A Fieldwork Profile of Yellow is a 12 chapter book that examines Yellow Freight. This insider look studies a flat plane apparatus, internal dock designs, tools, culture, and directives. Yellow Corporation chose to enter the strange. The company rolled out a new business plan and immediately one of its largest terminals out west became a loser within the Yellow system. This is the story of the destruction of Yellow Freight within its last stages.
Introduction
Yellow was already in trouble. Then, with the introduction of Yellow’s new “roll-out” business plan, the sudden changes to the Tracy terminal were beyond alarming. In fact, the company had entered the realm of the absurd and was choosing to stay there. Some workers in Tracy were hip to the LTL game. They knew the dock jungle. It was clear that awkward looking pieces were moving into place. Also, uncertainty was all over the terminal. A mood had arrived like a black shroud. It often pulled my memory back to my working days at Consolidated Freightways (CF). It was an experience that I kept close to the vest while working at Yellow. I had already learned that gates can close. People and things can quickly disperse. Time will pass, memories will fade away. But I made a point to never forget. I watched closely when Consolidated Freightways was spun off then shut down. It was a sour experience, and it felt like losing your home. But my working tenure at CF wasn't all bad, far from it. The Sacramento terminal at CF had a big seniority roster which was filled with adults. Working that dock forced me to grow up. It taught me several things such as respecting the space of others. It also taught me how to identify those workers who were positively contributing. There were some duds to be sure, but CF had a huge selection of proven workers who were bottom-line contributors especially on its outbound end. Every time those workers hit the dock the company was in a position to make money off of their labor. Many workers there were reliable, hardened, and mature. Some of the finest LTL dockworkers in the 1980's and 1990's came from two companies, P.I.E. and Consolidated Freightways. Both carriers, despite the fact that they had shut their doors, had produced large amounts of premium dock workers, guys who thrived in heavy conditions, and some of those workers were long in years. Despite the history of both carriers, middle management and labor must have been doing something right especially with respect to hiring and training. The amount of quality P.I.E. and CF workhorses moving around the industry was undeniable.
CF was something like a 10 year trial run for me. During my 21 years at Yellow/Roadway I frequently found myself looking back to old lessons. All the big fundamentals were already ingrained in me, but I had sharpened a few skills while working at Yellow. Taking notes was a strange habit I had picked up along the way. I kept them going month after month and they could build quickly. I was also making sure to keep paying close attention to my work environment especially during the period when Yellow began its long sputter. Yellow was a melodrama filled with changes of operations, more and more collisions of actors, more and more alterations, and finally a design and subsequent collective work behavior that had become detrimental to achieving responsible outbound cube. As an LTL carrier, if too many outbound trailers are being loaded up on a poor basis (meaning they are ugly creations), then the situation has become dire.
It was all new stuff, and we were like a pack of west coast guinea pigs. It was the start of a new business plan, a grand design, a building contradiction, a self-inflicted gash. And as the lowest common denominators we followed our computers and we ran. Dockworkers were reminded that this new roll-out was the future at Yellow. Soon this business plan would be implemented across the board, and not relegated to a selection of barns. Yellow was in the process of changing. Yellow was trying to keep pace with something, somewhere. It was a new business requirement and Yellow couldn't survive without it. As we drove towards this new future, everybody had to do their part especially during times when we got behind. Travelers, workers from other parts of the Yellow system, were flown in from around the country so we could get caught up and remain current. Never before in my tenure at Yellow had the terminal operated so poorly. The barn had become disorderly, unfamiliar, and mired within a state of endless tinkering. Dysfunction had stretched out over the entire inbound and outbound dock. And this was the order, it wasn't going away, it was here to stay. The roll-out business plan was like turning on a switch. All of the sudden the barn in Tracy had become a bottom feeder within the Yellow system. 813 had a new puzzle building style. And this big ugly style prompted concerns. Yellow Freight had its own share of adults, and Yellow workers were talking. Despite all of the rhetoric, a work closure was a real prospect. It could arrive quickly and unexpectedly, Warn Act or not. The scenery here could soon become a wisp of smoke. When Yellow rolled out its new design, my gut was telling me there was still some time, but not much.
We weren't making beer here. And we weren't pressing ingots. We were picking up freight, and we were delivering freight. Yellow had a number of big terminals where vast numbers of trailers were stripped clean and/or stacked full. We were in the high and tight LTL game of making cube. Trailers were loading out, bound for terminals throughout the state and across the country. It was a strip to stack trailer freight handling requirement that the public couldn't see. Achieving responsible one-and-done cube was the goal. Keeping an eye out for the next terminal had to figure into our thinking especially inside the Yellow satellite-to-consolidation center shipping design. Before the customer ever saw their freight, there were a few more touches. Underneath the roof in Tracy, maintaining cube quality had been the order year after year. We were far from perfect but we kept the terminal running by staying current even during times when our graveyard manpower wasn't full strength. But along came the roll-out, and with it came several new alterations. The actors handling the freight on the outbound end had completely changed. The terminal had been invaded. Work responsibilities had been inverted. The seniority roster was stepped over, and outbound load integrity was stepped on. The real victim was the freight coming here from our satellite terminals. Those trailers were getting emptied out night after night by a big pack of out of house truck drivers. Those workers hit the dock in Tracy and they produced differently. Running cube within outbound load doors was grossly altered. Yellow was quickly and quietly changing. In summary, the outbound loads in Tracy suddenly stunk. The standard at Yellow Terminal 813 had changed. Quality control had virtually disappeared overnight. It was passed off and explained away as . . . this is the future.
We watched it closely and a subset of us weren't buying it. All of this new motion was pure LTL bullshit, the sales pitch was nothing but corporate jabberwocky. Some of us were far past skeptical but we were good soldiers so we continued to do as we were told. Somehow we would fit in around this new problem while simultaneously trying to adhere to strict freight fundamentals. We were products of experience. We knew our stuff and we knew how to effectively stuff trailers, especially while working in tandem with one another. We also knew the inherent value of cube and its meaning to the business at hand. But the roll-out blew it all up. Instead of riding our experience, Yellow chose to dummy up the place. There is no other way to describe it. It's like looking at an organization, a department, or a bureau where valuable experience is a must, but instead, somehow a decision is made to go another direction. Experience gets pushed aside, gets knocked down a peg, or is somehow shown the door. Those moves come with risks. If a choice is made not to go with real proven experience, especially in high impact areas, then what should the expectations really be? And what will be the actual repercussions? What's really on the horizon if what has been constructed is fundamentally unsound? And if the results are poor, and those results continue to be encouraged without remedy, then the real question becomes . . . who's in charge?
Yellow Corporation made its choice. Somewhere people had designed it. Somewhere people had agreed to it. And right out of the gate its shape was utterly grotesque, its mass and momentum nothing more than bad business. It was causing stress. Moreover, this creation was causing stress on our ability to maintain responsible outbound cube. And behind the mask were night time dispatches which brought in work from afar, a trucking pendulum that made an indelible mark during night hours. This hustle added up quickly, and it turned a consolidation center out west completely sideways. New problems erupted all over the terminal including our ability to remain current. It was inexcusable, yet, the company was boasting it like it was some new alternative LTL freight methodology.
What a drive home it was. What a golden future it was. What self immolation. What precision. What a blatant tool. Yellow chose to cycle in massive amounts of inexperienced bodies to do the same dummy up cube building bullshit night after night. And by acting so, the corporation sidestepped its own hands-on experience. It was an LTL contradiction in real time and real space. It was shrugged off as a hunky dory visitation, like it was business as usual. In working reality this massive night time puzzle building endeavor expedited our misfortune. The days at Yellow Freight had to be numbered. By design, the satellite freight, the ichor of the business, continued to be poorly handled and recklessly compromised all the way until the end.
With barely any resistance going in, Yellow Freight slipped into its rancored tomb. When bankruptcy was declared dockworkers and drivers were talking about getting a piece of the pie. Would there be any table scraps leftover from the Yellow fire-sale? All assets would soon get soaked up. There would be hearings, objections, amendments, claims, confirmations, adjournments, and other maneuverings. As time gets stretched out, everything becomes more and more a law firm's wet dream. Despite all the stacks of letters that were coming in the mail, all the black and white information, all the legal wrangling, and all of the month by month updates, I had no expectations. When the gates were locked at Consolidated Freightways on Labor Day in 2002, more than a few employees were left growling. And now, 21 years later, an even more belligerent collapse of an LTL giant had soured another big swath of workers. With all the finger pointing that occurred during Yellow's final weeks, and all of the blame that was hurled about in memos, and all of the absenteeism by the parties involved, and the abject shoddiness during Yellow's last stages, all of it felt like skulduggery. As far as I was concerned, anybody that was involved with the Yellow bankruptcy didn't have an ounce of credibility.
Mulling over bankruptcy crumbs becomes a waste of time. When trust is gone, it's gone. I know bad treatment when I see it, sometimes it leaves behind much more than just another unemployed worker, it can produce a snarling dog. When the doors closed at Yellow, my focus changed. It was time to permanently put away my work boots. It was also time to start thinking about this project. The homework had already been done, now it was time to gather it all up, then turn it in.
There was no avoiding it, this project had to get started while everything was still fresh. I suddenly had some free time available and I might actually get an unhindered run at this project. So, simple by-laws were written and a personal log was started. Within a few weeks I began writing some of the easier material. During edits, much of the venom had to be removed, names weren't necessary, observations and details needed to be deadly accurate, and all of it had to be cold. As the material expanded I could see far beyond a series of essays or a layered treatise, a book was emerging. As for any sort of plan, everything would be kept private from beginning to end. Nobody else could be drawn into this project. Upon completion, a simple website would be built around the book. There was no desire to market it. It would be placed on the internet, available as a free publication.
Somewhere mid construction, book length was becoming a problem, a crossroads of sorts. I considered three different choices. The first choice aimed at gearing the book tight, even if some of the discussion was wrought with a tired repetitiveness. It needed to be free of schematics, of more and more dock lay-outs, and all of the flat space materials of design. The subject was Yellow Freight, chapters had to focus on flat plane Yellow ground where words can carry more power than graphics. Without throwing a lasso on it, the book could morph into an unnecessary operating manual, something that would take the work completely off point. I was getting pulled towards a book with no more than 200 pages. The second choice had a weird potential. Two critical chapters could mushroom and get out of control if not careful. Getting pulled away might double up the book, settling it within the 300-350 page range, which didn't seem to work. In my mind, this frigate would be unbalanced and rickety. And the third choice was a rock pile of a book. Every poor decision within this so-called business plan was something new to consider. Every door change was something new to look at and study. Turning up the volume on door change generated another flat plane. That frequency was beyond suggestive. Every door change created a new card, and every card was packed with meaning especially if the card was erroneous. One big west coast facility was throwing paint against the wall and calling it a business plan. Some workers believed that the alterations were so bad that they had to be calculated. Yellow not only invited a business ogre, but it had created one. However, I had my own potential ogre to consider. With plenty of notes to draw upon, I could see the development of a 500 or 600 page lumbering giant. This direction was barely tugging. Instead, I was heading for a lean snake of a book. It was time to put the brakes on. I was getting tired.
By September 2024 the book was done and my log was closed. A hard copy was printed out and notarized. There have been some revisions and edits to it since then, but not much. A site building company will be paid annually to keep it afloat and to ensure that the whole work remains free, undiluted, and easy to access for years to come. I'll always stand by it.
Time to respectfully clock out,
Daniel A. Pino
Author and former employee of Yellow Freight