Yellow Freight begins layoffs in Kansas City before bankruptcy
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — The end of the road has arrived for hundreds of Kansas City-area trucking employees.
Reports indicate Yellow Freight, one of the nation’s largest trucking firms, intends to file for bankruptcy protection, meaning at least 22,000 employees nationally will lose their jobs.
Yellow had been based for years in Overland Park, but the company moved its headquarters to Nashville last year. It employed nearly 1,000 employees in the Kansas City metro, including at offices in Overland Park where workers told FOX4 they’d just been laid off.
Yellow also employed 3,000-4,000 non-union workers, too. They’re also said to be out of a job. Yellow employees were officially notified during a Friday morning conference call, workers told FOX4.
The company operates two trucking terminals in the Kansas City metro — one off U.S. 40 Highway north of the Truman Sports Complex and another in Kansas City, Kansas, on State Avenue.
One trucker told FOX4 that office staffers from the 40 Highway location were being sent home, and drivers would be soon as well.
“The writing’s been on the wall,” said Taylor Ray, a former employee in the Overland Park office.
Ray said he hired on with the company fresh out of college two years ago. He became concerned with contract negotiations between the company and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters broke down, and some of Yellow’s 300,000 freight customers chose another road for their needs. Those decisions are said to have been affected by the ongoing labor dispute.
“It’s really poor timing, but we’re going to see where this thing takes us. I’m pretty confident I’ll be able to find something quickly with what I was doing here,” Ray said.
Reports weigh that Yellow failed to pay for employee healthcare benefits in July, and it wasn’t planning to do so in August.
Jessica Piscia, who also worked at the Overland Park offices, said she wishes the labor union and management had come to an agreement before it came to this.
“Everybody lost today. The union didn’t help the situation. Those drivers are looking for jobs. I’m looking for a job, and I’m not even a union member,” Piscia said.
FOX4 sent emails and left voicemails with Yellow’s corporate communications team on Friday, but no one replied.
Source: WDAF FOX4 Kansas City
