OPINION:
For nearly 75 years, Suddath Government Services, a company that specializes in moving our troops, has moved more than 1 million active-duty military families around the world. This is evidence that Suddath is deeply familiar with the challenges and thoroughly committed to the mission.
As president and CEO of Suddath Government Services’ parent company, Suddath Cos., I speak from extensive military moving experience when I sound an alarm that the Department of Defense’s planned outsourcing of all military moves to a new, largely untested private entity called HomeSafe is fraught with problems that require congressional oversight and independent scrutiny.
The Defense Department’s Transportation Command has been slow to answer thorny questions, short on transparency to clear up confusion regarding implementation and silent on problems raised about the new global household goods contract, or GHC. That’s why an audit of the contract and its assumptions by the Government Accountability Office must be a priority.
So far, HomeSafe has executed an extremely small percentage of moves — less than 1% of domestic moves — on a test basis. But when the GHC is implemented at scale, I’m concerned that it will have far-reaching negative impacts on both military families and the thousands of small businesses across the nation that underpin military moves.
Under the current system, movers are rated on on-time pickup and delivery, and their claims ratios — and suffer penalties such as imposed blackouts for nonperformance. It’s ironic that at a time when the federal government is busting monopolies and pledging to make government contracting more competitive, the Transportation Command is replacing a system that promotes competition by rewarding good performance with one that will force consolidation and harm small businesses and independent contractors.
The GHC imposes federal regulations on business owners without providing any meaningful guidance on how to comply with them, including applying the complexities of the Service Contract Act to a wide swath of participants across the supply chain — small businesses, contractors, freight carriers, port agents and independent owner-operators.
As a result, we’re left with many questions, including whether the rig-owning truckers who play an integral role in moving military families will be forced to become employees if they want to continue to service the military. If so, will they have to sell their rigs to the moving companies that employ them? Can those companies absorb that array of overhead costs, including packing materials, fuel, labor, etc.?
What if those drivers carry mixed shipments that include household goods that aren’t part of the military program?
And the million-dollar question: What if the independent souls who own their own trucks and prize being their own boss refuse to play by those rules and pivot instead to other, less-burdensome sectors? Who will move military families then?
The Transportation Command’s stated purpose in shifting to the GHC is to improve the level of service to our military families — a worthy goal. But in the six years since the idea of the GHC was first floated, the industry has worked hard to improve the system. In fact, the Transportation Command’s own dashboard reports an 88.9% satisfaction rate in the peak season and 93% satisfaction in 2024 so far.
At the same time, in a recent survey of military families, 85% expressed concern about the negative impacts of the GHC on military families, and two-thirds said they want to see the contract canceled.
Why does the Transportation Command seem determined to throw out a system that promotes performance and competition and that receives high marks from military families in favor of a risky monopolistic experiment fraught with questions and concerns? Questions abound. Our congressional representatives need to push for answers — and hit the pause button until they get them.
• Mike Brannigan is president and CEO of Suddath Cos., a global transportation, relocation management and logistics company that services commercial, residential and military household moves.
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