Trucking news and briefs for Monday, April 22, 2024:
ATA’s Women in Motion hosts first Call on Washington
Members of ATA's Women in Motion traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with lawmakers to discuss areas of need in trucking.Women in Motion
Last week, 18 women trucking leaders from 10 states met with their members of Congress and White House officials for the American Trucking Associations’ inaugural Women In Motion Call on Washington. The WIM members represented a wide variety of backgrounds and ranged from truck drivers to trucking executives.
Over the course of two days, they participated in multiple events, including:
- A roundtable with members of the House Education & the Workforce Committee
- A roundtable with staff from House Republican leadership offices
- A breakfast meet & greet with Members of Congress
- A White House meeting
- Multiple one-on-one conversations with trucking champions on Capitol Hill, including Congressman Rick Larsen, the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure
Throughout their meetings, the WIM members shared their personal experiences in trucking and made the case for Congress to pass bills to foster safe and productive workplaces, reduce financial barriers to join the industry, and preserve pathways to entrepreneurship.
Some examples of the legislation for which WIM members advocated include the Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act, which would create a dedicated funding stream to build safe and secure truck parking; the Bipartisan Workforce Pell Act, which would allow lower-income individuals to access CDL training programs; and a resolution to overturn the U.S. Department of Labor’s independent contractor rule.
To drive home this advocacy, the WIM members provided a booklet to policymakers that contained the testimonies of dozens of women truckers from across the nation explaining why they decided to work as independent contractors and demanding that Congress protect their livelihoods.
FTR hosting complementary webinar on freight market
FTR will host a complimentary State of Freight webinar on Thursday, May 9 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern. The webinar will cover Key Issues in Transportation and is open to all.
Following the cycle of stress and subsequent normalization experienced between 2020 and 2023, the freight market is now embarking on a more uncertain path, FTR noted. During the webinar, FTR will present its predictions for freight demand, capacity, utilization, and freight rates, alongside an assessment of potential positive and negative factors influencing these forecasts.
The webinar will be moderated by Jonathan Starks, CEO of FTR, with speakers Eric Starks, chairman of the board, and Avery Vise, vice president of trucking. In addition to presenting FTR’s current forecasts, issues discussed by Starks and Vise will:
- Identify and assess the varying macro-level risks that are most important to the transportation markets
- Highlight how service, employment and regulations are intertwined with the outlook for carload and intermodal
- Explore the changing face of the truck carrier population and what that means for capacity and rates
Those interested in attending can register here.
