YRC wage cut will remain through 2009

A 10-percent wage cut for YRC Worldwide Inc.’s nonunion workforce will remain in effect through the remainder of the year.

The Overland Park-based trucking giant initially planned to reduce the salary cut to 5 percent in July. But economic conditions forced the company to keep the 10 percent reduction in place, said YRC chairman and chief executive Bill Zollars.
YRC Worldwide has about 1,200 area nonunion workers.

Also, the company reportedly will seek $1 billion in federal aid to help with the company’s obligations to the pension funds for union employees.

The company is starting to realize benefits from the merger of its two national carriers in March, Zollars said this week, but the economy has yet to respond. That has forced YRC Worldwide to maintain the current level of pay cuts as well as keep the company’s suspension of the 401(k) plan match.

“We just can’t predict what’s going to happen with the economy,” he said.
YRC’s drivers and dockworkers voted to accept a 10 percent wage cut for all of 2009. That agreement also eliminates cost-of-living increases and reduces future annual pay raises by 10 percent through the life of the contract, which expires in 2013.

While the wage structure with the union employees remains resolved, the pension is another matter. The Teamsters multi-employer pension plans have become underfunded as fewer carriers participate in the plans. United Parcel Service made a one-time payout to exit the plans last year, leaving YRC Worldwide as the biggest contributor. Full Story.......