Employees of Mexican carrier Jaguar Transportation — a subsidiary of bankrupt Celadon Group — continue to protest unpaid wages by blocking the company’s Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, terminal in order to delay the removal of trucks, according to reports.
“In Nuevo Laredo, hundreds — of personnel who worked at the Jaguar company maintain their peaceful protest and remain at the facilities of the transport line, waiting to receive their settlement and savings fund,” according to Mexican news outlet Lider Web Informativo.
As of Dec. 12, the workers had not received a response from Celadon officials, according to the report. Jaguar employee’s said they will prevent the removal of trucks until they are paid money owed to them by Celadon.
Jaguar Transportation was a wholly owned subsidiary of Celadon Group, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Dec. 9.
Jaguar Transportation employed around 600 people and included 450 trucks in Mexico. The company employed around 200 drivers in Nuevo Laredo, along with some 200 employees at its facility in Monterrey, Mexico.
The Mexican cities of San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Puebla, and Guadalajara, were also locations of Jaguar Transportation branches.
When Celadon informed its employees in Mexico the company was shutting down, drivers at Celadon’s Nuevo Laredo terminal blocked the entrance to keep 150 trucks and 150 trailers, out of fear of not receiving payment, according to Mexican news outlet El Mañana.
Logistics professionals in Mexico also said Celadon’s closure could affect as many as 600 daily cross-border shipments.
Regions that could be affected most include Mexico’s western states, as well as “those that go down from the United States to the Mexican Bajio area, for the automotive industry,” said José Antonio Sánchez, director of the Logistics Committee of the National Council of the Maquiladora and Export Manufacturing Industry (INDEX).
“[Of course] we will have delays in product deliveries,” Sánchez said in an interview with Mexican news outlet T21.
Sánchez said the shipment of electronic goods manufactured in the Mexican state of Jalisco could be another export affected by Celadon’s closure.
“A specific case is the electronics industry concentrated in the west of the country, mainly in Jalisco, where about a hundred companies account for 51% of exports from that state and most have contracts with local carriers that, in turn, are related to Celadon,” Sánchez said.
Jonathan
Everyone wants to know what the truth is of what happened to Celadon and why they crumbled then I’ll give it to you….. Back in 2015 Celadon got greedy and bought out Tango Transport after the owners son used his father’s company as his personal piggy bank buying vacations for his wife and his family until they ran out of money and sold to Celadon but this was just the beginning of Celadons problems…. When IP paper along with Quad Graphics and other paper plants around Louisiana found out about the buy out by Celadon. They turned and ran and cut all the contracts that Tango had with the plants and told Celadon to get lost, get rid of their Tango trailers, and never talk to them again, this was the start of the financial problems that Celadon was having. Once the crash in profits and the loss of 4 major paper plants in Louisiana happened which started everything once Celadon bought out Tango, the profits started falling by the millions of dollars. The companies safety rating was horrible and no one wanted to have anything to do with them. Enter Paul Will the company CEO at the time, Paul Will was all for the buyout of Tango but as soon as Celadon took over the old Tango yard. That’s when the trouble started and Celadon was forced to sell the old terminal and get rid of it. Celadon had basically ran out of money once the buyout happened but things went a little deeper within Celadon , you see Paul Wills and Jonathan had words between them over Paul wanting to start a rival company within Celadon and that’s when Eagle formed Eagle was a Powerhouse company that didnt play. To make things even worse, Eagle Drivers as an Owner Op company had their dispatch, their own payroll, their own trucks, their own trailers and their own freight and could do pretty much do whatever they wanted. Paul Will’s was hell bent on taking Celadon down and replacing it with Eagle Transport which was an Owner Op company within Celadon that grew enormously and threatened to Swallow Celadon cause everyone was leaving for Eagle and bailing out on Celadon.. When Eagle started growing the war was on between Eagle and Celadon until Jonathan paid off Paul and desolved Eagle to become a part of Celadon. To look good in front of the investors now that Eagle was no longer a threat to Celadon, Bobby got a bright idea and started trying to increase the look of the company profits which was a lie from the start. Enter Eric Meeks… Eric was all for the company making money for the company so did Danny Williams, Quality leasing ?? Remember those clowns ?? Quality was Celadons so called truck dealership that Celadon leased trucks through but the only problem was that the quality trucks were rejected trucks that other companies got rid of and sold. None of them were any good and was basically left over junk that no one wanted and weren’t any good by no means at all. Celadon wanted to attract. Owner Ops to the company and say that they had owner operators to attract more people to come to the company and yes this was Jonathan’s and Bobby’s idea and that’s how Quality leasing was born. On paper Jonathan Russell was Celadons owner after his dad died in 2016, Jonathan made it look like he was sole owner of Celadon and ran only Celadon which was a lie and Danny Williams was the so called owner of Quality Leasing which was a lie in a half as well. In reality Jonathan owned BOTH companies but he separated things on paper to cover himself, Bobby Peivler and Eric Meeks who was the CFO and President of Celadon were in on the whole thing to try and make Celadon more money but nothing worked out at all.. Hell, Quality and Celadon was in bed together if you caught what I ment by that statement. When investors and accounts started asking questions about the Lease sales which I also add that the trucks leased to Celadon were valued at 3 and 4 times the market value to keep Quality and Celadon looking good in front of investors but there was so many problems with the Lease trucks it wasn’t even funny. The engines were messed up, the Trucks Def systems were trashed and their so called mechanics were shade tree mechanics if you know what i mean by that. They only put a band aid over the issues with these rejected trucks to pass their so called fake inspections and there was never any REAL repairs made to these lease trucks. The only way that these trucks TRULY got repaired and fixed was by the Dealerships not Quality. This was anther way that Quality worked so they could sell these trashed trucks and make a profit in their eyes but it was only Fraud and another way of Celadon finding a way of lying the drivers and scamming them into a fraudulent scheme to cover what they were really doing and keeping the so called Owner Op scheme going to make the companies look good in front of everyone including investors, company customers and outside companies like Jones Motor Lines, Sunco in FL and Celadon along side of Sunteck. Once the fraud was discovered…. Sunco in Lakeland FL dumped Quality, took their trucks back and dumped the entire Lease through Quality and Celadon all together and yes the authorities were notified. Yes all of this was both Bobby and Eric Meeks idea and like a dumbass Jonathan went along with it cause all he saw was money. If you broke down or something went wrong with your truck according to Celadon after the first 30 days, the repairs got made but it CAME OUT OF YOUR PAY. Jonathan Russell didn’t give a fuck who he hurt or swindled or burned as long as himself, his family and his band of crooks were making money, He didn’t give a damn what it did to Celadon or his image. When the class action lawsuit came against Celadon for Fuel rebate discounts to the Lease drivers being found out was a lie. The drivers went after Celadon and demanded answers but non were given. Remember back when Pilot was stealing company reimbursements credits from Trucking companies and got busted by the IRS and the FBI in Knoxville TN ?? CELADON jumped on that bandwagon to try and make more money for the company so they could keep the company in business and they could keep ripping people off. The whole company under Jonathans, Eric Meeks and Bobby Peivlier was a scam job from the very start and that’s what got them busted by the government and the drivers. This got the attention of the IRS and that’s when shit really got hot. In 2016 when the fuel fraud case got started which was the idea of both Jonathan and Eric to keep the company running and that’s where the around 10 Million dollar terminals in to play in both Indianapolis and in Laredo which no one wanted anything to do with. The New Indy terminal started getting built but was scrapped after the company fell under investigation by the government and was abandoned and later sold under court orders When the finacial troubles came to light. Both Indy and Laredo were closed and sold. When the IRS marched into Celadon and demanded answers to the companies records which were doctored by Bobby Peivlier to try and keep the government off Celadons back but it didnt work. Exit Paul Wills, when the IRS did an audit on Celadons books cause their practices were raising issues with investors and company account and the government, Paul in the middle of a work day packed up and walked out on Celadon and left the company for good. How else do you think that Jonathan became CEO until enter Paull Schvienland who became the new. CEO of Celadon. When the fraud case went down and the company was kicked off the NYSE and told to never come back, all of the fraud was found out through Quality and the junk trucks that Celadon was running was discovered by the investors and accountants. They started asking questions because what Celadon was saying and what the truth was were 2 different things all together. Nothing was adding up and that’s when the investors stared raising questions about Celadons activities and their finacial records weren’t addng up either, that’s when the DOJ got involved and the $42 million dollars was owed to the government and somehow the company came up with the money. Once that was paid Celadon thought that they were free and clear but that wasn’t true by no means. When the investors and the government started looking into Quality leasing and Danny Williams got indicted, Jonathan’s didnt want anything to do with the case and ran and left Danny high and dry and left him to fend for himself. Danny got charged and pled guilty to Fraud, Lying to investors, and accuntants of Celadon. Once Quaulty folded and was shut down by the government, Bobby got scared and decided to turn to Stoops Freightliner in Indy but Stoops wasn’t stupid and backed out and didn’t want anything to do with Celadon or their so called lease program and left. Danny started singing like a bird and brought down Eric and Bobby when it came to the link between Celadon and Quality Leasing. Once the link was found out that’s when the government stepped in started asking questions. That’s when the fraud and the over inflation of the Lease trucks was discovered and the connection to Jonathan was made and charges were brought against Eric and Bobby which resulted in the Court order to shut down the company completely until the Crimminal investigation was over with and more people ar the top are indicted and brought to justice
David
Holy crap, are you an insider, and I’m an used to be celadon driver.
Stephen Webster
Yes you 90 percent correct on what you say. I sent a letter to my transport minister Oct 24 also to truck news and my local m p p along with information about 2 other trucking companies in Ontario Canada
The transport minister claimed that never got the letter when I followed back 6 days later. The other 2 companies were also cheating truck drivers. I have found out that 2 different truck companies in Ontario Canada had to bailed out in early November as they both haul auto freight if they closed it could have been bad for the car companies. Many trucking companies in Ontario Canada could forced to close but current Ontario government is backing their loans and getting them more cheap foreign truck drivers.
John
Big companies have become a joke to work for….truck driver’s are a dime a dozen is their moto…they care about one thing, how much money can you make them and not yourself…we need a strike for a week and not one truck on the road and then we may see a change.
Tom pesavento
I fully support you my trucking brothers!
It’s about time someone grew some balls
And stood up against corporate theft!
Is your government or ours doing anything to protect you?
Probably not This is an outrage!!