Business & Tech
Yellow Corp. kaput
Trucking company that holds freight for multiple customers goes bankrupt after 99 years in business.
By Ted Cohen/Patch.com
Yellow shuttered in New England, across U.S.
The Yellow Freight trucking terminals in New England are ghost towns now that the national company is on the precipice of bankruptcy.
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The area terminals had all-but-skeleton crews on Friday finishing up odds and ends as the 99-year-old company nationally wound down business in the face of crippling financial conditions.
Teamster drivers were told to come in and clean out their lockers at the end of last week, according to senior veteran driver Steve Lajeunesse of Colchester, Vermont
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"They kept a couple drivers on call in case they needed us to finish up handling the last pieces of freight," Lajeunesse said.
For employees such as Lajeunesse, the ending of a career with one company - in his case spanning nearly 25 years - was bittersweet.
As drivers collected their personal effects they began almost immediately looking for work, in some cases at Teamster-represented companies, Lajeunesse said.
Company officials locked the yard gates Friday night since no more inbound nightly truckloads were expected to be arriving from out of state.
Internal corporate documents disclosed the procedures for closing the companies trucking terminals nationwide as well as “talking points” to be used when informing union employees not to show up for their shifts, according to FreightWaves.com.
The documents indicated the company plans to issue a public statement updating “the state of the company and the operation,” Freightwaves reported.
On Friday, Yellow laid off most of its nonunion employees in areas such as customer service, information technology and sales.
The company just days ago stopped making customer pickups and has been delivering the remaining freight in its network ahead of what appeared to be a permanent closure.
After months of negotiations with its Teamsters workforce, the carrier had been unable to reach terms over proposed operational changes it has said were required for its survival.
In a breach of contract lawsuit filed against Teamsters officials last month regarding the matter, the company said it could soon be out of cash.
Teamster officials blame the company for irresponsible financing they said led to its demise.
Industry analysts are expecting Yellow to announce it will file for bankruptcy.
