Yellow trucking company that got $700 million pandemic bailout files for bankruptcy

Yellow, a nearly 100-year-old trucking company that received a $700 million bailout during the pandemic, has filed for bankruptcy amid fruitless union negotiations and over $1 billion in debt.

The Chapter 11 protection, filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware on Sunday, comes a week after the beleaguered trucking company — once one of the U.S.' largest transporters of goods — ceased operations. The company's shutdown will eliminate 30,000 jobs, 22,000 of which are held by members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. 

"It is with profound disappointment that Yellow announces that it is closing after nearly 100 years in business," Chief Executive Darren Hawkins said in a 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. Even so, its financial challenges continued to snowball, 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 statement last week. 

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"Deliberately destructive tactics"

Late last month, the company laid off a large swath of workers in anticipation of bankruptcy. 

The company's leaders blamed the closure, in part, on contentious dealings with its union and the rise of non-union competitors. 

"We faced nine months of union intransigence, bullying and deliberately destructive tactics," Hawkins said in the statement.

He added, "IBT leadership was able to halt our business plan, literally driving our company out of business, despite every effort to work with them."

In:
• Bankruptcy
• Pandemic
• Chapter 11 Bankruptcy