FreightWaves Today | September 25

Malcolm Harris (1:00)

It's September 25th, and it is a Friday. We have had such a great time here, of course, coming off of a great FreightWaves Today, Yesterday Live out of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Some beautiful interviews and just beautiful time that we had up there. Zach, it's good to see you, sir. How are you?

Zach Strickland (1:17)

And it's a Friday, you know? Let's land this plane. I'm sure that a lot of people feel that way, but we got good quality guests lined up for this last hour.

Malcolm Harris (1:30)

Oh, some great quality guests that we have lined up for this last hour. I'm excited to introduce today's guest because we have a duo, a dynamic duo. All right. First up is going to be at the end of hour one, is going to be Andy Kuchar. He is a president of Centerline Insurance, and we're going to get an insurance update from Andy. I'm excited. He is actually going to be in studio, some great conversations to be had there. There's a lot happening within the insurance space.

Zach Strickland (1:58)

Insurance is, I mean, risk analysis doesn't sound like super into, but I mean, in today's world.

Malcolm Harris (2:05)

Yeah. In today's world, we got to have it.

Zach Strickland (2:08)

Like, I'm a finance guy. I was joking with him about it earlier. He's like, you're a market guy, and I'm like, listen, I'm finance. Risk analysis is pretty much all I do.

Malcolm Harris (2:18)

That's all. That's all you do. Then also, joining us is going to be Will Bewley. He's a co-founder and CEO of WoFlow Automation Arts. With Will, of course, AI is showing up nearly in every single part of freight and logistics right now. Joining us again, Will, he's going to be talking about how business are navigating today's constraint capacity environment. We're going to talk a lot about capacity, about innovation with Will, and then Andy, of course, with insurance. But we're also going to have a nice SONAR Update and plenty more on the way in terms of information from Zach that you just simply cannot get from anywhere. I'm excited.

Zach Strickland (2:54)

Yeah. I mean, the week has been crazy in the market, actually.

It's like we thought that we were going to have this softening that's going to be consistent. Capacity is going to start coming. It's just not happening in the scale that I think a lot of us thought that it would. So it's an interesting time nonetheless, which is the theme of, I guess, the last few years anyway.

Malcolm Harris (3:19)

It's a very interesting time indeed. We have an interesting Morning Minute, and we're going to get to it right now.

SPEAKER_3 (3:27)

We kick things off with a deeply troubling lawsuit that raises serious questions about how US fleets vet third-party staffing companies recruiting drivers across the Mexican border. At least 45 Mexican truck drivers are now represented by attorneys pursuing allegations that they were recruited to haul freight in the United States through promises of legal work authorization and then subjected to coercive labor practices.

29 of the drivers are currently plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit against California-based Omega Compliance Solutions, LLC, Henry G. Gamino, Rick Gamino, and several US trucking and transportation companies, including South Star Logistics, Trius Trucking, New Legend, B&B Transport, A&I Transport, Diesel Direct, and Diesel Direct West. The plaintiffs allege that from approximately 2022 through 2025, Omega and its recruiters targeted professional commercial drivers in Mexico with promises of lawful US work authorization, employment-based visas, and in some instances, eventual permanent residency. According to the complaint, drivers were given purported immigration case numbers and misleading information about individual taxpayer identification numbers before allegedly paying activation and visa processing fees and being placed with US carriers.

The plaintiffs contend the arrangement amounted to forced labor and trafficking under federal law and alleged they faced passport confiscation, unlawful payroll deductions, and deportation threats when they questioned the process or attempted to leave. Over in the parcel sector, Amazon is aggressively deploying cutting-edge safety technology and pumping major cash into driver compensation. The logistics-forward retail giant has begun rolling out 360-degree surround-view cameras from Netradyne on its electric delivery vans, technology that can identify vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians from all directions and notify drivers in real time. By the end of the year, the technology will be installed in 50% of Rivian electric delivery vehicles across Amazon's network. Amazon is also launching a massive $1.9 billion injection of funds that will be dispensed to owner-operators in its delivery service program to increase driver pay by an average of 16% nation-wide, with national average earnings rising by about $1 to nearly $24 per hour. Combined with advanced AI-backed routing systems and new dynamic hazard alerts that automatically adjust routes during inclement weather or when hazards are detected, Amazon continues to set the technology and compensation trends that the rest of the parcel industry is forced to follow. Finally, a strategic acquisition is expanding cold chain visibility for some of the most temperature-sensitive freight on the planet. Temperature control systems provider Copeland has acquired Dixon, a deal that adds monitoring and compliance technologies serving the healthcare and life sciences industries to its portfolio. Dixon's cloud-based platform provides temperature monitoring and visibility throughout the healthcare supply chain, from manufacturing to final delivery. And the system notifies food and pharmaceutical shippers of potential losses before they happen.