YRC Worldwide Inc., the biggest U.S. trucker, said it's prepared to start contract talks early with the Teamsters union, following an approach taken by United Parcel Service Inc.
``We'd be interested in doing that,'' YRC CEO William Zollars, 58, said in an interview Friday, without giving a time frame for a possible reopening. The company's Teamsters contract, covering 50,000 employees, expires in 2008.
Early talks would reassure customers, Zollars said. UPS, the biggest package shipping company, lost business in 2002 as Teamsters talks approached a strike deadline. Last month, UPS decided to move up the start of talks for its current Teamsters contract, covering about 210,000 drivers and dock workers, which expires in two years.
YRC, once known as Yellow Corp. and now as parent company to Akron-based Roadway Express, and other truckers suffered cargo diversions in 1998 and during a 28-day Teamsters strike in 1994. Since the current contract covering multiple employers was signed in 2003, YRC bought two Teamsters trucking companies covered by the pact, Roadway Corp. and USF Corp., leaving Arkansas Best Corp. as the only other rival under it.
Zollars wouldn't give a time frame for reopening talks. YRC, of Overland Park, Kan., will talk to the union about the possibility, he said. There is no scheduled date for talks.
YRC this week reported a second-quarter profit of $92.3 million, up 21 percent from a year earlier.
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