Former Arrow Trucking Employees Struggle To Survive

By Lori Fullbright, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- As federal bankruptcy court tries to figure out Arrow Trucking's paperwork and the IRS and FBI investigate whether anybody at the company broke the law, the employees are struggling to survive. 

Two months after the trucking company shut down with no notice, the 1,400 people who lost their jobs want some justice. They have no health insurance, some are in the middle of chemotherapy, and others have sick children. They are owed thousands of dollars and finding a job isn't exactly easy right now.

2/8/2010  Related Story: First Meeting Of Creditors Held In Arrow Trucking Bankruptcy Case

Packer and Debbie Thomas worked for Arrow Trucking for more than two years. She was an office manager and he was a trucker, then a trainer. 

They were taking vacation time Christmas week when the company shut down and learned both their paychecks bounced.

"We went from having money in the bank, to not having money in the bank, to being very far in the red with the bank," said Packer Thomas.

Both say they've put in dozens of applications and can't find jobs, certainly not jobs that pay what they were making. And, she no longer has health insurance.

"I thought maybe we'd get a job pretty fast, but now I'm seeing that's not the case," said Debbie Thomas.

They believe the employees should receive the money owed to them. They say their credit is now ruined because they were forced into debt consolidation, all because they say CEO Doug Pielsticker was living a lavish lifestyle with company money, while not paying his bills.

"He wasn't paying them, but here he was driving a Bentley. I was, to say the least, very irritated," said Packer Thomas.

Johnece Thompson has a daughter in college and her husband's pay has been cut because he works for the city of Tulsa. She worked for Arrow four years as a verification analyst. 

Her interest rate on her credit card jumped from 6 percent to 30 percent because the payment bounced when her paycheck did. She believes what has happened to Arrow employees isn't just wrong, but illegal.

"They should go to jail, really and truly, the CEO and his mother, they both should have some jail time because it was just blatant disregard, they did not care," said Johnece Thompson.

Thompson says every time she applies for a job, she's told she's overqualified, which she knows, but she still needs to pay the bills. 

It could take years to get the money they're owed. The Thomas' and Thompson are surviving on unemployment and when that runs out, they don't know what they'll do.