Yellow Freight closure thread

Just want to give a bit of an update on my terminal.

Pretty sure some or most of you have seen the correspondence between the President of Teamster and the CEO of Yellow that was leaked. Apparently there was some kind of deal proposed by Yellow to give all of us a $11/hour pay raise as long as we do an early new 5 year contract (supposedly). I can post the images on here if anyone is interested, but for the time being I just want to give some context. Teamsters turned it down (supposedly). Not sure what is true or not, but the release was enough to have a driver's meeting with the TM.

Nobody knows what is going on or what is supposed to happen. We had a higher up Teamster rep calling our business agent trying to sort things out and his response was that "I'm in DC dealing with ABF issues" before hanging up. That dude needs to be fired.

Either way, we were told that at 5 PM tomorrow we will have an answer; not on the strike, but wether or not our company will be out of business. We simply can not exist with a strike. Our TM was instructed to purchase some padlocks for the gates anyway.

To give more context (and I know a bunch of competitors are already poaching our freight), this time last year our outbound bill count was 440-500. Last week that number was 250. Yesterday it was 104. Today it was 64. By comparison, when I worked at Reddaway, we did 100+ bills with five drivers. 64 bills with 39 drivers is not sustainable.

Tomorrow about 1/3 to 2//3 of our drivers started they will not show up for work with everything going on. I am debating not coming in either because I honestly think that I will get laid off anyways.

Gentlemen, the fat lady is singing and she is on the last page of notes to finish the score.

 

It's not the competition poaching Yellow freight, it's your customers reaching out to ensure their freight gets out and to there destinations. There asking us to take on this additional freight. Hate to see anyone lose their jobs. Hope you all find another job. Check out Estes!!

 

$11/hr fleetwide would be north of $500 million a year. YRC doesn't have that kind of money, and if they did, then the beef with the union over consolidation/ making linehaul guys utility workers would be non existent.

From what I've read, any contract would be subject to lenders approval, which isn't much of a contract.

It's like the guys who tried to outbid BP's buyout of TA - yeah it was a great offer, but no financing behind it makes it worthless.

 

Every shipper has a right to not have a disruption in getting their freight shipped. But there are carriers that are actively poaching freight. If your company has the capacity, more power to you.

But we have had competing drivers approach our drivers and wish we don't go bankrupt. Our volume of freight is too much for them to handle and it is negatively effecting their regular customers.

Thank you for your respectful response.

 

Hate to respond to my own comment. But another thing to consider is the response from DHL's former CEO speaking up against a potential UPS strike.

Gonna paraphrase this, but he said that there is not a single company on the planet that can handle an additional 18-24 million shipments per day. They went through this in the late 90s or early 2000s when UPS striked and DHL's warehouses were overflowed for 14 days with UPS freight.

On day 15 all the strikes were called off and everyone went back to UPS. Meanwhile DHL's freight was caught up in the mix and their customers were livid over the brief influx of freight that put their shipments behind.

Tipping the scales on an OTR shipment is completely different than having to reintroduce your shipment into a complex LTL network. OTR enjoys way more flexibility that LTL can't compete with.

Expect a major hike in rates.

 

The freight will sort itself out....Can all of Yellows market share be absorbed immediately..,,of course not... but it will be in a much shorter time than you think.....Many of us have seen this numerous times in the last 50 years...
But most recently (at least if your old like me) Think Cornflakes who spent years building up Conway for the day they closed...Everyone screamed the sky is fallin in terms of supply chain issues and effects on the economy goin into the holiday season(they shut down Labor Day)
But truth be told by Halloween it was CF who?
Truth is there’s a ####load of good drivers out there who are basically freight guys who can seemlessly transition from a Yellow to to any other ltl outfit Equipment capacity is always better than the average guy thinks..,Just requires a lil chess game to rearrange things...
As for poaching...,couple ways to look at it
I’m sure customers are talking to All their ltl carriers trying to be ready for whatever my come...they have business to run so it’s only good mgmt
On the other hand salesmen are salesmen..,tasked with soliciting and securing work
What would you do in their shoes??
IMHO..,best thing could happen to workforce... is for them to announce layoffs before strike....would allow many of Yellows people to collect unemployment and have some breathing room.... Once a strike is called inevitably closin Yellow...collecting may become an issue
Time will tell

 

I foresee it coming down to the 11th hour and somebody like Warren Buffett charging in to save the day.

 

Yellow’s fate likely in hands of Kansas district court - FreightWaves
1:30 Central time.......we should know something by 5

 

Maybe there's some hope after all.

 

I got a feeling I will get laid off today regardless of outcome. I got a call from both my dispatcher and supervisor wanting me to come in early cause nobody showed up for work. Told them I was busy cooking for my family and trying to enjoy this last day of normality.