Yellow is shutting down and headed for bankruptcy, the Teamsters Union says. Here's what to know

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Yellow is shutting down and headed for bankruptcy, the Teamsters Union says. Here’s what to know

BY WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS
Updated 9:13 AM EDT, July 31, 2023

Yellow Corp., a beleaguered trucking company that was once one of the U.S.' largest transporters of goods, has ceased operations and is planning to file for bankruptcy, the Teamsters Union said in a statement on Monday.

The company had been in operation for nearly 100 years, but its financial challenges snowballed, leading it to accumulate more than $1 billion in debt.

"Yellow has historically proven that it could not manage itself despite billions of dollars in worker concessions and hundreds of millions in bailout funding from the federal government," said Teamsters General President Sean M. O'Brien in the statement. "This is a sad day for workers and the American freight industry."

The company received a $700 million government loan during the pandemic, as part of the COVID-19 relief program in 2020.

Here's what you need to know about Yellow shutdown:

-snip-

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yellow-corp-shutting-down-bankruptcy-heres-what-happened/

[Wonder Why]

1. Executive Salaries

https://www1.salary.com/YRC-WORLDWIDE-INC-Executive-Salaries.html

Former Chief Operating Officer $1,459,484

Chief Executive Officer $2,118,469

Chief Financial Officer $3,538,760

President and Chief Operating Officer $5,032,061

Board members - typically $250,000 (my approximation based on site numbers shown)

From the CBS story shown in OP's post:
"The shutdown comes after Yellow failed to reorganize and refinance the roughly $1.5 billion dollars it had, as of March, in outstanding debt, a large portion of which came from the $700 million pandemic-era government loan. At the time of the loan, the company was facing charges of defrauding the government by overbilling on shipments for the U.S. military. It ultimately settled the lawsuit and agreed to pay the Defense Department nearly $7 million."

Criminals taking more money.

[Warpy]

2. Yellow is/was an enormous operation

and I doubt those ridiculously high executive salaries would have bought a day's diesel fuel for their trucks.

Two things kill business: overextension and debt. Unions don't kill them.