'We Had Already Worked Our Last Days': Yellow Corp. Collapse Costing Jobs In Oklahoma City

A major trucking company is going under, causing its Oklahoma City employees to be laid off and putting tens of thousands of jobs across the country at risk.

Yellow Corp., which has 317 terminals and about 30,000 employees in the U.S., ceased operations and was filing for bankruptcy, the Teamsters Union announced on Monday. The company has a terminal on Southwest 15th Street in Oklahoma City.

Kristy Britton said she and her husband, Shannon, both worked at the Oklahoma City facility. But they learned over the weekend that they were laid off. Britton said Yellow never gave official notice of the layoffs. Instead, she found out through social media and contacted her supervisor.

"There's a Facebook page for Yellow Freight Teamsters and I had gotten on Facebook and saw all the posts from just around different states and around different terminals. And they were saying that their doors were locked when they showed up for work," said Britton. "So I texted a supervisor to find out whether we were going to work Monday or not because I had to be there at 5 (in the morning). And he told me that we had already worked our last days."

In addition to not giving official notice of the layoffs, Britton said Yellow left her and her husband with no severance pay. 

"We're upset. We're angry," said Britton. "It's a sad deal and we're confused."

While Britton had been working for Yellow since March as an appointment clerk, she said her husband had been working as a truck driver for the company for many years. In January, he received an award for having 1 million safe miles.

"This is all he has ever known and he's never had to look for jobs," Britton said.

News 9 called Yellow's Oklahoma City terminal and the company's media relations liaison for comment on the layoffs, but no one answered or returned our message.

Meanwhile, the Teamsters Union released a statement from General President Sean O'Brien.

“(Monday’s) news is unfortunate but not surprising," said O’Brien. "Yellow has historically proven that it could not manage itself despite billions of dollars in worker concessions and hundreds of millions in bailout funding from the federal government. This is a sad day for workers and the American freight industry."

The union was referring to the $700-million loan that Yellow received from the federal government in 2020.

The Teamsters Union, which represents about 22,000 of Yellow's 30,000 employees, had planned to strike because the company did not contribute to its pension and health insurance plans, CNN reported. But the union canceled the strike to allow the company an extra month to make the payments.

As for Britton and her husband, she said they are looking for work.