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Employees at Yellow Logistics terminated

Efforts to sell 3PL intact appear unsuccessful

Yellow's logistics operations appear to be shutting down. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

Employees at Yellow Logistics confirmed to FreightWaves they were terminated Tuesday as part of widespread layoffs at the independent subsidiary of Yellow Corp. But whether this was tied to an actual shutdown of the 3PL was not clear Tuesday night.

One employee said all staff were given short notice to dial into a company-wide conference call. On the call, employees were told there was no more money to fund the operation and they were being terminated.

In recent days, parent company Yellow (NASDAQ: YELL) had said “it’s business as usual” at the business formerly known as HNRY Logistics. Yellow announced last week it was shopping the unit that specializes in truckload shipments, contract logistics and warehousing and distribution services, presumably trying to offload it ahead of a bankruptcy filing.

Another employee said the entire unit, roughly 100 to 150 people including managers, were let go Tuesday.


Yellow hasn’t commented since leadership at the Teamsters union said late Sunday night it was notified the company was filing for bankruptcy. Just hours prior to that announcement, Yellow closed the gates at its terminals and posted signs saying all company operations had ceased.

Most of its nonunion workforce had been let go Friday.

The company had been losing customers for weeks as speculation of a potential shutdown grew. In a public back-and-forth with union leadership over operational changes the less-than-truckload carrier said it could be out of money as soon as July.

Attempting to preserve cash, it missed required contribution payments to health care and pension funds on July 15, prompting members of operating companies Holland and YRC Freight to issue a strike notice. The planned work stoppage would ultimately be called off at the last minute when the fund it contributes to extended health insurance for those employees. However, the damage was done as the threat of a shutdown hastened the rate at which intermediaries and customers diverted freight from its network.


Yellow was reported Tuesday to be close to a deal to receive debtor-in-possession financing from one of its current lenders, Apollo Global Management (NYSE: APO). The infusion would place the investment firm atop others in a liquidation scenario, a process that would attempt to satisfy the company’s $1.5 billion in outstanding debt.

Yellow did not respond to a request for comment.

More FreightWaves articles by Todd Maiden

7 Comments

  1. Proud and Determined

    I started with Roadway in ’96. They were rebuilding from being cut loose on their own. They ran a lean operation but we all knew they had a long term plan. Wages rose, pensions grew, and they made a lot of money…then Yellow happened.
    Our operations changed for the worse. Freight moved at a snails pace. Then the customers started leaving. Don’t forget the 2008 crash. From that point, everything they did as a company made things worse. The union talked us into pays cuts and give backs. Supposedly temporarily. Everyone working our terminal lost a minimum of 140k over the years. Plus pensions were damaged. Mine is almost half what it should be. When I retire in 10 years I might get 1800 a month, unless I can find a Union job to bump it up..
    Every change of operation slowed the freight. Shipments were handled multiple times to move across the system, leaving more chances for damages. Freight dropped, employees left or retired. 60k plus employees dropped to 30k. Large bonuses for the top, cuts for the people moving the freight.
    How can any company with 22k people moving the freight, and 8k office/management employees pushing pencils make a profit? Not this one. An example: Average nights on our dock we had 10-12 guys moving freight and 4 managers sitting around. Sometimes there was 5 guys and 4 managers. $$$
    The people that ran this company into the ground should be ashamed of themselves. But I bet they are not.

    It’s all the unions fault you know.

  2. Nick Taylor

    My father was a Teamster for almost 30 years. His last job was at CF Consolidated Freightways. In early 1990, his union dues were $72 bucks a month.

    How much were Yellow Freight & what’s left of union tractor trailer drivers paying a month these days? Just curious.

  3. Trucker chuck

    Kudos to Mike, yellow was poorly run and they took 2 extremely profitable companies with them in New penn and holland. 09-12 no pension contributions, 2012 to present $ 2.50 per hour, so you worked all year and your pension benefit went up $ 20. Along with no 401k contributions. A 15% wage give back since 2009, one less week’s vacation..the list goes on and on. I think it is ironic that yellow is trying to use the union as their scapegoat, when it was the union made concessions to keep yellow going. Now they haven’t paid into the health funds so most will loose health insurance at end of September. Then they made an $ 11.00 per hour “pipe dream ” promise of a wage increase! How would they have been able to increase wages if they couldn’t even pay their health insurance? Maybe the employee’s should offer to work for free while Mr. Hawkins is out golfing in Nashville!! So now apollo capital will receive payment on their loans since the property is the collateral, and the small vendors will receive 10 cents on a dollar and you wonder why employees are so upset !!

  4. Performance shows things

    NEMF went out of business because they Hired foreign people that didn’t speak English much and foreign black people that would mail everything they stolen to Africa, cargo claims cargo theft customer’s that scribble for a signature and don’t put the Full delivery date on the bills, I had a Poland spring bottle water load once and when I asked the store to print and write the Full date down month day and year , somebody did that and the manager said we’re trying to Rip OFF the motor carrier, Now I have to pay for the bottled water because you did that

  5. Mike from buffalo

    This company receives billions from all its employees which was 15% for each employee in this company for years and they still don’t know how to take care of this company. The debt should’ve been paid off just from the 15% as per the 700 million that they got from the government nobody knows where that money went. Somebody needs to track it. It is disgusting that this company does not know how to run a company. Everybody at top is always worried about filling their pockets never worried about the guy that does all the work for them or women. This company’s been poorly run for many years. I’ve been there for 27 years and most of the implies with me having 30 or more. This company just doesn’t care about anything but themselves so anybody that says unions stink maybe you should really check into the company before you open your mouth because obviously you don’t know what you’re talking about

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Todd Maiden

Based in Richmond, VA, Todd is the finance editor at FreightWaves. Prior to joining FreightWaves, he covered the TLs, LTLs, railroads and brokers for RBC Capital Markets and BB&T Capital Markets. Todd began his career in banking and finance before moving over to transportation equity research where he provided stock recommendations for publicly traded transportation companies.