Yellow Corp shut down and filed Chapter 11 — 30,000 jobs gone despite a $700M federal loan

Yellow Corporation shut down operations on July 30, 2023 and filed Chapter 11 in Delaware days later, taking roughly 30,000 jobs — including 22,000 Teamsters positions — into liquidation. Its first-day declaration, signed by Chief Restructuring Officer Matthew A. Doheny, pinned the failure on the Teamsters' campaign against Yellow's 'One Yellow' network integration: the union 'knew full well that obstructing One Yellow would financially destroy Yellow.' By filing day, Doheny wrote, 'Yellow's customers are gone' and the company could not finance even the union's rescue proposal.

The company was enormous: in 2022 it moved 14.2 million shipments for about 250,000 customers — including the U.S. government — generating over $5.2 billion in revenue across 300 terminals in all fifty states. It was also structurally fragile, carrying a heavy debt load from a series of mergers. In 2020 the Treasury Department had lent Yellow $700 million under the CARES Act on national-security grounds; Doheny's declaration says the loan 'saved Yellow.' A congressional probe later concluded Treasury and Defense 'made missteps' and the loan exposed taxpayers to 'a significant risk of loss.'

The end came fast once labor peace collapsed. On July 18, 2023 — right after Yellow deferred about $50 million in required pension and health contributions to Central States — the Teamsters issued a strike notice. Customers fled before any picket line formed. Teamsters President Sean O'Brien called the collapse predictable: 'Yellow has historically proven that it could not manage itself despite billions of dollars in worker concessions and hundreds of millions in bailout funding.' Yellow's response: the union had 'refused to negotiate for nine months.' Both things were true enough to kill it.

About 30,000 jobs lost; $5.2B of annual freight revenue gone; taxpayers' $700M pandemic loan exposed to 'significant risk of loss'.

A series of debt-financed LTL mergers left Yellow carrying interest costs that consumed cash in every soft freight year, leaving no cushion for a labor dispute.

The 2020 CARES Act loan was sized to keep Yellow alive, not to fix its network — it financed a second restructuring bet rather than solvency.

The 'One Yellow' integration, management's own cure, was launched mid-labor-war; the declaration concedes Phase 2 stalled on union seniority disputes covering about 70% of the network.

Less-than-truckload freight is reroutable in days: the strike notice alone emptied the customer book before a single picket appeared.

Management had already started winding down before filing — 3,500 severance terminations on July 28 and WARN notices on July 31 — signaling there was no going-concern rescue left to fight for.

A bailout keeps a broken balance sheet breathing; it cannot buy labor peace or shipper loyalty. When freight can be rerouted in days, a national-security loan means a slower, bigger liquidation.

The case went straight to liquidation rather than reorganization: trucks and terminals went to auction through 2024, and the wind-down is still running years later. Pension obligations became the longest fight — a bankruptcy judge rejected the first round of settlements in April 2026, and in September 2026 the liquidating trustee announced replacement deals totaling nearly $526 million, still awaiting court approval. The Treasury loan, due 2024, was a running target in the congressional probe of how a trucking firm qualified for national-security lending. Roughly 30,000 people lost their jobs.