Yellow has announced that its USF Dugan subsidiary will close. This is after our union spent two years, millions of dollars, and countless hours of Teamster labor to organize Dugan. After USF attacked our union a year ago by shutting down its unionized Red Star division during an ill-fated strike, some 1500 good Red Star Teamsters lost their jobs, with little to no response from the International Union.

The closing of Dugan and the consolidation of USF’s remaining subsidiaries under the label YRC Regional Transportation raise questions for our union leadership.

Are we going to use this opportunity to make Yellow-Roadway a wall-to-wall Teamster company, or will Hoffa once again issue a press release parroting the company and saying he will “monitor the situation.”

USF Holland, Yellow’s biggest and most profitable regional, will grow by picking up Dugan business in the southeast and midwest, where the two operations overlap. Since Holland is under the national freight contract, this is the positive part of the story.

But that’s not the whole story. YRC Regional, now headed by former Roadway CEO Jim Staley, is rebranding 21 terminals with the Bestway or Reddaway label, and only three (all in Missouri) as Holland. Some Reddaway and Bestway terminals are union, with white paper contracts, and most are non-union. You can bet your lunch money that Yellow is not planning to have those 21 terminals go Teamster, unless we make it clear they will not operate profitably unless it happens.

We can go back to square one and start organizing them, one at a time, or we can supplement that effort with a strategic campaign to force Yellow to let its employees choose to unionize without any intimidation, with a neutrality agreement and with card check.

Yellow Roadway — like UPS-Overnite — is on the move. Consolidating, expanding, and making a major investment in China. Will the Teamster leadership get on the move to make this a fully unionized corporation? Now is the time.