California Construction Trucking Association (CCTA)

Here we are beginning May and work is spotty at best but pretty grim for most. California Air Resources Board (CARB) has been our primary focus for our association over the last two years or more. Last month we devoted some time to hear from our members on an equally important problem, getting paid for their work!

As businessmen that happen to own trucks we not only are tasked with all the bureaucratic B.S. today but have to collect our earned income after we have done the work. For some this is usually forty-five or more days after we complete the job. How much worse is it to continue hauling for your customer when you have no hope of ever collecting your money?

CDTOA has over the years helped all of us who want to be successful in this business by lobbying and sponsoring prompt pay laws in California. Both Betty and Greg talked about this in last month’s magazine articles. One of the major charters of the CDTOA is to “educate” our members. We can in fact do many things to make the industry a better place to operate in regardless of what level you are at in it. Yes, we have provided the industry with very specific and favorable prompt payment laws and now a new (yet old) bonding requirement for brokers. But as the old saying goes, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”, we can’t make industry people join CDTOA. And those that do, we can’t make them read the magazine or website or attend meetings that we sponsor at least three times a year.

But with all the laws and regulations, I’m still astounded to hear from members who choose not to use these collection tools and continue to work for the same slugs when they have not been paid. Sure, times are tough; we all know this, but can you afford to continue to work for free?

Then I am confronted by members who really expect CDTOA to send Guido to threaten a cement boot swim to the bad guys to get your money – bada-bing bado-boom – good luck with that, because this is not what we are here to do. That has never been the purpose of CDTOA. If you’re naive or ignorant about the ways to collect your money, or worse yet afraid, there is little anyone can do for you. I suggest if you’re in this predicament, that you grow a back-bone. If enough people do, the exploiters in our industry are doomed in my opinion.

I have to wonder, when you bought that truck, did ya think the world would just fill up your bank account with moola and you would just cash that check every month? Well boys and girls if that’s how it was, it’s not like that now. You had better get smart to survive. As a for-hire trucking operation you have to make a profit.

If you have chosen to not attend meetings, not read your great monthly magazine, not taken the time to learn what CDTOA and its partners all have been working hard to present to you, and you find yourself upside down with a contractor or shipper, it’s pretty much your fault in my opinion.

It could be the economy. It could be bad luck. But it might be that you are working for the wrong companies and maybe way to cheap, wake up! If you have chosen not to ask for a copy of the broker bond from the guy that dispatches you, than maybe you don’t deserve to be paid. If you have chosen not to seek legal advice from CDTOA’s legal affiliates, then maybe you don’t deserve to be paid. Worse yet, you continue to work for free when someone else that would have worked and would have demanded to be paid sat home. Than, You Are the Problem!

Five dollar fuel, multiple tire price increases just this year, insurance premiums going up, CARB retrofit costs ahead all add up to the fact that too many of us are working for less than we made eight years ago. Worse, some are working for free by not collecting their money. Going to work without knowing what the rate is or who you are actually working for is just plain stupid. Not submitting a pre-lien or not slamming a stop notice on late paying contractors is way past stupid!

I suggest that you get involved in your local chapter meetings, find out who’s doing it right. Work for those guy’s. Do not work for the bad ones. Commit yourselves to working with the companies that treat you with respect, there are many good ones out there even today.

There are many companies that want you to be safe, profitable, and reliable. You need to know your costs associated with your business. You need to stand up for yourself; ask for the rate before the job starts. Is it by the load, by the hour, ton and how much? What about standby pay at the destination, how about at the load site? Ask who the consignee/consignor is. Is it a public works job or a private work job? Read your subhaul contracts. Know the facts before the job starts, know your lien rights – knowing all this is key to getting paid.

CDTOA’s purpose is to educate its members and offer programs to help you be successful. CDTOA is a 501(c)(6) non-profit trade association chartered to help educate its members and among others things provide a voice before government agencies and state and federal legislators. Just to refresh your understanding of what we can’t do:

• We cannot negotiate rates.
• We cannot organize work stoppages or boycotts against other companies or businesses.
• We cannot stop you from continuing to work for someone that has not paid you for months and in some cases years.
• We cannot make you read the articles in the magazine each month.
• And we can’t cure stupidity. But we can offer you the information to make you more successful!

Since 1941, CDTOA has been the premier source for you to learn how to be profitable in the construction trucking business. When you network at the local chapter meetings you can find out who’s doing things right!

I have to wonder these days, can truckers afford to not be a part of CDTOA.

CDTOA v. CARB and the 5th Amendment

Our lawsuit against CARB is just one of seven that their Board in now dealing with. Interestingly, three of the seven suits are associated with a group from Oakland called the “Association of Irritated Residents”. A California court has enjoined or halted implementation of the state’s cap and trade program pending a review of alternatives, raising uncertainty over whether the nation’s first economy-wide regulatory regime for carbon emissions will go into effect by January 1, 2012, as had been planned. In Association of Irritated Residents v. CARB, the California Superior Court for San Francisco County ruled in mid-March that CARB failed to adequately examine the possibility that a carbon tax or other alternatives to a cap and trade program could be used to meet California’s greenhouse gas reduction goals.

It almost looks as if this group is attempting to extort settlement money from CARB much like how the American Lung Assoc. does with EPA. I read that CARB has indicated that it may “seek an agreement” from Petitioners and that the injunction does not apply to programs other than cap and trade. I just wonder exactly what this agreement will cost us taxpayers.

I was recently talking with Lee about our lawsuit against CARB; we are now working on our declarations for the lawsuit. As we discussed my situation and the fact that two of my three trucks, a 1990 and a 1993 can’t even be retrofitted with a DPF. So the costs to comply with these regulations are very unreasonable to me. It also occurred to me that CARB is being allowed to “take” our vehicles through fines and non-registration laws if one does not comply.

I read that the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits, “private property” (including personal property like a vehicle) from being taken for public use without just compensation.” The loss of use is identical to “for public use”. The sovereign governments of the United States (both federal and state) have the power, through eminent domain, to take a person’s private property as they wish – as long as they pay for it.

I also read that the difficult cases associated with taking heard by the courts are generally those where government regulations, enacted to secure some sort of public benefit (public health supposedly in our situation), fall disproportionately on some property owners (truckers) and cause significant reductions of property value (who would argue with that). 

I believe that the U.S. Congress, the Executive branch, and the Supreme Court continue to blatantly allow California public health agency (CARB) executives to violate the U.S. Constitution by enforcing rules and regulations instituted against vehicles made and operated in the state after being approved as compliant with environmental regulatory standards when they were built and sold.

This is all ex post facto or retroactive law, which is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences (or status) of actions committed or relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law. In the United States, the federal government is prohibited from passing ex post facto laws by clause 3 of Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution and the states are prohibited from the same by clause 1 of Article I, section 10. Some also believe that the CARB diesel engine regulations are also a violation of the sovereign rights of the other states and even businesses based in foreign countries who may import vehicles and engines.

The problem is that instead of the engine and truck manufacturers being held responsible for their diesel engines, the guy in the equation that can least afford it, is solely responsible for these retroactive compliance regulations. I believe this is all totally unfair and after reading this information about the Fifth Amendment, probably unconstitutional.

Maybe CARB and the believers should also be up front about it all and say that they are just putting a new large tax on this segment of energy users (the public) that is much bigger than the tax put on people with large factories, automobiles or houses with big air conditioners.

To demand emission compliance from the truckers who provide services to the users of energy without putting similar demands for emission compliance on the end users is blatant extortion and persecution of a minority (diesel engine owners).

There is something very wrong here to me. I would hope that we could someday have someone like the PLF or our own attorneys look to see if this is a good enough argument to take to the courts. I sure think it is.

Kill Carb Updates

As to my continued distain for CARB, I was maybe looking to the Navy for some help. I know this is only wishful thinking, but someone should contract their Seal 6 team to take out the professional liars and fear mongrels in government these days. I just wanted to let them know they are needed here to deal with some home grown eco-terrorists in Sacramento and around the state. Just a thought, I would love to see this wrapped up in 48 minutes like they did in Abbottabad.

Both Betty and Hank were at the CARB hearing late last month testifying against the proposed revisions to the California State Implementation Plan (SIP) for submittal to U.S. EPA. The revisions (lowering allowable standards) for PM2.5 and ozone SIP in the South Coast Air Basin and Coachella Valley were adopted by the South Coast Air Quality Management District on March 4, 2011.

Plus, on the agenda that day, the Board “proposed revisions to provide additional funding opportunities while ensuring the Carl Moyer Program continues to successfully reduce surplus emissions”. This is all code for we are saving the planet from those polluters and in this case on this day they were talking about polluting lawn mowers. The landscapers are the next target on CARB’s radar to give money to – apparently they are also killing the children.

I heard that when these landscapers get their subsidized equipment, CARB and EPA will count these as two newly created green jobs. One for the nature of the work (gardening) and the other for the use of clean green equipment to perform the work. You see all these new green jobs that were promised here are really happening according to their political science, math and propaganda.

So remember, KILL CARB!

Keep calling your representatives in public office; let them know how badly this economy is hurting you and your family. We do not need these insane billion dollar agencies and their job killing regulations.

Nominations for state officer positions in CDTOA are coming up at the next meeting to be held in Oakland. Let your chapter be represented and volunteer. It has been a great experience for me.

Strength in Numbers
Robert McClernon