February 21, 2008: Conveniently at the end of the voting period for the NMFA, YRC announced the demise of 800 Teamster jobs with the closing of USF Holland and Reddaway terminals in the Southeast and Southwest.

Those Teamsters can apply for another YRC job and possibly get hired at 90 percent scale under the new contract. They don’t preserve their earned vacation time or other benefits.

CEO Bill Zollars predicts an upturn in profitability by the end of 2008, but there could be more consolidation in the YRC brands before then.

Press releases from the IBT always promise that they are “monitoring the situation” after it’s already gone down. We need a union strategy for addressing job protections at Holland, Roadway and Yellow and it’s pretty clear that the latest freight contract falls short on delivering that.