“The brokers make too much”

Stealing implies it’s against the law. I’m I missing something?

 

All right. I'll repaint my sign for you.
"Brokers stop your greed!
We're the ones who buy fuel!"

 

What exactly do you see the brokers role being?
When I was leased to a carrier I had a fairly good look at what it takes to secure contracts for a lane. The broker is working for the shipper,not the carrier.

 

Well... If I were there to protest, I'd make it nicely rhyme too.

 

The hypothetical [or perhaps real] load in question is 15 times it pays $1600 then suddenly drops to $900.

The job paid 1600 steady. Another truck comes in and out of not knowing what it paid..meaning out of ignorance.. WAYYYY underbid the job and got it. He has wrecked it for himself and others because he did not know the lane rate.

If you dont run a lane all the time and call on all sorts of loads and really have a memory or a notebook for this stuff then you are flying blind. I have no effing clue what goes on in texas so i would lose my butt trying to run there out of ignorance. I would then rely on brokers who are total strangers for loads and naturally brokers take the cheapest competent truck who will show up. So i might snag a $3000 load by agreeing to it at $1600 and i jack up someone elses market. Yeah its good for me for ONE trip. Until the lane i messed up in texas hovers at my newly set low, and the guys who ran texas end up coming out to tennessee looking for better rates, and ignorantly bid desperate on all my stuff.

So then i start taking florida loads because its the only good rate i can find but then i gotta make desperation bids to get out which means i just cut someone elses cheese off down in FL.

I ran TN to FL my last month and bounced out 2x because no freight. Owner wanted me to run $1 mile tarped stuff. I said no. Well why not, itll pay for the fuel.

Yeah? Well it wont pay for me. I dont work for 25 cents a mile. If i suffer, you suffer. And no i did not get fired. I quit and was begged to stay. I will work for a 1099. I wont work for a rate cutter. Agreeing to haul cheap undermines every other trucker out there. And thats why these guys are riding your butt joe. They see you thinking about whats best for joe, but not anyone else.

Yeah a strike hurts but it sure keeps those union jobs high

 

In essence. you are right. If we see brokers as shippers traffic office extensions then the whole discussion is losing its bearing. However, too many times I heard them saying that they negotiate for more money on my behalf.

 

The broker is paid by the shipper. The heirarchy of interest for a broker must go broker, shipper, trucker. Since brokers are really dependant on repeat shippers. They can rip off truck after truck and keep getting new ones so the truck will always come in last.

 

Very rarely is a broker going to contact the shipper for more money on anything that’s a regular move. Some of the largest shippers can take hours or days to answer a email, and forget about the phone.

 

Can't you tell when someone's pissing on your foot and telling you it's raining?
It's up to you to decide if what the broker is offering is enough, nobody else.
What is knowing what the broker is going to keep off the load going to help you, is it going to lower any of your expenses?
All this "transparency" fantasy is going to do is tell people exactly how low they need to go to undercut the brokers.

 

I’ve had to be VERY protective of some of the regular lanes I run for brokers. I’ve dead headed 300+ miles through this mess several times to protect a “lane” or “load” that I’ve been doing for a year or two. It’s imperative that we don’t miss a single load because either: 1. The broker agent themselves becomes aware of other carriers who will run it WAY cheaper and then cuts my rate down or 2: The broker (point of contact) wants to still keep it with us but the powers at be who are sitting at their desks tracking this all tells the broker agent to pull back off the carrier and submit it back out to the open market, this means your screwed. Few and far between there are agents powerful enough to fend this off. Mostly older time people who see service over profits but are under great pressure from above.

So, missing just one load makes all hell break loose. Whether it’s the agents fault or not, it’s bad. When you have 5 or 6 of these recurring runs ever week or a couple times a week, that’s what helps you carry through this mess.