The Irishman, released last year by Netflix, recounted the heyday of the powerful Teamsters union. Given the subsequent decline of American organised labour, the film depicts a lost era. But maybe not so much. On Wednesday, the US Treasury Department announced it would provide a $700m rescue term loan to YRC Worldwide, a trucking company that happens to employ 24,000 Teamsters. The heavily indebted company was running out of cash. The taxpayer gets 30 per cent of the company to accompany the four-year loan. 

The bailout comes from a portion of the Cares Act dedicated to companies essential to national security (the Pentagon is a big YRC customer). It helps stave off a potentially messy bankruptcy. The rescue appears to fit within the law, but other similarly situated companies must wonder what it takes to get their own sweetheart deal.

YRC has more than $800m in long-term debt, the bulk of which is a term loan that private equity firm Apollo Global Management had organised last year (YRC also recently received covenant relief on that loan). But like industrial companies of a past era, it has heavy pension liabilities and has forecast having to make a $150m contribution this year alone. It has similar annual operating lease expenses. And business was bad. In early June, shipments per day in the second quarter were down 20 per cent year-on-year.