By Craig Fuller, CEO of FreightWaves

The freight market is a pendulum — and when it swings, it may be the buyers or sellers of capacity that now have the power in rate negotiations. Ever since the summer of 2020, trucking companies have largely held all of the power in rate negotiations, based on their ability to squeeze their shipper customers for rate premiums. 

If the trucking firms didn't get a rate increase in a contract rate negotiation, they would simply move the capacity to the spot market to exploit market conditions and much higher spot rates. And whether these negotiations are made through direct confrontation or in a passive- aggressive manner through tender rejections, the outcome is largely the same.