In a unanimous vote yesterday, the Executive Committee of American Trucking Associations approved a plan removing barriers to membership in The Maintenance Council.

Adopted by ATA in 1998, the membership plan (known as the "Wren Plan," named for John Wren, chairman of ATA's strategic planning committee) would have required any TMC member to be employed by a company that was a member of both ATA and an affiliated state trucking association. This plan is the apparent cause of a 1/3 membership loss in the previously
growing and thriving TMC, one of several
councils of ATA. Prior to this policy requiring membership linkage, anyone could be a TMC member without having any other affiliation with ATA.
Recognizing that their new membership policy "may have been flawed," and was draining TMC membership and overall ATA revenues, this alternative plan put forth by the TMC leadership group has now been accepted by ATA. Now anyone may be a member of TMC without regard to the employer's relationship with ATA or any other group.
The compromise plan appears to be as much semantics as substance. It requires TMC to abolish the concept of "member," replacing it instead with "subscriber." ATA says this will put those who receive services from TMC in the
same category as anyone who would subscribe to publications owned by ATA.
Anyone employed by an ATA member company could subscribe to TMC at a reduced rate.
This provision applies only to TMC. ATA's other councils are still subject to the provisions of the Wren Plan.
TMC became a council of ATA in 1979. It annually contributes over $2 million to ATA. This revenue is derived from membership dues, sale of technical materials and a large equipment show.