Yellow Corporation is a giant transportation holding company responsible for shipping goods to major retailers like Walmart and Home Depot. The company was given a $700 million pandemic relief loan in 2020 but continued to ask for worker givebacks anyway. Eventually, the Teamsters-represented workers demanded Yellow pay back the more than $50 million it owed them in benefits and pensions, and threatened to strike if it couldn’t.


While those numbers are definitely shocking on a macroeconomic level, a recent viral video from a Yellow warehouse worker illustrates their personal impact, too. Posted to TikTok, the clip shows a driver yelling at his supervisor, with all of his co-workers behind him. “Nobody here tell me about how I get emotional,” he explained. “I’ve been here 30 some motherfucking years, and you’re telling me I ain’t got no motherfucking pension.”


@doneright40 This is what happens when you tell a driver that has been working for yellow freight for over 30 years that they are no longer going to have a pension.#yellowfreight #teamstars ♬ original sound - Francky



“50 years old and nearing retirement,” commenter t jone commiserated. “I feel his pain.”


Yellow is $1.2 billion in debt, and seems set to fail as its business keeps waning — pandemic or no pandemic. “This deadbeat company has only itself to blame for being in this embarrassing position,” new Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien said in a statement.


Fortunately, since the viral video, Yellow has agreed to pay its employees the $50 million it owes them within the next 30 days. So this story has a happy ending — for now. Because it’s not as though Yellow’s word, like the company itself, is worth much these days.