91��Ƶ

March 23, 1999 2:35 PM, EST

LAS VEGAS — A Truckload Carriers Association board hopes it has the right formula to improve the treatment of drivers by shippers and receivers. It will use a pinch of recognizing the best companies and a dash of education to better relationships with the rest.

Members of the Labor and Human Resources Committee voted March 14 to develop an annual awards program for the 10 best shippers and receivers. Criteria for the awards should be available within the next year.

They also plan to come up with a list of best practices in hope that shippers and receivers will use them. Among the suggestions would be reducing a driver’s waiting time, eliminating lumping, palletizing freight as well as making bathrooms and vending machines available.

Committee members noted the issue is not a new one. Several said trucking is partially to blame by not addressing the problems more forcefully.

“We brought this on ourselves by hauling their freight, now we have to do something about it,” said Ronnie Dowdy of Ronnie Dowdy Inc. in Batesville, Ark.

“We can choose who we do business with,” said Murray Mullen of Mullen Trucking Ltd. in Aldersyde, Ala.

But that doesn’t work with all receivers, said Tonn Ostergard of Crete Carrier Corp. in Lincoln, Neb.

“We just don’t haul for Food Lion,” he said. “If we do, we charge a higher rate, and the shippers know it. Food Lion just doesn’t care.”

For the full story, see the March 22 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.