Overdrive readers have responded in numbers to the news of American Trucking Associations President and CEO Chris Spear’s accusations that individuals “of OOIDA interests” leveled a variety of particularly awful threats at the ATA and its members and offices.
Owner-operator Andy Soucy, posting in the Overdrive’s Trucking Pro Facebook group for trucking discussion, noted that, to him, it seemed that “with the passing of [now former OOIDA] President Jim Johnston … the ATA is testing OOIDA’s stance with b.s. accusations and tactics. Sadly, the ATA will stop at nothing to manipulate regulations to better their own bottom line. It’s one thing [for ATA members to] want to better control their own employees, but they also want to impress their own policies upon the rest of the industry, because their own policies also hold them back. Their solution is to influence regulators to level the playing field by causing harm” to the rest of the industry, their competition.
Examples of such at work, other readers noted, could easily be seen in ATA’s strong advocacy for the electronic logging device mandate, most recently, which imposed new costs on carriers largely outside the representation orbit of ATA.
OOIDA in response to Spear called the ATA president’s claims “patently false” that any of the threats he mentioned had anything to do with OOIDA. OOIDA’s statement mentioned advocacy battles over the ELD mandate, too, touting its own efforts to represent truckers and challenge the mandate, among other causes, through the last years as “resonating now more than ever, energizing truckers across the industry to activism in the legislative and regulatory processes. Mr. Spear not only went out of his way to marginalize their concerns, but referred to them as ‘amateurs’ in the process.”
Regular readers may recall Spear’s “amateur-hour advocacy groups” reference to a variety of mandate protest groups’ efforts late last year.
OOIDA went on to contend that ATA and Spear’s “pursuit of divisive policies and use of disparaging words have fueled the acrimony not only in our industry, but among his own members.”
OOIDA board member and Reever Transport small fleet owner-operator Monte Wiederhold wondered also whether Spear was suffering from ELD fallout, adding that whatever the calculus behind his recent accusations, they’re sure to have one particular result: “We just got off our spring meeting and are looking to increase membership, as we always are. His comments should be a big help in that goal. The comments of Mr. Spear are certainly not what one would expect from someone in his position.”
