March 10, 2014: Last week the top execs of YRCW each got an $800,000 bonus, as a reward for the concessions approved by Teamster employees and the subsequent debt refinancing. A salaried (nonunion) employee of YRCW sent us an open letter to CEO James Welch regarding the top-heavy priorities of YRCW management, which is reprinted below. For obvious reasons, the letter is not signed.
Mr Welch;
Congratulations to you and Mr. Harry Wilson and Mr. Jamie Pierson on completing the refinancing deal. I'm glad it paid off for you.
You've said on several occasions that you deserve bonuses and stock because you make 25% less than Mr. Zollars did. Wouldn't that make some sense since the company is only 50% as big as it used to be? When he left, Mr. Zollars made $900,000 and you make $700,000 - you've clearly closed that gap and then some with all the stock grants and cash bonuses you've received. How can you be paid millions in incentives when we still lost over $30 million dollars last year? Does the Board pay out millions for sleight of hand financial juggling instead of real operating results?
It escaped a lot of people but I just read in the recent SEC 8k filing that you and Mr. Pierson and Ms. Friehl were this month given a huge bonus by the board to recognize your efforts with the restructuring? You and Mr. Pierson got $800,000 each in new stock 33,333 shares – and Ms. Friehl got a cool quarter million. I am confused though – isn’t it part of your job to do what is necessary for the employees and shareholders? Wouldn’t that include working to get a re-financing completed? I get paid my salary to do my job. It must be nice to be you.
Speaking of the Board – they not only awarded their partner Harry Wilson $3m in monthly fees, plus the $5.5 million he negotiated for himself, but I now hear that the Directors gave their friend another $3.5m on top of what he had negotiated – was that just a handsome parting gift? IF that is true, how can it be that you didn’t have to disclose that? Is this some secret payoff? In total Harry has now gotten $12m for 12 months work - $3m in monthly fees, $5.5m completion bonus and a $3.5m secret bonus. How nice to be Harry.
Did the Board even consider using that huge payout to re-instate the 401k match for non union employees? We haven’t had a retirement contribution in almost six years but that is apparently of no concern to the Board. You all must think Harry is more deserving than those who have stayed with this ship and kept it afloat for years even before you cam back to make your millions.
You lecture us and say we should leave if we don’t like it here. I would like it here a lot more if I could just have a little 401k match – you must like it a lot since you are making millions on the backs of your employees – union and non union alike.
- A longtime YRCW employee.