Two area satellite facilities for international trucking company YRC Worldwide Inc. might be shut down in 2011, and employee transfers could come to work in Strafford if union officials agree to YRC’s change of operations plan.
YRC CEO Bill Zollars and Chief Financial Officer Sheila Taylor told analysts at a Nov. 17 conference in New York that the company planned to close around 40 terminals in the U.S., according to www.teamstersonline.com.
Terminals in West Plains and Harrison, Ark., are among the closures under the plan, according to Teamsters Local 245 business agent Harvey Ritter.
“There are going to be no jobs eliminated. All they are doing is moving small terminals into bigger distribution centers, which we are here,” said Teamsters Local 245 business agent Harvey Ritter, representing YRC employees.
Ritter estimated that six employees could transfer to YRC’s Strafford distribution center on Highway OO, should company plans receive union approval.
He said the issue had not been docketed for the union’s change of operations committee, and the hearing on the changes would likely happen after the first of the year.
“Company representative have to come before myself and the local union and justify their numbers and everything else, but people will have transfer opportunities at the locations,” he added.
Calls to the Strafford distribution center and the West Plains and Harrison terminals were not returned by press time.
Springfield Business Journal reported in March that YRC and Teamsters documents indicated the company planned to eliminate 49 positions from the Strafford facility and reclassify it as a satellite terminal from a distribution center.
Ron Long, a switcher at the facility who had said at the time his job might be part of the cuts, confirmed that he still worked at the facility, and said that only around 25 positions were eliminated. He said union officials worked hard to keep the facility operating as a distribution center. “They really went to bat for us,” Long said.
Tracy Memoli, vice president at YRC’s New York public relations firm Linden Alschuler & Kaplan Public Relations, released a statement via e-mail that said the consolidation of facilities would begin in mid-December and continue through mid-January.
“Employees affected will have the opportunity to follow the work to the new locations. This is not a work reduction effort but an effort to create greater density moving to and from our delivery terminals,” the statement said.
Ritter said he expected around six positoins to be added to the Strafford distribution center, but he wouldn’t know exact numbers until he met wtih YRC officials.
Overland Park, Kan.-based YRC Worldwide was formed in a 2009 merger between Yellow Transportation Inc. and Roadway Express Inc. The company employs 55,000 and operates 334 facilities, according to
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