Trucking employee puts human face to labor dispute after pension fund payments halted

Trucking giant Yellow Corporation is facing a potential Teamsters union strike after the debt-laden company missed $50 million in benefits and pension fund payments, though Yellow faults the Teamsters.

According to Transport Dive, Yellow argues that the union’s “refusal to allow its network overhaul has caused its low liquidity by freezing its business plan for nine months,” further stating that the Teamsters “had failed its 22,000 members at Yellow, and another 8,000 non-union workers may soon become ‘collateral damage’ of its refusal to allow the One Yellow plan to proceed.”

A video making the rounds online puts a human face on the labor strife, with the caption reading: “This is what happens when you tell a driver that has been working for yellow freight for over 30 years that they are no longer going to have a pension.”

@doneright40 This is what happens when you tell a driver that has been working for yellow freight for over 30 years that they are no longer going to have a pension.#yellowfreight #teamstars ♬ original sound – Francky

As it turns out, people’s livelihoods and their means to pay bills and put food on the table are at stake here, and the stress these employees are dealing with can be seen in the clip below:

@doneright40Pay up yellow we need our jobs to feed our family. Yellow just received over $700 million dollars, what happened to that money?♬ original sound – Francky

The trucking company tendered “informal offers” to the union last week that included just over $2 per hour in raises in the first year, the Teamsters said, but that offer was rejected for “attempting to tether wage increases to future commitments from the union in an unnegotiated new deal,” Transport Dive reported.

Yellow was reportedly close to being delinquent on pension contributions in 2020 and used some of its $700 million Treasury loan received as part of an early COVID-19 relief program — the company is now under pressure to repay the loan, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Tom Tillison

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles