Nashville-based Yellow, a freight and logistics company, officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Sunday. The company has terminals in Oak Creek and Milwaukee, although earlier this year it had announced plans to close the Milwaukee facility.
News of the bankruptcy filing comes just three years after Yellow, formerly known as YRC Worldwide Inc., received $700 million in pandemic-era loans from the federal government. The company has said it intends to fully pay back those loans, according to Reuters.
In its bankruptcy filing, Yellow listed between $1 billion and $10 billion in assets and between $1 billion and $10 billion in estimated liabilities with more than 100,000 creditors.
“It is with profound disappointment that Yellow announces that it is closing after nearly 100 years in business,” said Darren Hawkins, Yellow’s chief executive officer. “Today, it is not common for someone to work at one company for 20, 30, or even 40 years, yet many at Yellow did. For generations, Yellow provided hundreds of thousands of Americans with solid, good-paying jobs and fulfilling careers.”
In a press release, Yellow stated months of “union intransigence, bullying and deliberately destructive tactics” from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters contributed to the company’s need to wind down operations and filed for bankruptcy. However, the Teamsters countered in saying Yellow has historically mismanaged money.
“(The bankruptcy) news is unfortunate but not surprising,” said Teamsters general president Sean O’Brien in a statement. “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. This is a sad day for workers and the American freight industry.”
