December 12, 2008: There’s one thing everyone agrees on—CEO Bill Zollars and other top brass at YRCW have badly mismanaged the company. If concessions are needed to save the company, it stands to reason that the managers responsible for the problems should take the biggest hit.

That is not what’s happening.

Zollars issued a memo to management personnel and other nonunion YRC employees outlining what their salary cuts will be and it does not add up to equality of sacrifice.

While Teamsters are being asked to take a 10 percent pay cut for more than four years, YRC management employees will only take a 10 percent cut for six months. In July 2009, their salary cut will be reduced to 5% for the second half of 2009. Zollars does not indicate what the salary cut, if any, will be beyond 2009.

The justification for the lesser cuts is that management and sales personnel already took cuts in retiree health care and in pension benefits, so Zollars claims that justifies the 10 percent cut lasting only six months. But tens of thousands of Teamsters have taken pension and retiree healthcare cuts too.

Zollars has also yet to say what his own salary cut will be. That’s not a good sign. Auto executives who wanted a bailout understood it was good PR to announce they were cutting their annual salaries to $1. If Zollars is planning a similar cut, don’t you think he would have mentioned it by now?

Click here to see Zollars’ memo on management salary cuts.

What cuts do you think senior management should take at YRCW? Click here to send your comments to the TDU Freight Committee.