Special Contributor, Joel Summer: Another Response to General Lyon's Letter
Disclaimer:
The following originally appeared in a Newsletter disseminated by Joel Summer, dated 2/15/2019.
It is being reprinted here by the AMA with permission from Joel Summer and with only the formatting having been altered.
Enclosed please find the thoughts of a man who has spent his entire adult life in the moving industry. The writer has a large fleet and operates on the very highest quality standards. Due to DPS and the MMC, economics dictated that no longer could his company participate in military traffic. I will say I know of many high quality movers across the nation some with over 100 vehicles in their fleet who have been forced to make the same decision.
From the voice of a 40+ year veteran of the moving industry with a large hauling fleet.
So most good solvent movers have moved on past doing military business.
That's the message probably that should be put into one of your missives. That the military should not tender any shipments to any paper companies that do not have physical trucks rolling down the highway on a daily basis. The distribution of tonnage should go to carriers with TRUCKS......
That the military made a grave mistake supporting paper companies the last 30 years as they are just clipping coupons off of the agents and owner operators hauling the shipments.
That agents who no longer control booking of shipments are not interested in servicing military because there is not enough money to handle the APU pickups, getting onto and off of base, and claims.
The question that the military needs to ask is why paper companies worth $300,000+ are and they don't produce anything, they are not held accountable for service levels.
If the military eliminated the paper companies and only booked directly with carriers that had trucks. Their service levels would improve dramatically. Why punish carriers that do not have paper companies. Eliminate them, then service will be better for service members moving.
MMC companies do nothing more than drive legitimate movers who own trucks away from servicing military business.
The owner operators who work for these companies do not want the hassle of doing Military work as it's a loser for them.
What we can say in all truth is that USTranscom does not understand our industry. Those that advise the generals have ill served those at the top. The Van Lines Succumbed too readily to the MMC's and the drivers and agents were the big losers. It is time the Van Lines took back the industry. You know in the old days we had great leaders like, Moe Rosenblatt, OH Frisbee, Sid Epstein and the like. We need some leaders with back bone who represent the agents. After all that is what a van line is supposed to be an organization of agents banding together for the greater good of all agents and not for the greater good of corporate executives and their pension plans.
