Yellow Freight closure thread

No thank you. They made their bed,now they have to go lie in it.

 

That's a great answer, thanks for posting it.

 

Well, the 19 month or whatever journey is finally hitting its closing chapter. On Wednesday the court ruled that Yellow isn't liable for WARN act violations. In short, while the executives and some 3,200 non-union got something; everyone else that was part of the meat and potatoes of the daily operations got nothing. Of course everything is being appealed and this could drag out another half a decade, but I have been mentally done with it.

During the past few months I've met people that were far worse off than me. One guy was months behind on his mortgage and had his water and electricity shut off and another coworker of mine had to sell much of everything he owned just to evade eviction. Up until last week the later person was talking about using the WARN act money to finally move. I think this was Yellows final middle finger to the rest of us. It's safe to assume that this process took months of legal strategizing well in advance of our closure to ensure none of us got anything. I should be more bitter, but up until a few months after the closure I wasn't even aware that they may have been on the hook to pay us. Aside from some dark depressions and very uncertain times, looking back I came out relatively unscathed. We had to redo our finances to adjust to everything. Health insurance was no longer a free perk and it came directly out of my paycheck which was already 2/3 of what I was used to making. I was able to pay off most of my debt in the past few years after lining up everything lowest to highest. Between my house and wife's car we owe less than $50K now and we working on building up 6 months of our living expenses. A Yellow payout was something we never counted on. I mean, it would have been real given how hard they screwed us. C'est la Vie

Let this be a cautionary tale...

This thing called life can go sideways on you really quick. Most of us didn't think it would affect us. "The company has been around for 100 years and has been going bankrupt for the past two decades" is what they kept telling everyone. And the reality is we were a profitable at both the Reddaway and Holland terminals that I worked at. So we felt pretty financially insulated given there was always profit. Just keep in mind no company is too big too fail and nobody is immune from being fired or laid off.

 

Unions started when workers were being exploited badly in the early 20th century. But members got greedy and asked for so much that drove things to collapse. Sow what you reap

 

And the race to the bottom continues ............

 

I don't understand how people keep lumping in the members in with this whole greed thing. We really did not have much sway in anything.

I was making $26.45 an hour. As a standalone number, we would not even rank in the top 5 LTL carriers in our State. The real weenie was our benefits which was our health insurance that was worth $550 a week, or roughly an additional $14/hour (when spread over a 40 hour work week). I was quite happy with my setup and things should have stayed the same. Then things came down to a vote and you only have two option. YES or NO.

I've said it in the past on here, but I abstained from voting since I really did not sign up for the Holland politics. I begrudgingly became a member because it was a condition of my employment and I promised myself I would never jump into this pro or anti union thing as long as I worked there. So back to the vote. Contracts were drafted by people way over my head that did not even reside in my area. They also did a blanket contract that may have benefited someone that lived in a higher cost of living area for the same company (in places like Greenville or near Myrtle Beach). As for me personally, I was happy with the $26.45 I was making. The bills were getting paid and everyone had insurance. So when I saw the new contract they were talking $4 in raises over the next 5 years or something. I was rightfully skeptical and that this would put a strain on our labor costs and that the company would cut OT or raise shipping rates. When you couple our benefits with the new proposed wages, there is no way we would have stayed competitive while still being profitable. So I did not vote but the contract passed regardless. You know ....cause Yellow was doing so well and one thing they had an abundance of was money to pay everyone more.

So the Union got greedy. When I first started, I was paying $50 a month in dues, and by the time this fiasco matured into the destruction of our company five years later, the Union was pulling in $78 or so a month (although my figures might be off a dollar or two). So $78 a month, every month from every member. The union reps gave themselves generous pay packages (I am talk $12K a month and up) and us peons sat at the bottom.

Now, to be fair. We did have drivers that were Teamsters to the core cheering this on. You know, sticking this to "the man". The ones that gave their loyalty blindly. Please let me further explain because I can almost pinpoint this to the day this went down.

So we found out on a Monday that the company was not paying into our insurance for the past two months and we got a memo stating that they would cut us off by the end of the week unless we coughed up the $550 a week premium ourselves. It was either the following day or maybe Wednesday were we held an emergency meeting in the break room where the discussion for our strike would take place. Basically what we could and could not do and what we expect to happen. Finally our union steward was like "very well gents, are there any questi.... urgh. Yes roadrunner?"

- Fair question. For those of us that DON'T want to play Thelma and Louis and run this company off of a cliff, can we just hang back, clock in, and work our regular routes? We kinda have financial commitments like ...ya know ....mortgages and water bills? The prospect for picketing outside in the July heat for $15 an hour for four hour shifts really makes me reluctant to just drive down here for that.

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!! You will either be outside picketing or you will stay away from here. Don't even dare to try to cross the picket. We are Teamsters and we stick together and take care of our own".

So I am not even making this up. But our steward called our BA the same day trying to figure out what to do. The BA legit said to him "not sure what to tell you with your Yellow problems. I am in Washington DC working on the ABF contract". He then hung up on our steward and ghosted us. That was literally the last time we ever heard from him. The strike never happened and we were terminated shortly after. We never ceded an inch to the company and the Union was able to use our demise to put leverage to UPS and ABF. They were now playing hardball and it was not beneath them to sacrifice 22,000 of their own members to prove that point. In the end we were just useful idiots that held our ground on behalf of the union.

Oh, and one last thing. Fast forward to last October. The Union did an all-call request to endorse whatever candidate, and I honestly don't even remember which one it was; but the kicker was that they wanted all the Teamsters to once again unite cause one candidate was more pro Teamster than the other one. Ok... Y'all ghosted us after we went bankrupt and left us for dead. But now you want us to come stick together again cause you guys need votes? Those guys have zero shame whatsoever.

Thanks for reading. Happy Sunday!

 

I still can’t forget about the videos at the terminals where drivers had been with the company 20-30 some odd years and they find out that they have no pension left to retire on, they basically have to start all over again-if they can!

It’s hard to stay loyal to a company that basically gives you a big “f*** you” like that.

 

I am pretty sure the guys trying to get their pension are still having their cases reviewed. From what I understand, a judge has determined that Yellow may still be on the hook for billions of dollars for the pension fund.

I remember we had one person retire in May of the same year before everything went down and I am sure he is doing just fine. I honestly don't know anyone that was truly ever loyal to Yellow. Everyone I worked with was proud to work for Holland/Reddaway since those are the companies that they poured their blood, sweat, and tears into for decades. We even had a few Dugan and Bestway guys as well... which makes this whole thing so much sadder. They were great companies with a lot of history, then YRC had to acquire them.

 

Dues are 2 and 1/2 times your hourly wage no matter what area of the country you are in.
Unless your local has a special assessment say to put a new roof on your locals building.
If you don't vote you got nothing to ##### about. One vote may change the outcome.
How many monthly membership meeting did you attend ?
Did you get involved with your local ? Volunteering , Organizing or local Elections.
This is how one gets change if you do not like the politics.
Maybe a few of your like minded Brothers should have look into a new BA.

Under your National Master Freight Agreement ( which you said you did not vote for)
If a company does not pay it's health and welfare Your contract that the company signed gives the Teamsters the right to strike. Which has been done a few times tat I know of.
Yellow made a deal at the last minute to make a payment. They ended up going back on their word and made the decision to liquidate.
Your BA was either on the negotiating committee or at the two man meeting in DC doing his job.
Where was your locals President or other BAs that could answer your questions ?
Why would you want a union job if you did not support the union ?
Their are so many other choices out their that pay more.