I felt privileged to attend the 2024 Call on Washington with the ATA Moving and Storage Conference last week, joining with more than 100 household goods industry leaders to meet with our congressional representatives and encourage them to consider the household goods market workers and customers in their voting actions on several topics, such as moving fraud.
Wheaton World Wide Moving | Bekins Van Lines has been working to educate our customers for quite awhile when it comes to rogue operators, but we, the industry, and our customers need the government to crack down on those bad actors to limit the deception and fraud. Our moving agents help save those moves where we can, but rogue operators place significantly more stress on our customers than they should have to deal with in an already often emotional situation. The ATA MSC's efforts have already paid off in this respect, with a vote in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approving legislation to strengthen the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and add penalties to bad actors.
Some of the other issues we spoke about concern moving military families, supporting our independent contractors, and including moving tax deduction and employer reimbursements as part of tax reform. My gratitude to the legislators who met with myself, Mark Kirschner, and the rest of the Indiana contingent. Rep. Andre Carson, Senator Todd Young, Senator Mike Braun, Office of Congressman Jim Banks, Victoria Spartz, and Larry Bucshon, M.D. took the time to listen and understand where we as their constituents hoped they would land on these issues.
#MSCinDC24
