TCA Vice President of Government Affairs, Dave Heller and TCA Manager of Government Affairs, Kathryn Sanner The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has been in high gear in recent weeks. The Agency has several pending regulations which are currently open for public comment and which could dramatically impact the truckload segment of the trucking […]

Cody Crisler and Kenneth Meekins, professional truck drivers with Henderson Trucking, have each been named Highway Angels by the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA). Both men are being recognized for their willingness to stop and assistance a young family whose baby was accidentally locked in their vehicle. On June 7, Henderson Trucking colleagues Jessica Graham, Crisler, […]

R. Eddie Wayland, TCA Legal Counsel A federal trial court in Iowa recently ruled in favor of a carrier in a sexual harassment case. The basic factual allegations are all too familiar: a male driver and a female driver are driving together in a truck, and alleged sexual harassment occurs. The carrier here prevailed because […]

R. Eddie Wayland, TCA Legal Counsel PHOTO CREDIT: JIM ALLEN/FREIGHTWAVES On July 22, 2019, the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the Department of Labor (DOL) issued an opinion letter as to whether the time a driver spends in his or her truck’s sleeper berth qualifies as compensable hours worked under the Fair Labor Standards […]

R. Eddie Wayland, TCA Legal Counsel A trucking company retained two drivers to serve as independent contractors and, on that basis, the company was allowed to make wage deductions, including for insurance, membership dues, and truck lease payments.  The lower court disagreed that the drivers were independent contractors but ultimately determined that the deductions were […]

Ashley Coker PHOTO CREDIT: JIM ALLEN/FREIGHTWAVES The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has extended its comment period concerning its possible pilot program that would allow non-military drivers under 21 to drive commercial vehicles across state lines.  The previous July 15 deadline has been pushed back to August 14, giving people an extra month to […]

Ashley Coker IMAGE: JIM ALLEN/FREIGHTWAVES Carriers steering clear of Louisiana due to precarious weather conditions can start accepting loads into the state again. While Hurricane Barry caused serious flooding over the weekend, most of the damage was limited to rural areas with little freight activity. “Most of the damage occurred in rural areas where there […]

The Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) announced its support of S. 2033, The Cullum Owings Large Truck Safe Operating Speed Act of 2019. The bill would require new trucks weighing over 26,000 pounds to be equipped with speed limiters set at a maximum speed of 65 mph. Existing trucks already equipped with the technology would be required […]

Ashley Coker PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK Small business owners across the nation slipped off their rose-colored glasses last month. The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Optimism Index fell 1.7 points to 103.3 in June, reversing May’s gains.  The NFIB Optimism Index is intended to track small business sentiment and is released each month. The index takes […]

R. Eddie Wayland, TCA Legal Counsel The employer ejected two union organizers from its public cafeteria where the organizers were meeting with employees.  The union organizers challenged these actions and won before an administrative law judge. Following an appeal, however, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) overruled the administrative law judge on two of the […]

Guest post by FreightWaves’ Noi Mahoney More than $400 billion in freight crossed in both directions through the United States-Mexico border by truck in 2018. In Laredo, Texas, alone, more than two million trucks carried goods across the border last year. While President Donald Trump’s trade wars with Mexico and China have destabilized business markets, […]

Guest post by FreightWaves’ Alan Adler Class 8 new truck orders rose in June from a three-year low a month ago, but the first six months of the year accounted for the slowest first half since 2010. June orders of 13,100 were 69 percent below one of the peak months of a 2018 ordering spree, […]

IMAGE: TCA Professional truck drivers Scott Wagner of Spartan Direct, based in Pevely, Missouri, and Robert Barnette of Swift Transportation Company, based in Phoenix, Arizona, have each been named a Highway Angel by the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA). They are being recognized for their willingness to drive nearly an hour to rescue a colleague stranded […]

TCA Vice President of Government Affairs, Dave Heller and TCA Manager of Government Affairs, Kathryn Sanner IMAGE: JIM ALLEN/FREIGHTWAVES The day of reckoning is finally upon us. On June 13th, Canada’s Minister of Transportation, the Honorable Marc Garneau, announced that Canada’s electronic logging device (ELD) mandate will take effect on June 12th, 2021. This means […]

PHOTO COURTESY OF OTAY MESA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE Post by FreightWaves’ Noi Mahoney Business is good at the Otay Mesa port of entry, California’s largest commercial land port of entry, which tallied a record $50 billion in two-way trade with Mexico during the last fiscal year. For June, the latest SONAR data shows outbound tender […]

R. Eddie Wayland, TCA Legal Counsel The employee here requested intermittent leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) but was instead forced to go out on continuous leave. Under the FMLA, “intermittent leave” is taking leave in separate blocks of time for a single qualifying reason. Reducing the employee’s usual weekly or daily […]

Guest post by FreightWaves’ Kevin Hill Amazon’s entry into online freight matching is being met with skepticism and unease by much of the logistics industry, according to a market research report from the FreightWaves Freight Intel Group.  The report, Amazon and the Logistics Industry, builds on the news FreightWaves broke on Amazon’s beta version of its online […]

Guest post by FreightWaves’ Todd Maiden The Cass Freight Index Report showed further deceleration in the freight markets in May. Donald Broughton, Founder and Managing Partner of Broughton Capital and author of the report, warns an economic contraction could be underway. Cass’ May 2019 report shows signs of weakness with both the shipments and expenditures data sets […]

Ashley Coker CHART: FREIGHTWAVES’ SONAR Volumes out of the Tifton, Georgia market have been moving upward since the beginning of the month, with FreightWaves’ SONAR Outbound Tender Volume Index (OTVI.TMA) showing a 33 percent surge since June 2. Outbound rejection rates (OTRI.TMA) have been climbing over the same period of time, increasing 274 bps from […]

DREAMSTIME by FreightWaves’ Chief Economist Ibrahiim Bayaan Economic data from the goods side of the economy showed some signs of life in May, as growth in retail sales and industrial production exceeded expectations during the month. This is an encouraging sign that activity may be stabilizing in the second quarter, though details in manufacturing point […]