Established in 1941, the Western States Trucking Association (WSTA) was originally known as the California Construction Trucking Association (CCTA). Today, the WSTA is the oldest, non-affiliated, non-profit trucking trade association in the U.S.
While our founding members only operated dump trucks , over the ensuing decades members increasingly operated all types of equipment in many areas of construction – hence our moniker “Helping Build the State Since 1941.”
As the association grew it was intricately involved in rate/tariff setting when our industry was economically regulated. With the passage of the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act in 1994, the U.S. Congress effectively ended any state involvement in the economic regulation of “intrastate” trucking. California was not alone in being preempted from economic regulation of intrastate trucking, the powerful Texas Rail Road Commission and Public Utility Commissions in many states saw their influence over the trucking industry eroded or eliminated.
Despite the economic deregulation of our industry, many of our members must still comply with various economic based regulations such as prevailing wage and meal and rest break requirements. Additionally, the independent contractor business model used successfully for decades by our members is increasingly under assault both within California and nationally making it even more important than ever to have a strong small-business voice.
Through our long history, the WSTA has fought for equitable treatment of independent owner-operators and small-business motor carriers. Many of our members that started as one-truck owners successfully grew themselves into larger motor carriers prompting the association to expand its benefits programs to include employer related support such as DOT drug and alcohol testing to discounted access to statutory workers compensation insurance.
Today, after the greatest economic recession since the Great Depression, California’s construction industry has only rebounded slightly compared with pre-recession numbers in terms of private sector housing starts and even public sector infrastructure spending. Environmental regulation of the industry exemplified by rules promulgated by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) are redefining the industry and causing many small-business truckers to elect early retirement as opposed to complying with these onerous regulations.
The WSTA has stood alone among trade associations nationally aggressively fighting for the right of truck owners to continue operating vehicles they purchased that conformed to federal environmental standards at the time of manufacture. We have active lawsuits in the federal courts challenging the legality of CARB and U.S. EPA regulations that target our industry for regulation based on flawed and manipulated scientific data. Today, many regulations promoted as advancing environmental (or safety agendas) are nothing more than a “Trojan Horse” promoted by larger entities to advance a quasi-form of economic reregulation of the industry unnecessarily burdening small-business trucker with increased compliance costs.
The association is growing in size by expanding our appeal to motor carriers outside of our traditional construction trucking base. Association leadership recognized that many issues affecting our traditional core membership has the same impact on truckers engaged in other modes of the industry. In the western U.S. there is no other voice for small-business trucking other than the WSTA. We’ve expanded our outreach and recruitment efforts by establishing an interstate conference focused on property-carrying owner-operators and motor carriers that operate into/out of California. In recognition of the demographic changes facing the industry we’ve also established the first of its kind conference specifically tailored for Spanish speaking truckers.
The WSTA publishes the monthly magazine Western Transportation News designed to inform our readers on the many issues affecting the industry. Our editorial policy is unfettered by political or advertiser conflicts. We tell it straight with cutting edge articles nobody else will publish for fear of upsetting their political masters or advertisers. Politically correct we are not!
The WSTA maintains multiple websites supporting it various operating subsidiaries.
