Yellow Corp. remains open to further conversations with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters following the union’s announced rejection of the LTL carrier’s network overhaul, a company spokesperson told Transport Dive this week.
“The lines of communication remain open,” Yellow spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement. “We are committed to completing our One Yellow strategy, which will strengthen our company, protect 22,000 union jobs and ensure that our customers are well cared for and receive the range of services that today’s market demands.”
A Teamsters spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
The company’s statement follows a heated exchange of letters last week between Yellow and the Teamsters over the plan, which seeks to combine Yellow’s operating companies, sell 28 terminals, merge seniority lists and shift the ZIP codes served by the remaining network of 290 terminals.
A key sticking point for the union is the proposed creation of 121 “Utility Employee” positions, in which drivers also work the docks, at 39 terminals.
Following a meeting in Washington, D.C., with the Overland Park, Kansas-based carrier, the union said it rejected the One Yellow proposal, announced a halt to the talks, and demanded changes be negotiated in contract bargaining later this year.
In his letter, Teamsters National Freight Director John Murphy said Yellow’s strategy amounts to an effort to “obtain new financing from its lenders.” Yellow SVP of Trucker Relations Bryan Reifsnyder, in turn, denounced what he called “egregious falsehoods and baseless insults” by the union.
In the meantime, Yellow appears to be moving forward with the network consolidation.
The company plans to shutter a Detroit-area terminal in Taylor, Michigan, on or around May 28, as part of the overhaul, it announced in a WARN notice filed with the state last month.
Most or all of the terminal’s 85 union workers and 19 non-union workers are expected to be offered transfers once the terminal at 22701 Van Born Road closes, according to the notice.
