‘It was shocking’: 58-year Kansas City employee retiring as Yellow trucking shuts down
Marion “Mac” McWilliams gathered with fellow trucking employees for his retirement party Monday after 58 years at Yellow Corp., once one of the nation’s largest freight companies with a rich history in Kansas City.
The event, though, was solemn: McWilliams, 82, was among 30,000 Yellow employees to lose their jobs in recent days as the company ceased regular operations and prepared to file for bankruptcy, according to union officials.
“It was shocking,” said McWilliams, who as a parts man was told he was the company’s longest serving employee. “Everybody was shocked. A lot of people are out of work now.”
McWilliams’ retirement gathering came a day after Yellow Corp. served legal notices to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents the company’s 22,000 unionized workers across the U.S., including McWilliams, about bankruptcy.
The company, which for years was headquartered in Johnson County and retained a large operation in Overland Park, has publicly remained silent about its downfall in recent days. It did not respond to requests for comment.
Overland Park Councilman Sam Passer, who serves in the ward where Yellow is located, was saddened by the news. He said he knows several former employees who are “scrambling to find out where their next paycheck will come from.”
“I know City staff and the Chamber of Commerce are providing connections with local employers that are hiring and I’ve been encouraged by the number of posts I’ve seen on social media from local businesses asking former Yellow associates to apply,” he said in an email. “There are many growing companies in the area and I hope all impacted individuals find similar employment very soon.”
The demise of Yellow, formerly known as YRC Worldwide, came as customers flocked to other companies amid financial difficulties and its battle with union leaders over unpaid health and pension benefits.
In a notice to employees, Yellow said it was “shutting down its regular operations” Friday and laying off “employees at all of its locations,” according to The Wall Street Journal. CNN reported that Yellow planned to lay off “all 30,000 of its workers.”
As of last month, the company reported having 990 full-time equivalent employees in Overland Park, according to the Kansas City Business Journal, which maintains a list of private employers.
McWilliams worked out of a terminal near Kauffman and Arrowhead stadiums in Kansas City.
Yellow for years operated out of a 10-story tower in Overland Park. The 99-year-old company moved its headquarters last year to Nashville, Tennessee, but committed to maintaining a sizable workforce in the Kansas City suburb and reportedly signed a 15-year lease on new offices at the former Sprint Campus in Overland Park.
In 1952, prominent Kansas City businessman and civic leader George E. Powell Sr. led a group that bought the Oklahoma company, whose name “never seemed to match its iconic swamp holly orange trucks,” as The Star put it in 2013. The group then moved it here.
Powell’s son, George Powell Jr., became president of the company a few years later, leading it for 35 years. During that time, it became a Fortune 500 company “doing $2.3 billion in business a year,” according to Star archives.
But Yellow’s financial situation has grown dire in recent years.
The New York Times reported the company had “more than $1.5 billion in outstanding debt,” including a $700 million loan that a congressional probe determined it should not have received through a federal pandemic aid program.
McWilliams, who lives in Independence, remembered Yellow as a “fantastic” company with good benefits, though business became slower and slower. At his retirement party at Teamsters Local 41, he shook hands with people who he has worked with for decades.
“The employees — I hope they get another job as good as Yellow Freight,” McWilliams said. “And God be with ‘em.”
