Here's the September 1991 issue
Here's the cover story article
Association lobbies for truckers' interests
Lyle Doty is the first to admit that log truckers are not your every-day, run-of-the-mill workers.
"They are a different breed," Doty, president of the Log Truckers Association of Montana, said in a recent interview. "They are an awful independent lot"
The association started in December 1987, when a group of 66 log truckers from northwest Montana decided to form. An old association, the Montana Timber Haulers, had disbanded nine years earlier, in 1978, and the Montana Logging Association had been representing the log truckers. "That just wasn't in our best interest," Doty, 53, said.
"The group of log truckers, mostly from Flathead and Lincoln counties decided to form for our best economic interests."
Doty said some logging contractors were "skimming" from the truckers.The haulers are paid a certain amount per ton for the distance hauled. The rate per
ton varies with the types of roads over which the logs have to be hauled to the mills.The contractors were paid a certain amount under contract with the mill to deliver logs to the mills. Instead of passing the full delivery amount on to the log truckers, some contractors were paying less. "It was only a few contractors," Doty said. "Some were more than fair. It was just a small percentage of them that were skimming."
"We just weren't getting paid the full contract amount all the time and we weren't ever shown the contracts between the mills and the contractors, who have the ability to set rates with the log haulers."
Hopefully, new log-hauling regulations, called
Class E regulations, will correct the problems Doty said have persisted in the industry for years. Class E regulations were provided for by House Bill 192, passed by the 1990 legislature. The Public Service Commission is currently working on the regs, due out later this month.Since the 66 truckers formed the Log Truckers Association of Montana in 1987, membership has grown to a total of 283 members, Doty said. "We have about 150 active members."
Independent loggers who own their own logging truck, log haulers working for timber
companies, and businesses are all members, either active, supporting or associate.While House Bill 192 may fulfill a long-term goal of the association there is still a lot of work to be done, Doty explained.
"We need to seek better relationships between haulers and contractors. We also need to make sure all haulers are aware of the new Department of Transportation safety regulations." The DOT regs are recent and are entirely separate of the new Class E regs, he said.
While Doty, who has served as president of the group since 1988, said there is much to be done, the association will have to do it without him at the helm.
"This is my last term," he said. "I will be getting out in September. I have served to the best of my ability and it's time for some new blood to come in."