Arrow Trucking, headquartered in Tulsa Okalahoma, seems to have simply closed their doors and walked away from their Houston operation.
Drivers based here are stranded nation wide as their fuel cards are turned off, and tractors are being repossessed .
What ties this into a train related story is that Arrow provided LTL hauling and single load delivery, such as oil field equipment and pipe, and here in Houston they were a fairly large presence on the city docks and at two of our intermodal terminals, they do a lot of single container delivery.
Oh, no the railroads are not stranded, trust me there are a lot of other companies that will pick up the contracts…but Arrow is a pretty big company, something like 1400 tractors nation wide
Pretty big LTL and specialized trucking firm to just close up shop and walk away.
That situation is unfortunate, doubly so given the time of the year. I hope the OTR folks can find some way of getting home…they’re the ones stuck in the middle. Maybe a “happy Christmas ending” would be if Diamler gave the drivers cards to get home and then took posession of the trucks. I won’t hold my breath though.
I think there is a face book page that has a lot of folks offering to help the stranded drives with food, lodging and a place to sleep, some even offer rides back home or a ride headed in that direction.
The ability of the average American to open their hearts and homes is something we should be proud of…
There are a lot of motor carriers (aka truckers) who are holding on by a shoe string these days. With freight tonnage way down that has hurt a lot. However it has been compounded by significant depression of rates. The rate depression has been exacerbated by carriers that, in a more normal down-turn would have gone under and would be gone from the market place. Unfortunately, the banks don’t want more “toxic assets” (repo’d used trucks and trailers) on their books, so they’re greatly re-working their credit terms under the guise that they are worth slightly more alive, with a small, sporadic payment stream than they are dead.
I guess that the bank tightened up the noose for Arrow.
See link below regarding Jevic, a former east coast LTL carrier of similar size who went under earlier in 2009.
Since I live in the local Tulsa TV viewing area, there was some great news last night that came to the laid off workers. Other trucking companies are hiring in Tulsa and at wages higher than what Arrow had been paying. The latest numbers I heard was that nearly 90 percent of those workers in Tulsa will have a new job if they apply at those companies that need employees.
I guess that could be one of the most generous Christmas presents anyone could have in these tough times.
I was told that Daimler was giving the drivers bus tickets home. What’s even sadder is that all of those workers paychecks bounced in the last month. Their gas cards were deactivated and they couldn’t refuel their trucks.
I just hope that the employees will get the money they deserve from their bounced checks.
Absolutely correct, but from a personal experience; when working for another trucking company, whose Controler was skimming driver’s expense COM-Checks, and then writing bad pay checks… We were told by the Tenn State AG’s office, if the checks were signed with a signature imprinter. There is no way to prove who wrote the check, thus no legal recourse for reimbersment. It was a sad bitter lesson for us drivers and our families.
The lesson learned for a lot of drivers was- Keep good written records and receipts, so the individual would know how much they had coming. Truckdrivers as a group are notoriously poor record keepers.
mmmm—has me wondering about the loan agreement arranged. Was there sufficient paper auditing done? What were the documentation used? And considering that this also concerned Daimler Chrysler’s financial wing–at a time when the financial sector was undergoing a melt down of a sort I’ll throw in that as well. Just how well capitalized was Arrow when they entered into an agreement with D-C in the first place?
It is a sad event - and unfair. If a truck driver wrote a bunch of bad checks, he’d probably get prosecuted. But a corporation can hide behind anonymity.
I am not sure I follow this issue of the bounced checks. Aside from the fact that the checks bounced, is the company refusing to pay the drivers what it owes them?
I can understand how using a check writing machine could make it impossible to prove who wrote the check, and thus impossible to prosecute the writer of a bad check. However, the use of a check-writing machine should not dissolve the obligation to pay what is owed. Maybe I am missing something.
I’m not exactly sure, but if Arrow is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, then any worker who is due money, be it a bounced paycheck or an unissued paycheck, will probably be lumped in with the other unsecured creditors.