Government regulations are notoriously difficult to navigate, particularly for small businesses without big legal departments or even bigger bank accounts.
The moving industry – which is primarily made up of small family-owned businesses – is struggling with this difficult reality as it attempts to navigate the rules and regulations associated with the Service Contract Act (SCA). The SCA is a new requirement for industry when it services military household goods shipments under the Global Household Goods Contract (GHC) program.
The transition to this new series of requirements would be much easier if moving companies were receiving consistent guidance from the Department of Labor (DOL) – the government agency tasked with enforcing SCA compliance. And industry wants to comply. Despite the moving industry’s repeated requests, however, DOL has been unable or unwilling to provide clarification. On numerous occasions over the past year, the American Trucking Associations’ Moving & Storage Conference (ATA-MSC) has sought DOL’s assistance in understanding the specifics of applying the SCA to the unique moving industry – but to no avail. A series of webinars and in-person programming have left business owners just as confused as when they first learned about the new requirements.
ATA-MSC, USTRANSCOM (the branch of the Department of Defense that manages the GHC), and even the GHC contractor have asked DOL to provide a compliance guide to assist businesses in understanding and complying with the set of requirements that previously did not apply to the industry in Household Goods military moves. Despite assurances from the DOL that the agency is “looking into” how to create such a guide – no progress has been made on this front.
Some of the questions the industry needs answered are:
- How can movers comply with the prevailing wage requirements given that drivers can have multiple stops and often cross different state lines when servicing military shipments?
- How can the SCA be applied to the current industry model, where many drivers work as independent owner-operators?
- How are these requirements factored in when a driver is servicing military and non-military shipments in the same load?
- What type of record-keeping is necessary for compliance?
Until these questions are answered in a meaningful way, it is not possible for the moving industry to understand how servicing military shipments under the new GHC program will work within their business models. The moving industry wants to continue serving the courageous men and women who defend our nation. To do so, we must have answers and government partners who are willing to provide them.