Maybrook’s largest employer has shut its doors.

 

The Wall Street Journal was the first to report last week that YRC Freight (formerly known as Yellow Freight) is preparing to file for bankruptcy as it struggles with heavy debts, fleeing customers and a strike threat.  

 

There had already been layoffs at Yellow facilities in the mid-west. The end came on Sunday at YRC’s 44-acres facility in Maybrook when, according to one former employee, workers were walked off the premises and by noon, gates were chained and locked. 

 

“(A) phone call was eventually made by the terminal manager explaining we were let go and not to come back to work,” wrote the former employee in a Facebook Post. 

 

No one at Maybrook’s YRC facility would comment on Friday, and referred all questions to its corporate headquarters in Tennessee.  No one there returned phone calls from the Wallkill Valley Times.  YRC workers in Maybrook also refused to comment.

 

Maybrook Mayor Dennis Leahy noted:  “I haven’t received anything confirming this, but it is a strong rumor at this point.”  Leahy added that, in the past, the company has used the threat of closing the facility during bargaining negotiations with the Teamsters union representing workers.

 

“They had threatened to pull the plug,” he said, “and threatened to move to Pennsylvania.”

 

YRC is one of the country’s largest trucking companies, employing about 30,000 workers including 22,000 union members, mostly drivers and terminal workers. The Maybrook facility employed approximately 900 dock workers, road drivers, staff and management. 

 

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), YRC notified employees that it “is shutting down its regular operations on July 28, 2023, closing and/or laying off employees at all of its locations”.  The WSJ also reports YRC is taking some measures to try to stave off bankruptcy, including talks to sell its logistical business.

 

YRC’S liquidity, according to published reports, is in excess of $100 million but has overall debts of $1.2 billion, including $700 million through a Covid relief package. It has allegedly seen an 80 percent drop in freight volume recently, with shippers worried about an impending strike. Management blamed the union for much of the loss in volume, citing strike threats that may have scared off customers. The union, in turn, accused the company of mismanagement.

 

The company’s roots in Maybrook date back to the early 1980s, when it was hailed as the successor to the freight trains that rumbled through the railroad terminal for nearly a century. The Maybrook Rail Yard was a hub for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, connecting the lower Hudson Valley with New England, via the Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge. That all ended on May 8, 1974, when the bridge was heavily damaged by a fire. The rail service was never restored, and the bridge was eventually restored as a pedestrian walkway.

 

Yellow Freight acquired much of the former rail yard, as 18-wheel tractor trailers replaced the freight trains, utilizing Interstate 84 to reach most of the northeast.

 

While empathizing with YRC workers who may lose their jobs, Mayor Leahy said he’s not worried about a huge hit on the village’s tax base.  YRC fronts Route 208 (Homestead Avenue) and backs up to a Metro-North railroad line to the east which is currently used sporadically to move equipment from Metro-North’s Harlem line to Danbury, CT.

 

The YRC site, Leahy opines, is “a prime piece of land” which will — and already has — interested developers.

 

“It is unfortunate that YRC has succumbed to their financial difficulties,” he said.  “The YRC property is a prime piece of real estate with rail service directly behind.  I am sure this property will stir interest from many investors.  Maybrook is an up and coming community.”

   

Leahy added that the frontage along Route 208 also provides easy access to I-84 and the NYS Thruway.  Orange County’s economic development staff have informed him, he said, of pending interest by developers in the property.

 

“Developers are interested,” he said, “but nothing is confirmed.”