Bulk Carriers Co-op

For runs over 500 miles, minimum/good place to start is $10 per hundred miles, so 500 miles needs to pay at least $50 per ton, so 50 x 25= $1250. The hours is a good point too, a place I go to has receiving from 7am-1pm, gates don't close until 5pm though! It's a grain, just needs a sample and then head to the unload, 15 minutes and you're gone. No reason for that bs. The farmer I load it at is super flexible.

I'd like to add facilities, no reason for the loading area to be sloped hard to the side and busted up concrete so your gauges are near useless. I had a week that everywhere I loaded, was on a scale. No check weigh and circle back or other time wasting garbage.

You can thank the Immigration Act of 1965 for our demographic situation. Whites were the minority birthrate in 2016 and in 2040 they'll be the minority in the entire country regardless of age. Most of the new immigrants are from third world countries that are willing to work for a lot less than the natural born American citizen. They don't have to stand up and fight for themselves because their lives and expenses are heavily subsidized by the Federal government and said government fights all their battles for them by passing laws that are against us. The more kids they have the more they make. Housing, food, health care, education, business loans, tax breaks, grants, special interest groups, churches etc etc all pay their way to live here virtually for free while the rest of us literally pay for it with our hard earned money forced from our hands via taxes. How's that for a kick in the balls?! We're paying for our own destruction! I'm not saying these immigrants are bad people at all. They're coming here for the opportunity. Can't blame them. However, they are being used as weapons against us and they have the federal government backing them up in ways we simply cannot compete with. It's wrong and natural born citizens are not important to the government. They clearly prefer new fresh batteries willing to work for chump change (in any work field) to keep the Capitalist terror machine rolling at top speed.

Large corporations are more than happy to take full advantage of them as well and the situation in general. It's all part of the plan. Everything locks together for Globalization. Removing our stringent immigration policies in 1965, opening the borders, combining FMCSA with Canada's CCMTA and building Mexico up to our level to emulate us is creating the "North American Union" following the same route as the EU. Once the first world countries are under their complete control the final phase of global totalitarianism will begin. It's a slow process that began back in the early 1900's. I'm always willing to stand and fight but the writing is on the wall if you're paying attention to History. We will fall HARD after 2040! 55 years later the painful truth is all around us if you just open your eyes. In another 55 years it'll be a totally new govenment replacing the Feds and it's going to be very ugly. The UN's Agenda 21 is the blueprint for our unpleasant future.

I pay myself $25/hr straight time on hourly jobs, 50 cents per mile on mileage runs and 25% on per load paying agreements. Whichever works out best is what gets paid to the me. I could care less about price fixing laws either. If we sit around and expect the government to help us we deserve whatever we get. The Founders never would have allowed us to get where we are today. I'm paying THIRTY-FIVE percent of my income after expenses in state and federal taxes. That's not even counting all the other taxes I pay on sales, property, clothing and even my food in my day to day life. Corporations and globalists are running the show, not us nor our votes. The worthless traitor "elected" officials are all bought and paid for by foreign nations, billionaires and businesses that are so rich there is no currency in the world that could cash them out. There's no way we can fight that on any battlefield that they lay before us. In fact, we need to remove the field entirely and create our own. After all, it's obvious that by playing by their rules is NOT working for us. We're funding the new Globalist/Socialist/Marxist agenda ourselves.

Ask yourself this; why would they pass laws to stop us from creating rates that work best for us in our areas? They're the ones fixing the market and it's in their favor, not ours. A free market would never allow us to charge too much because if it got too high nothing would move. We're actually starting to see the other end of that. More and more freight is sitting from rates getting too low! Even the new Americans working for peanuts eventually hit rock bottom because the cost for EVERYTHING else is going up. Parts, land, service, rent, fuel, taxes, permits, IFTA are all getting higher. It's basic mathmatics mixed with common sense here. Not Rocker Science. We only have small shreds of local government left. Sad but true. The Feds have been lost since 1861 and spreading their tentacles into places the Consitution does not allow.

Bottom line; we need to make it happen locally, on our terms and forget about everything else. Following their rules has gotten us into a place we may sadly never recover from due to their cunning methods of theft. Remember the days when scabs crossed picket lines and got dealt with accordingly? It needs to be locked down. The article below touches on some of the things I mentioned in the beginning of this post. Use a little thought and read between the lines. It's very obvious.

https://www.fleetowner.com/resource-center/driver-management/article/21701029/demographics-are-changing-truck-driver-management

The price fixing laws against us are based on Anti-Trust laws in place by the FTC. It seems to me that we would not actually be price fixing IMO. I could care less though. After all that's what layers are for. It's is a matter of survival at this point. I'd rather live on my feet than die on my knees and frankly sitting around crying about it without action is too sheeplike for my tastes. I agree $2.25/mile is workable but there needs to be more parameters spelled out such as minimum mile and all miles vs empty miles. $2.25/mile on 100 miles is a joke unless it's all miles to and from. Even then, it's still short of a decent daily minimum ($550) unless there's multiple runs available to the carrier in the same day.

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/dealings-competitors/price-fixing

I was looking at picking up a dry van about a year ago and was talking with the seller. The subject of brokers came up and he was bitching about something in the contract he didn't like. I asked why he agreed to it, didn't cross it out on the BCA and/or didn't negotiate it before signing? He looked like he just discovered the moon as the lightbulb lit above his head as he said he had no idea he could even do such a thing. I'm not trying to mock the guy but rather to bring attention to the fact that many carriers will just accept whatever they're presented with and run with it no matter how lopsided the deal is toward the customer or broker. Passing this information on to new entrants is probably even more important than the rates themselves. Especially when you thnk about how we're bled dry through the lack of accessorials like detention and TONU. It's imperative they're paid as well.

totally agree Eric. It is always the difference in philosophy between a shipper and a trucker. Trucker wants the rate up there so he can make money, shipper wants the rate low so he can make money. (and brokers should be candidates for saint hood for trying to find a common ground for everyone, well some of us anyway :)

Gentlemen, I'm reading a lot of positive comments about enacting necessary changes to this industry..Some, if not many of you, know that I'm just operating my refer unit at this time and have not ordered the belt trailers and tractors I've spec'ed out to haul bulk loads, which is my plan for expansion. I've made an offer, which has been accepted from a couple of you, to open up and send you my winter rate guide for the way I run my office, with proposed rates for the future of hauling exempt commodities. I'm making this available to anyone who may have the desire to have these, and a cover letter, sent to you. Hopefully it will give you food for thought. And I'm not worried about anyone who may operate a refer and haul cold, or dry freight, on the side as compitition to my little company.

Where should changes start? The expressed idea of a location, like Omaha, would be great. Of course, anyone who wants to set up a seminar in any location should realise that if brochures or advertisements for a program are given out, the usual participation rate is generally 30%, so a lot of information would have to be sent out to make an event successful.

Also, I have expressed the idea of attending any seminar as a possible spokes person, as an "expert", in the transportation field, still goes I''m open to anything that would help. And the more seminars held in various areas the better. Any one else with an idea of holding a seminar in their area? Lets inform others and bond together to make the necessary changes. My personal e-mail is [email protected]

Duane, Of course, I'm very familiar with the way freight/perishables move prior to the big holiday, and into the first of the year. We will be shutting down next week for about 10-12 days for the holiday and having annual repairs / inspections completed on our equipment, even though they are only about 15 months old. Glad to see you're getting good rates at this time. Gotta make it while the sun shines.

Keith, I couldn't agree with you more about establishing good relationships and excellent service to your customers. That was drummed into me in my early teens by my dad with his small cartage company. However, I believe in this day that many larger companies do not care about this as much as they do getting their freight / commodities moved as cheaply as possible. Which is a shame. Trust? Well, it isn't that I don't trust anybody. It's just that I don't trust anybody! Well, very few folks anyway. I guess I miss the days when a man's word was his bond. I agree that forming some type of Co-Op would be challaging and everyone who joined would have to give "their word" that they would accept the guidlines and go along with the program, for the improvement of this industry. It's nice to see you have been sucessful with the clients you work with.

On the other hand, if you and the 3 small fleet owners you know and trust would be agreeable to something like this, that would be a good start to forming an organization for fighting the problems created by the government and shippers / brokers who keep exempt freight rates so low. And would help draw other owner / operators into a program.

I certainly realise that the farmers all over the U.S. and Canada have had a tough time, weather wise, this year. As well as with the tariff situation. I brough my ideas up to a couple of farmers, who own their own rigs, this morning over breakfast. One farmer stated that the Board of Trade is respondible for what farm rates are going for now. My question was, what does the Board of Trade, or any other farming organization, have to do with trucking? They are two different industries. Of course, he stated that any increase in transporting exempt freight would cause an increase over all to the farming industry and to the general public. I know that. However, rates have been stagnent for so many years that it's caused hardships to many in the exempt haulers community. If rates had gone up even a small amount each year, according to the cost of living increases, that would have helped. When my friend mentioned that grocery prices seem to go up every year, I asked, "Who's to blame?" It's manufacturers and retail grocery outfits with their union employees, or the overhead with these companies. Not from commodity haulers! And overall it's unfair to them and keeps getting harder to make a decent living, with everything else increasing in prices.

Old school guys like us may not need some type of organization. However, it would help younger, or newer folks to the industry. At least to this segment of the transportation industry. with fighting some of the government loop holes, as well as rates, that we are plagued with.

Maybe I should just concentrate on the good loads my nephew and I are getting with our refer rig, and try to get under contract with one of the shippers, and not worry so much about this industry. However, I've become very interested in hauling dry bulk commodities and in the problems current operators face. My nephew feels that I should forget about purchasing the belt trailers to expand my company and concentrate on increasing the refer fleet. Rates are better there. The fall of Celadon hs opened a few more opportunities, too.