Trucking Giant Yellow Ceases Operations

By Todd Maiden of FreightWaves

Less-than-truckload carrier Yellow Corp. ceased all operations at 12 p.m. Sunday, according to a notice on the gates at its terminals.

Separate internal documents showed the procedures for closing the facilities as well as “talking points” to be used when informing union employees not to show up for their shifts. The documents indicated the company plans to issue a public statement Monday updating “the state of the company and the operation.”

On Friday, Yellow laid off most of its nonunion employees in areas like customer service, information technology and sales. The company stopped making pickups earlier in the week and has been delivering the remaining freight in its network ahead of what appears to be a permanent closure.  

After months of negotiations with its Teamsters workforce, the carrier has been unable to reach terms over proposed operational changes it has said were required for its survival. In a breach of contract lawsuit filed last month regarding the matter, the company said it could be out of cash as soon as mid-July.

Most are expecting Yellow to announce it will file for bankruptcy Monday.