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A panel of speakers at the American Trucking Associations Foundation’s annual meeting in Florida last week used lots of different ways to say it, but they had a single primary message for the trucking industry: work with federal regulators to craft programs and policy, or pay the consequences.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration would prefer to automate your job and as a result eliminate tens of thousands of American jobs rather than admit its proposed ergonomic rule is built on unsound science. OSHA even refuses to acknowledge that the very experts on this issue — physicians — don’t see eye to eye on the causes and cures of so-called ergonomic ailments (often called repetitive stress injuries) and that physicians actually find a rule on ergonomics extremely controversial.

With a crowd of about 3,500 cheering and chanting “Hoffa, Hoffa, Hoffa,” the son of the vanished former Teamsters leader with the most famous name in trucking labor history took the reins and declared “a new era” for the union at his inauguration on May 1.

If you said the “f-word” when you were younger, there’s a good chance your mother washed your mouth out with soap, but some truckers up north found out that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s penalties can be much stiffer.

Ryder System selected C.J. “Corky” Nelson as senior executive vice president of finance in what some analysts think may be the first of several top managerial changes.

A complete structural makeover was approved for the National Private Truck Council at its annual convention, which attracted about 1,200 private fleet operators and suppliers.

While calling for improved safety, the National Private Truck Council joined the current swell of support for a federal agency to concentrate solely on supervising truck safety.

The future may seem spooky for trucking executives who heard tales of uncertain political leadership, a possible recession and stricter demands from shippers at the American Trucking Associations Foundation’s three-day annual meeting.

The National Transportation Safety Board called on truckers to look to the skies for a way to improve safety and repeated demands that trucks be required to install black boxes similar to those used on airplanes.

Teamsters President Jim Hoffa said an internal audit revealed abuse and mismanagement of union funds over the past seven years by Ron Carey.