AUSTIN, Texas — “Self-promoting union bosses” encouraged by the “most pro-union president in history” are making trouble for the trucking industry, American Trucking Associations CEO Chris Spear said in his annual membership address.
But he had plenty of invective for California regulators. And he criticized a century-old excise tax that adds $25,000 to the typical cost of a new heavy-duty truck.
“Trial lawyers chasing jackpot justice, self-promoting union bosses and delusional environmental extremists. Together, they constitute a clear threat to our industry’s ability to grow and support our nation’s economic security,” Spear said as he paced the main stage Monday at the ATA Management Conference and Exhibition.
Spear: Organized labor failed Yellow workers
Spear took aim at the Teamsters for failing to negotiate further concessions that might have provided a lifeline for bankrupt Yellow Corp.
“Thirty-thousand hardworking Yellow employees lost their jobs because one of two parties refused to come to the table,” he said. “Say what you like. Blame who you want. But that’s the cold, hard truth.”
The ATA tried to help place out-of-work Yellow drivers in open jobs with association members, he said.
“What’s the International Brotherhood of Teamsters done? Nothing. Just self-promoting tweets and blame,” Spear said. “If that is representation, if that is what this president is selling, we want none of it.”
Union organizing campaigns backed by the Biden White House create peril for trucking and related industries. They account for one in 17 U.S. jobs, he said. Seeking to count gig workers as full-time employees and opposing autonomous trucking in California are two examples of Teamsters meddling with trucking livelihoods.
“These same organizers have told me candidly that truck drivers cannot speak for themselves,” he said. “[Drivers] can think for themselves. They don’t need some showboating union boss to do it for them.”
ATA backs California Trucking Association in CARB suit
The ATA is backing the California Truck Association’s suit challenging the California Air Resources Board (CARB) over its Advanced Clean Fleets rule . The regulation requires fleets to purchase increasing percentages of zero-emissions vehicles beginning in January.
Spear called CARB “an unelected, ill-informed band of extremists who have no clue the impact their timelines and targets will have on our economy.”
On Tuesday, Spear told members of the European Parliament that the international governing body should embrace realistic, achievable timelines to reduce emissions. He urged rejection of CARB’s mandates that also require OEMs to produce increasing numbers of zero-emission trucks.
“Given where the technology, infrastructure, power grid, cost and operational requirements stand, these regulations will undoubtedly fail to deliver the vehicles and market adoption California seeks,” Spear said.
Operational parity between diesel and battery-electric trucks is a long way off.
“It currently takes 15 minutes to fill a diesel-powered truck to go 1,200 miles regardless of extreme heat or cold. It can take six to 10 hours to charge an electric truck during nonpeak hours just to go 250 miles under the best of conditions,” he said.
Dueling regulations
Creating dueling sets of emissions regulations — CARB and its followers against a 50-state Environmental Protection Agency standard — follows the path the automotive industry faced with differing Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards for pollution-sensitive California and the rest of the country, Spear said.
In July, after months of acrimony between CARB and the Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA), the two sides agreed to flexibly implement the state’s toughest-in-the-nation emissions rules.
“CARB bullied our manufacturers, dangled the credits in exchange for their right to sue,” Spear said. “CARB seeks to defy our history, our voice, our ability to fight back.”
Spear also railed against the continuation of a 12.5% federal excise tax on new heavy-duty trucks that dates to 1917. It adds about $25,000 to the cost of a typical Class 8 tractor, he said.
U.S. Sens. Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Todd Young, R-Ind., unveiled the Modern, Clean and Safe Trucks Act of 2023. It would repeal the levy that generates about $5 billion in tax revenue a year.
Today’s trucks are 98.5% cleaner than more than half the trucks on the road in California with engines dating to 2010 and earlier, Spear said, citing American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) data.
Zero-emission vehicles came in at No. 10 on the latest ATRI list of top industry issues. It was the first time the issue made the list.
Related articles:
California Trucking Association sues to block Advanced Clean Fleets rule
CARB and engine manufacturers compromise on emissions timing
MD
George S, your a joke. You write about things you have no clue of and fall into the same category as Obrien, dumb as a box of rocks. Are you aware of how long union carriers carried the orphans in the pension funds even though they had no dog in the hunt ? You talk about the billions that the Teamsters gave up. What about the millions that companies paid into the union retirement fund for folks that never worked for them, where do you think that money came from ? It came from companies like Yellow, sure was not from the union. They had a choice, work for Yellow for what was offered or go elsewhere, those that chose to stay did so because even with the pay cut they made more than most drivers when you take into consideration the medical and retirement benefits. The bottom line is this, Obrien and Suckerman are to blame and Mr. Spears is right on. My hope is that union’s in this country go down the tube’s, they are not needed and suck the blood from companies that are unionized and put them out of business. Its proof as I can name at least a 100 trucking companies that have went out of business since the 80’s, none were non union trucking companies. Not sure where you got your info from but where I came from in the trucking industry, most these folks live in nice homes, drive new automobiles and make close to $100,000 or more. The unions have put many trucking and manufacturing firms out of business because of their greed, I wonder how much longer the big 3 will have auto plants in the US. Unions are a thing of the past and are no longer needed and do nothing for the people but make a living off of them and let me say, a very GOOD living.
George S.
The American Trucking Association has never once represented actual truck drivers. They represent trucking company owners and usually the interests of the larger fleets over the issues of the smaller fleets. So it’s no wonder Spears and the ATA take aim at unions. For many decades, they have fostered and advocated a system that kept truck drivers from earning what they were truly worth, as they wrung their hands over driver turnover rates at large truckload fleets that often well-exceed 100%.
For instance, Spears attempt to place the blame for Yellow on the Teamsters Union is so disingenuous as to be laughable. He is clearly overlooking the two decades of mismanagement on Yellow management’s part and the BILLIONS in concessions the union and working Teamsters have to Yellow to try and keep them afloat. In his eyes, the Teamsters should have accepted minimum wage and no benefits, if that was what it took to keep Yellow afloat. Never mind the millions in salaries and bonuses Yellow executives took for themselves even as their frontline employees took massive cuts.
Self-serving union bosses? Do you think that any labor union leader would easily or gladly see 22,000 (not 30 thousand, as stated in the article) union jobs go away, without some deeper purpose at work? Yellow’s demise was two decades in the making and the union bent over BACKWARDS to save them… until it was clear that Yellow was going to keep asking for more and more in concessions without any real sign that it was going to save that company. Yellow’s demanded concessions undercut labor standards that had already been significantly undercut by the previous concessions. Yellow’s rate-cutting had dragged rates down in the LTL market for years, hurting the competing carriers. It had to stop somewhere and Sean O’Brien drew a hard line in the sand with the support of most of his membership.
ATA’s Spears is looking around at the big gains made by organized labor and clearly is shaking in his boots. If the average truck drivers—which he claims to speak for but clearly does not—ever got their collective act together and started demanding REAL changes… they could change the face of the trucking industry forever. And clearly, the big fleet owners are not happy at that prospect, or at the prospect of an energized labor movement looking at the many disenfranchised truck drivers as a potential organizing opportunity.
Spears can whine and complain and point an accusing finger at the so-called “enemies” of the trucking industry, but all he is revealing is his own innate, self-serving motives… as well as those of the member fleets of the ATA. The fleet owners who place profits over clean air, reduced emissions and drivers earning a family wage for one of the most difficult jobs in America. His angry accusations reveal just how uneasy ATA member fleet owners are at a future freight market that inherently different from what we have today. The fear of change. The fear of not being able to grow profits on the backs of truck drivers. The resentment of being forced to accept the reality of climate change and a labor market where drivers—at least in the short term—have greater leverage.
That anger that Spears is showing? It’s just thinly masking the REAL emotion, that lies underneath: fear.