Mark Solomon joined DC VELOCITY as senior editor in August 2008, and was promoted to his current position on January 1, 2015. He has spent more than 30 years in the transportation, logistics and supply chain management fields as a journalist and public relations professional. From 1989 to 1994, he worked in Washington as a reporter for the Journal of Commerce, covering the aviation and trucking industries, the Department of Transportation, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to that, he worked for Traffic World for seven years in a similar role. From 1994 to 2008, Mr. Solomon ran Media-Based Solutions, a public relations firm based in Atlanta. He graduated in 1978 with a B.A. in journalism from The American University in Washington, D.C.
Unionized workers at YRC Worldwide Inc. late last night voted to ratify a five-year extension to their
collective bargaining agreement, keeping the less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier out of a possible date with
bankruptcy court and preserving labor stability for most of the rest of the decade.
The contract extension, which runs until March 2019, was ratified by a vote of 12,267 to 6,314. The old pact expires in
March 2015. YRC employs between 26,000 and 30,000 workers represented by the Teamsters Union.
In an interview this morning, YRC CEO James L. Welch said the company is "putting the pieces together" on financing plans
to restructure its $1.14 billion in debt and to lower its onerous interest payments. YRC's lenders have conditioned any
refinancing on ratification of a contract extension.
Welch did not elaborate on the specifics of the debt restructuring efforts because they have not been finalized.
Company executives have said there is little money left over to reinvest in operations after its debt is serviced,
wages and benefits are paid, and other fixed costs are met.
The ratification came less than three weeks after the rank and file rejected management's initial contract extension
offer by a 5,000-vote margin. The defeat sent labor and management scrambling to prepare a revised proposal before a
scheduled due date of Feb. 15 for a $69 million payment on the company's debt.
Both sides negotiated a revamped proposal within two weeks. The new deal made unionized nondriver members eligible
for pay raises. It also softened some of the language relating to worker vacation time and purportedly added labor
protections to provisions allowing Overland Park, Kan.-based YRC to subcontract up to 6 percent of driver work.
Unlike the first proposal, which was not negotiated by Teamster leadership and was instead mailed directly to members
for their vote, the Teamster hierarchy negotiated and approved the revised offer before forwarding it to the rank and file.
Welch said the Teamsters' involvement was the key difference between the decisive rejection of the first contract and the
equally solid margin of ratification of the revised offer.
During the period between the two votes, YRC executives made it clear that ratification of the revised offer would
be the only path forward for the company and its employees. Scott Ware, president of YRC's Holland regional unit, told
employees in a letter Friday that management would have nothing more to offer them if they rejected the new proposal.
Ware's letter also hinted at a bankruptcy filing should the proposal go down to defeat.
In a statement last night, Teamster General President James P. Hoffa said the union will "hold management's feet
to the fire to make sure our members' jobs are protected."
The contract extension maintains language, negotiated in 2010, requiring workers to take a 15-percent wage cut. It
also does not require the company to raise its pension contribution levels. Pension payment levels had been reduced by
75 percent several years ago as a cost-saving measure. In each of the first two years of the new contract, lump-sum
payments will be made to workers in lieu of hourly wage increases. Wage increases will kick in during the third year
and be in force for the remainder of the contract.
Truck drivers nationwide have a mixed outlook on the future of the trucking industry, according to a survey by freight marketplace Truckstop, released this week in conjunction with National Truck Driver Appreciation Week (NTDAW), which runs through Saturday, September 21.
Truckstop surveyed 850 of its carrier customers to gain insight into their lives and experiences on the road. A third of those surveyed said they have a positive outlook on the future of trucking while 40% said they are “more pessimistic,” according to Truckstop. The remainder said they are uncertain, “highlighting both the challenges and opportunities facing the industry,” Truckstop said in a statement announcing the survey results Monday.
The survey also found that nearly 60% of Truckstop carriers have driven one million miles or more, with more than a third of respondents surpassing two million miles driven. Of those who have reached the one-million-mile mark, more than 60% report having a current streak of driving a million miles without a single accident, “highlighting their unwavering dedication to safety,” according to Truckstop.
Another survey highlight: 72% of truckers surveyed say they pass the time by listening to music on the road, with a third saying they prefer country music and 20% citing rock and roll as their genre of choice.
“In celebrating National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, we honor the resilience and dedication of truck drivers, not just this week but every day,” Kendra Tucker, Truckstop’s chief executive officer, said in the statement. “This year’s survey underscores the strong focus drivers place on safety, while also revealing how music helps keep these rockstars of the road alert and energized behind the wheel.”
Truckstop also celebrated NTDAW with a donation to the St. Christopher Truckers Development and Relief Fund (SCF). SCF’s mission is to help over-the-road and semi-truck drivers and their families when they are out of work due to illness or injury.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) says the bipartisan legislation—called the Household Goods Shipping Consumer Protection Act—is needed because motor carriers are victimized through unpaid claims, unpaid loads, double brokered loads, or load phishing schemes on a daily basis.
The proposed act, which was introduced by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and Congressman Mike Ezell (R-MS), offers a solution, OOIDA says. If passed, the bill would restore and codify FMCSA’s authority to issue civil penalties against bad actors. The legislation also requires that brokers, freight forwarders, and carriers provide a valid business address to FMCSA in order to register for authority.
According to Rep. Norton, the bill “would clarify that FMCSA has the authority to assess civil penalties for violations of commercial regulations, and crucially, to withhold registration from applicants failing to provide verification details demonstrating they intend to operate legitimate businesses. Americans moving across state lines need to be able to have confidence in FMCSA-licensed companies transporting their physical belongings. I'm thankful for Rep. Ezell’s partnership in co-leading this bill with me and look forward to the bill’s progress in the Senate.”
The bill has been endorsed by the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), American Trucking Associations’ Moving & Storage Conference (ATA-MSC), Owner-Operator Independent Driver Association (OOIDA), the National Association of Small Trucking Companies (NASTC), Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA), Institute for Safer Trucking (IST) and Road Safe America.
OOIDA is now calling for the bill to get a swift vote before the full U.S. House of Representatives.
"Freight fraud committed by criminals and scam artists has been devastating to many small business truckers simply trying to make a living in a tough freight market,” OOIDA President Todd Spencer said in a release. “OOIDA and the 150,000 small-business truckers we represent applaud the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee for its bipartisan approach in providing FMCSA better tools to root out fraudulent actors, which are also harmful to consumers and highway safety. Because of the broad industry support for these commonsense reforms, we hope this legislation will move to the full House of Representatives for a vote without delay.”
A coalition of freight transport and cargo handling organizations is calling on countries to honor their existing resolutions to report the results of national container inspection programs, and for the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to publish those results.
Those two steps would help improve safety in the carriage of goods by sea, according to the Cargo Integrity Group (CIG), which is a is a partnership of industry associations seeking to raise awareness and greater uptake of the IMO/ILO/UNECE Code of Practice for Packing of Cargo Transport Units (2014) – often referred to as CTU Code.
According to the Cargo Integrity Group, member governments of the IMO adopted resolutions more than 20 years ago agreeing to conduct routine inspections of freight containers and the cargoes packed in them. But less than 5% of 167 national administrations covered by the agreement are regularly submitting the results of their inspections to IMO in publicly available form.
The low numbers of reports means that insufficient data is available for IMO or industry to draw reliable conclusions, fundamentally undermining their efforts to improve the safety and sustainability of shipments by sea, CIG said.
Meanwhile, the dangers posed by poorly packed, mis-handled, or mis-declared containerized shipments has been demonstrated again recently in a series of fires and explosions aboard container ships. Whilst the precise circumstances of those incidents remain under investigation, the Cargo Integrity Group says it is concerned that measures already in place to help identify possible weaknesses are not being fully implemented and that opportunities for improving compliance standards are being missed.
Dexory’s robotic platform cruises warehouse aisles while scanning and counting the items stored inside, using a combination of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), a tall mast equipped with sensors, and artificial intelligence (AI).
Along with the opening of the office, Dexory also announced that tech executive Kristen Shannon has joined the Company’s executive team to become Chief Operating Officer (COO), and will work out of Dexory’s main HQ in the United Kingdom.
“Businesses across the globe are looking at extracting more insights from their warehousing operations and this is where Dexory can rapidly help businesses unlock actionable data insights from the warehouse that help boost efficiencies across the board,” Andrei Danescu, CEO and Co-Founder of Dexory, said in a release. “After entering the US market, we’re excited to open new offices in Nashville and appoint Kristen to accelerate our scale, drive new levels of efficiency and reimagine supply chain operations.”
The deal will create a combination of two labor management system providers, delivering visibility into network performance, labor productivity, and profitability management at every level of a company’s operations, from the warehouse floor to the executive suite, Bellevue, Washington-based Easy Metrics said.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Easy Metrics is backed by Nexa Equity, a San Francisco-based private equity firm. The combined company will serve over 550 facilities and provide its users with advanced strategic insights, such as facility benchmarking, forecasting, and cost-to-serve analysis by customer and process.
And more features are on the way. According to the firms, customers of both Easy Metrics and TZA will soon benefit from accelerated investments in product innovation. New functionalities set to roll out in 2025 and beyond will include advanced tools for managing customer profitability and AI-driven features to enhance operational decision-making, they said.