru these hard times.Always Remember you can make it thru anything, After all you did work for Mid-States ))) If you can make it thru that you can make it thru anything ))) Smile and keep your chin up!!!!!

chris and i never really saw eye to eye on alot of things and we without a doubt had our fair share of tiffs over a certian dispatcher.....cj that should let you know you i am,worked at lasalle than montgomery. but i will tell you guys a lot of people hated him with a passion but he WAS ALWAYS been fair to me. and from what i hear from others he got screwed extremely hard by the hartmanns. a few midstates guys have ended up at certral transport but he is not one of them..........

not sticking up for him in any way shape or form,but i never once saw him treat someone unfairly with my own two eyes.

Has anyone heard any more news as to what is happening at the corporate office?

Just a note to those who may not recognize everyone here - We're all from different states - I don't know another soul on here except my husband. Even if you gave your real names, I wouldn't know you and you wouldn't know me or my husband. Might keep that in mind rather than accusing people of hiding behind their handles.

Thank you for the support Annette and the few others that responded. With so many people being angry over what happened I am not caught off guard that people are spewing venom.

With the large amount of people I had to terminate or discipline for not doing their job, stealing, damaging equipment and other ridiculous actions, it's not out of the norm that they would be on a message board blaming me and falsely accusing me rather than taking responsibility for their own circumstances.

In terms of the ownership I have to respond to someone (jodi) stating it wasn't their fault the bank pulled their funding. I would hold off on that defense for now.

I am getting word that the feds are looking at the ownership and it is possible one brother has turned on another. Don't know if its true but thats what I am hearing.

I am also hearing that the reason our funding was pulled was because a member of the ownership withdrew money from the receivables account to pay off a personal credit card and leins against personal property, and thats why the bank refused to fund payroll. They insisted that it be funded with the money that was withdrawn without authorization. That is what they claim violated our agreement so they pulled our funding.

That is why they have to appear in court today. Not just their attorney but them as well. That is why some form of the Warn Act maybe imposed. They may and I stress may be forced to pay some sort of severance because the withdrawing of the money for personal asset protection seems to indicate at least one persons knowledge or at least suspicion that we where going under. But don't get too excited because I am certain they will fight it and make appeal after appeal if that is true.


Everything I just stated is second hand information and I cannot atest to it's accuracy .

I have no confidence the statements on their website are accurate that they want to pay us and the bank won't let them. In a bankruptcy your assets are held, you fight for what you say you can't afford to pay and your creditors fight for what they believe you can afford to pay. Trust me bankruptcy is all about you hiring a lawyer to keep as much of what you have as possible and screw everyone you owe.

In terms of me knowing ahead of time...like all of you I was fearful of it happening but had the foolish confidence that they would pull it off like they did when we almost went out in 2001, and in 2004, 2005, and 2006.

Regarding the insurance. The only company insurance I had was long term and short term dissability. I never made a claim on it so I didn't know until the last day when the insurance coordinator told me it had been dropped for non payment of premiums.

I took my $6000 lumps on the insurance like all of you and when I realized it wasn't going anywhere the only answer I got from ownership was it should be resolved in June, then October, then March.

As far as standing up, I told employees they shouldn't take the new insurance and I offered them info for the outside insurance that I purchased for my family. It was affordable and at least people would know their claims would be paid. Other than that you all had the option to leave like everybody else.

On a final note. The following Saturday after closing, I contacted The Chairman of the board. After his promises that I would be compensated for all the moving and all the money I saved him fixing the terminals I was sent to, I was told "Everybody thinks everybody is rich, I am retired on social security and a fixed income." A comment I found laughable which was immediately followed by saying " I won't let my boys take the blame for this, it was the managers and Joe B's fault."

He refused to recognize that their was a serious lack of leadership the instant he retired and no one would make a decision on anything accept the vice president of sales whos decisions quite frequently were wrong. They would have been right for any regimented disciplined money making carrier but they were wrong for us mostly because we couldn't afford them.

And collectively they couldn't make consistent decisions. Plain and simple..just my observation.

Many of you had good ideas I would have liked to implement. I had presentation after presentation of good ideas we didn't have the money for or I couldn't get an answer for. It was what it was. Hell it took two years of begging from me to get pre employment drug screens for all employees and when I finally got it...they never funded the random program. So the drug addicts we already had got to stay and we hired people that did what they had to in order to pass the test once then got to be a low life thieving addict from that day forward.

So all of you and he can blame the managers, or whatever but managers didn't have the ability to cut checks to pay for anything, we where fed bull and kept in the dark about our vendors being paid what was going on with the insurance and all of it. I didn't know the LAS terminal was in foreclosure until it was posted in the paper, and when I inquired the president didn't return my call. The first time until it was paid the second time we went under and he didn't return my call at all.

They never told anybody anything and if anyone claims to have inside information that wasn't on the verge of becoming public anyway more than likely their last name was the same as the owners. (Unless of course they were oneof the few sources at corporate that occassionally overheard things.)

Blame is where it belongs...If I was out of line I guess I will face consequences for that, but I hold little concern in that regard. The best we can hope for is everyone that got caught up in this pulls out ok and those that caused it face rightful consequences in accordance with state and federal law.

Hi people, Just wanted to offer a small update that may or may not have any special importance to those of us who are former Mid States employees; a week ago, I recieved a voice mail messege on my answering machine from someone in the Il. attorney General's office, saying they wanted to speak with me regarding MSXN and what has been going on. I initially had sent a email to them a few weeks earlier outlining some of the issues that have been on the front burner for many of us. So, late yesterday afternoon I recieved another phone call from someone in the Il. Attorney General's office. He asked me a couple of questions about what was going on and told me he is planning to call me today sometime to go into more detail regarding the abuses we have incurred at the hands of the Hartman's and Mid States. Oh, and when I sent him that email a couple of weeks ago, I also included a link to this board, so that he could get up to speed with the stories and facts such as they are, and how they pertain to many of us; how we were affected by what has happened or happened after the fact of MSXN closing their doors. So not to get too optimistic about this phone call, but perhaps it is yet another small step in our fight for what is right, for what we have coming to us, that has been denied to us. I will keep you posted as thengs develop in this arena. Feel free to contact me via the moderator of this board if you have any questions, comments or concerns. By the way, I was out of the Milwaukee terminal for those of you who may be wondering. G

Wow...how things change on here in a few days time...Going to miss you Bill..You always brought a smile to my face from your postings which I felt were from the heart and just. You can all go back and think about what was in the past...I was not an employee of Mid States, my husband was. I have lost my job also where I was employed for 29 1/2 years. I see the posting on here about who said what and who did what and the same #### went on were I worked also. You have those that worked hard, and those that worked...well if thats what you want to call it..the bottom line...we all got paid the same no matter what you did or didnt do. Who's fault..well we all know the answer to that question dont we. Does it matter today. No it doesnt. No matter where we have worked or will work, the same #### will continue. But what the employees of this company need to do is come together as one, fight for what is rightfully yours, and put these people where they belong. They have stolen from us too. We didnt have any health insurance from them, but the husband did have 401k, and short term disability. And I find out that they have helped themselves to our money to what, pay off their f$#% credit card!!! What about my credit card Hartmans? Pay mine off too!! And companies like yours wonder why employees decide that they have to organize and become union! People can only take getting kicked in the teeth so many times before that come up fighting! I am proud of the people on here who have done what ever they felt they could do to get some attention to this. Weather it worked or not is beside the point. Anyone who wrote I letter, an email, a phone call....my husband and I thank you! I have not seen one other person on here from Michigan except us. We have tried to do what we could from this state. We probably will not get a dime out of them, but being able to come together on this forum has at least given some of us a place to vent our frustrations. GHarley..I hope you get somewhere with the atty general. At least they seem to listen. The only response I got back from my email was from our state senator and that was nothing but a bunch of ####!! We can only hope that the rumor is true about the Hartman boys turning on each other. Wouldnt it be to bad if they were forced to have to get into their own personal assets to repay their debts. Dont know if its possible or not, but time will tell! So again, Dont really care about what supervisor did what or didnt do what...the only thing I care about is each and every employee of this company getting their medical bills paid, their wages owed, and the money returned for 401k and insurance premiums. That is what we all need to be fighting for now, not fighting against each other....Again..thank you to all those who have stepped up to the plate, weather you hit the ball or got a walk or struck out..its called team work!!!! If anyone gets any updates please post and let us know if you would.....

Chris, concerning this comment you made in your post..............

"Whether you want to believe it or not I knew what would work better for the employee group more than most of you. I fought the union because of the disservice unions had done to me and my family as well as knowing anyone that got caught up in that approach would loose. Unions are relatively easy to defeat and the employee group attempting to organize or supporting are always the ones that get it the worst. I had been on the losing end of that fight before.

I also knew who we worked for and knew they would waste every dime of money they had defending themselves from the union even if it meant shut down. Those that attempted to organize only gave the ownership an outlet for their money other than paying our medical bills."


I agree with you on this statement 'Unions are relatively easy to defeat and the employee group attempting to organize or supporting are always the ones that get it the worst. " I have addressed my dissatisfaction with them. However, to say that we gave the Hartman's a outlet for their money other then medical bills is just untrue. Remember when we organized they were not paying the medical bills then and before that. Not paying the medical bills was the number one reason we turned to the union. At that time when employees turned to you I believe your response was something to the effect..Hey I had to take a second on my mortgage to pay my medical bills also. Ummm Ok so that was ok? It is management and any one who stayed working for them this long that has enabled them to steal more money from innocent employees. Say what you want about us that tried to organize.... but we got out last 3 weeks of pay and we got unemployment! This more then any one else so far. On top of the fact we have the satisfaction of knowing we tried to stand up to them and let them know we were not going to be a doormat. Those that have stayed working for them this long have allowed themselves to be a doormat. Do not take this the wrong way. All though I made this statement, I also do not believe the Hartman's are justified in what they did. I still think everyone deserves to be paid what is owed to them. It was not right for them to take what was not theirs. I wish all the employees the best of luck. If I am not mistaken I am the one who started this board to help and warn others about what was going on at Msxn. So I do not wish any misfortune on any employees even though I called you a doormat.