Yellow, the third-largest less-than-truckload company that’s in the midst of financial chaos, said in a memo to laid-off, nonunion employees viewed by FreightWaves that the company is “shutting down regular operations” on Friday.
All locations will be closed and/or lay off some number of employees. As the memo stated:
“We regret to inform you that your employment with Yellow Corporation, or one of its subsidiaries, (collectively referred to as the ‘Company’) will permanently terminate on July 28, 2023, or within 14 days after (the ‘Separation Date’). The Company is shutting down its regular operations on July 28, 2023, closing and/or laying off employees at all of its locations, including yours (the ‘Shut Down’).”
The company on Friday morning laid off an unknown number of office employees, most of which were nonunion. It said in a memo to the laid-off employees that it was unable to alert them previously of this closing of business “because the Shut Down was not reasonably foreseeable.”
John Murphy, who is the Teamsters National Freight director, advised union employees to collect their belongings from all offices and terminals, in the case that Yellow shutters in the coming days and facilities are not accessible.
Murphy noted Teamsters is continuing to look for financing solutions for Yellow. However, he wrote, “the likelihood that Yellow will survive is increasingly bleak. Yellow continues to clear its system, and it appears to be laying off personnel and closing entire terminals across the country. All Yellow employees should, in our opinion, prepare for the worst, as Yellow appears to be headed to a complete shutdown within the next few days.”
Employees were notified of the layoffs on Friday morning in voice-only calls. At least three executives laid off large portions of their teams:
- Yellow Chief Information Officer Annlea Rumfola informed her team of some 300 technology employees that Friday was their last day, according to an employee on the call.
- Steve Selvig, vice president of customer care at Yellow, informed an unknown number of customer service employees that Friday was their last day, according to an employee on the call and a local news publication.
- Yellow Chief Commercial Officer Jason Bergman invited the following teams to a call that said Friday was their last day: local sales divisions 1, 2 and 4; all inside sales; multiple regions of corporate sales; exhibit operations managers; and Yellow third-party logistics sales. This came from two employees on the call. FreightWaves reviewed screenshots of emails sent before and a recording of the call. A Yellow representative told FreightWaves after publication that not all teams invited were laid off.
These layoffs come ahead of a potential Yellow bankruptcy filing. A senior vice president said Yellow is expected to file for bankruptcy on Monday, according to three employees who attended an internal call in which the executive shared this news.
Terminated employees were instructed to receive information regarding their severance pay, health care, W-2s, and other key documents through an Oracle platform, as their access to company systems will be terminated on Friday. According to a memo distributed to terminated employees viewed by FreightWaves, severance for nonunion workers depends on title and length of tenure at the company:
It’s unclear why the Yellow third-party logistics sales team was invited to the layoff call, as the company is actively seeking to sell its logistics arm. A Yellow representative said in an emailed statement after the story was published that the Yellow Logistics organization has remained intact, including the Yellow Logistics salesforce.
A Yellow representative said in an emailed statement to FreightWaves after the story was published that customers can contact Yellow’s support line at 800-610-6500 or customer.care@myyellow.com.
“Yellow has retained a robust customer service team that is fully capable of handling inquiries and assisting with all support that customers might need,” the representative said.
Yellow, a 99-year-old company headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, employs some 30,000 workers. About 22,000 of them are represented by the Teamsters union. Teamsters and Yellow have been locked in a monthslong strife over changing key work rules at the trucking fleet. Now, sources say Yellow may file for bankruptcy imminently.
In a call to Yellow sales teams, Bergman shared a statement on the company’s potential shuttering — and pinned the blame on the Teamsters’ refusal to negotiate with the company:
“Since last January, we have made every attempt to meet with the IBT. The IBT’S refusal to negotiate for nine months, its freezing of our essential business plan, One Yellow and, finally, its strike authorizations caused customers to find alternative freight carriers and it’s had a catastrophic effect on our business. When IBT leaders were finally ready to meet this week, it was too late. By then, the IBT strike threat had already a devastating impact on our business, [unclear] investors and causing customers to quickly depart. Given this impact to our business, we are forced to announce additional headcount reductions of non-union employees.”
In a memo published to members Thursday night, Teamsters blamed Yellow’s management for the company’s financial issues:
“In the meantime, TNFINC and the IBT continue to try to work with the Government to determine whether there is a way to protect the Teamster families at Yellow. TNFINC and the IBT remain willing to work with Yellow and its lenders or potential lenders. Hope, however, is fading. Unfortunately, despite more than a decade of concessions totaling billions of dollars given to the Company by Teamster members as well as a massive government bailout loan in 2020, Yellow may finally be succumbing to its enormous debt burden.”
This story is developing. Check back here for updates.
Are you a Yellow employee with a story to share? Email rpremack@freightwaves.com.
Spouse of Yellow Employee
Interesting that employees are not currently able to log in or access their severance agreement, but the document you have screen shot in the article (and which I’ve read in full because we have a copy) says they had to do it by noon and it’s currently 13:26.
Donna S
Why of course Yellow wants to blame the Teamsters instead of their OWN lack of business knowledge. The Teamsters, Yellow creditors, stock holders, investors all have given up so much over the last several years to keep this company going. Poor management at the top should have been fired years ago is what was needed to keep this business alive. YELLOW corp was not well liked to begin with because of their lack of business sense BEFORE they started buying out the other businesses. YELLOW just wants to get rid of the Teamsters. You watch, someone with YELLOW will buy the logistics company and they will try to come back non union.
Suze
Pretty sure it’s not a layoff if we are being locked out of our computers and asked to send them back. Pretty upsetting getting news like that without warning. Scrambling to find a new job.
Chi Town
Ive worked at the yrc, 309 terminal for over 24 years. 13 years of oncessions totaling over 16 billion but yet they still have the original 13 year 1.5 bollion dollar loan. Last year they spent 32 million dollars on a restickering all their tractors & trailers not a computer upgrade but on stickers.
YRC, why in 2022 there’s no mention on the revenue from 31 terminals being sold?
750 million from the government.
When the government handed out covid money for essential workers YRC DID NOT give their employees like myself $1.
Come on there needs to be a federal investigation into Corruption of this company dating back decades!
Thomas suter
Mismanaged company holland driver when yellow tried to merge we lost a lot of customers do to the yellow name sad but happens they need to be investigated by govt and Apollo as well recession coming on freight all big dogs seen it from all companies they just drove price up by cutting 22,000 teamster drivers out of it like cf and Preston and overnight they all connected my opinion
Abby
Rachel,
Just tried to email you, but it came back undeliverable. Yellow Logistics is not going out of business, we are just being sold. Our jobs are secure and we are still actively booking and moving freight for our customers. The conversation we had with Jason Bergman was purely a conversation about how we are being sold to an investor.
Bruce A. Frakes
The Current contract expires in March of 24 allows yellow to implement the changes they keep blaming the Teamsters for. I’m a 3rd generation 28year Yellow Freight road driver in KC, I’ve been a Union rep..this scenario is fallout from incompetent management…
Period FULL STOP
Dark Times
The Teamsters held strong and did exactly what Sean O’Brien promised to do, but yellow. O’Brien has hated yellow for 10 years, and never had any intention of finding a way to keep the company in business. Stonewalling negotiations refusing to meet, refusing to even let the members vote on any agreement. He clearly had no intention of saving the 22,000 jobs, and he was solely focused on getting UPS to sign, and yellow is the sacrificial lamb they can point to of any other company wants to stand against him.
Of course Yellow is poorly run and has made horrible decisions, of course the teamsters have made concessions. This was something they could have worked through if not for SOB demanding things that he knew yellow couldn’t provide. He insisted this was all a tactic for yellow, all the whole yellow is screaming this is serious and they will go out of business. Yellow offered raises, on the condition they got the financing that lenders were very publicly offering only if a deal was struck with the IBT, but SOB wanted money now, with no contingencies on the deal being struck, knowing that yellow had no way to pay it. This could have been avoided, this could have been positive for yellow and the teamsters but SOB and Hawkins couldn’t come to the table like adults.
Now 30,000 families are going to have to figure this out.
Congratulations to SOB on his victory, he’s the only one who got what they wanted, and the teamsters will still worship him as their messiah.
Good luck to everyone, lot of great memories with great people over the past 2 decades.