U.S. judge in Kansas says Teamsters can strike at trucking company with KC-area ties
A federal judge in Kansas will not stop members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from striking Monday over labor disputes with a trucking company that has a significant operational presence in Overland Park.
As part of a pending lawsuit, Yellow Corporation asked U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson to issue a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against the union, seeking to prevent its members from striking at midnight Sunday.
Robinson ruled Friday from a courtroom in Kansas City, Kansas, that she does not have the authority to issue such an order, saying union members have the right to strike as part of the labor dispute.
The judge expressed sympathy to the thousands of unions members — who allege they and their families have been deprived of their healthcare and retirement benefits — and to the company, which says it will go out of business if employees strike. Robinson called the labor disagreement “not a pretty situation” and wondered if the union won “a battle” but lost the war.
Declaring victory after Robinson’s ruling, Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said Yellow thought it could “scheme the system,” but that the “law was on the side of workers.”
“The company has two more days to fulfill its obligations or we will strike,” O’Brien said in a statement. “Teamsters at Yellow are furious and ready to act. They are done with the mistreatment and mismanagement.”
For years the company, formerly known as YRC, operated out of a 10-story tower at 10990 Roe Ave. in Overland Park. But last year, the company moved its headquarters to downtown Nashville. The company committed to maintaining a sizable local workforce and signed a 15-year lease on new offices at the former Sprint Campus in Overland Park, according to the Kansas City Business Journal.
The potential for a work stoppage stems from Yellow’s failure to make contributions to health and pension funds. Employees covered by Central States’ health and pension funds were notified this week that coverage would be suspended starting Monday.
At the hearing Friday, lawyers for the freight carrier and the union blamed the other for the company’s potential downfall.
Marc Kasowitz, an attorney for the less-than-truckload carrier, said the union has blocked an initiative to “restructure and modernize” the company, costing $137 million in damages. A strike will kill the company, he said.
Ed Gleason, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney for the Teamsters, said Yellow deliberately chose not to pay, which he called reprehensible. By doing so, he said, the company held 11,000 workers and their families “hostage.”
Gleason also argued that the company should have taken the issue to a national grievance committee, not a federal judge. Gleason told Robinson that Yellow was trying to get her to do their “dirty work.”
At one point during the hearing, Robinson had to cut off Gleason’s arguments because a listener who called in remotely kept talking, and used a curse word, despite her orders for phones to be muted.
She called the nameless caller an “idiot” as lawyers in the courtroom laughed about the situation — one of the only things they seemed to agree on.
Robinson said she thought that both union workers and the company will lose if there is a strike.
Last year, federal officials were asked to investigate whether the failing trucking company broke federal law when securing a $700 million loan through a federal pandemic aid program — a sum that made up 95% of the money allocated to the program. At the time, the company called the claims “unsubstantiated” and “demonstrably false.”
The New York Times recently reported that Yellow has “more than $1.5 billion in outstanding debt, including the government loan.”
