When a task force of trucking executives developed a strategic plan for American Trucking Associations in the spring of 1998, they envisioned a national trade organization representing carriers before Congress and federal agencies, in the courts and in the media.
To ensure that trucking’s voice would be heard clearly amid all the chatter that lawmakers, regulators, judges and reporters hear, this task force, named for its chairman, John Wren, recommended that the numerous groups representing for-hire carriers ally themselves in a new relationship. The groups would continue to provide educational and other services to their members, but would leave advocacy to American Trucking Associations.
This was the plan overwhelmingly supported by ATA’s members in October 1998, and this is the plan that is being implemented by trucking’s largest trade organization. This is the plan — and the vision — that the leaders of the Truckload Carriers Association have endorsed and are urging their colleagues to adopt.
Truckload carriers comprise the largest segment of the for-hire industry today, and they make up the largest portion of ATA’s current membership. Reflecting their clout, ATA is working to further the special concerns of truckload carriers, such as speeding up the restoration of the 80% tax deduction for meals eaten by over-the-road drivers, while aggressively working on issues of concern to all trucking companies, including common-sense environmental and workplace regulations and an improved public image.
Nine months ago, TCA’s leaders took a leap of faith by focusing their organization on education and management issues of concern to truckload carriers and agreeing to let ATA take the lead on lobbying. The decision, announced last week, by TCA Chairman Gary Baumhover and the rest of the group’s officers to recommend a closer affiliation with ATA provides additional proof that the Wren Committee’s vision of a trucking association speaking with a united voice is coming true.
When TCA’s members endorse its leadership’s recommendation in March, it will mark a major step toward the refocused and reinvigorated ATA that the parent group’s members said they wanted as the Wren Commission went about its work.
The strengthened bond between the two groups will only make trucking’s voice stronger and more powerful.
