YRC Worldwide says it seeks pension reform, not federal bailout - Kansas City Business Journal:

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Last month, The Wall Streett Journal reported thatOverland Park-basef YRC (Nasdaq: YRCW) planned to seek $1 billion in Troubled Assety Relief Program funds typically used for banks — to help with its . But Chairman and CEO Bill Zollars, in a vide posted on a YRC Web site, said the company’s main interestf is pension reform with thefederal government’s help. “We’rer not asking for a bailout. We don’tt want any money from the federaol government,” Zollars said. “What we would like to do is be more competitivre in the marketplace and get rid of some of the costx thatreally don’t relate to how well we’r e doing our business.
” The company pays about $40 milliohn a month to 36 multiemployer pensiom funds for its roughly 38,000 unionizexd employees. Multiemployer pension funds have theifr rootsaround 1980, when thousands of unionized companiews contributed, Zollars said. “Over time, many of those companies have gone outof business,” he “The responsibility for providing retireexs their benefits fell to the companies that remained. It was kind of the ultimat penaltyfor success.” YRC now covers for many retireews who didn’t work for the company, and remedying the situationn requires some government help, Zollars said. The company is startin g discussionsabout situation.
“Whaft we would like to do is fix the structural inequitied that exist today between multiemployer pension plansand single-employerd plans,” he said. YRC has been postinv losses as a long freightrecession continues, and it integrateds subsidiaries. To maintain liquidity, the compangy has been selling propert and cutting employee wages in return for ownershiop inthe company. Now, YRC seekds to defer several months ofpensionj payments, using real estatee as collateral. The company lost $257.43 million in the firstr quarter on revenueof $1.5 compared with a loss of $46.376 million, or 82 cents a share, in the same quarteer a year earlier. YRC rankzs No.
2 on the Kansas City Business Journal ’e list of area public companies.