10-4 Magazine - For Today's Trucker

JANUARY 2007 TRUCKER TALK
OLD GAME – NEW TWIST
By Writers and Owner Operators Rod & Kim Grimm

In a perfect world, shippers would ship, receivers would receive and drivers would drive. But let’s face it, trucking is not a perfect world. Most of the time drivers drive and shippers ship, but when you get to the other end of the load, often it’s an entirely different story.

Lumpers are a part of trucking, like it or not. They have been for years and I’m afraid they will be for years to come. Why would companies want to hire employees and pay for their benefits to unload and break down the freight they order, when they can get the companies that deliver that freight to pay it? Some companies don’t want their drivers on a dock unloading at all, and no matter what the lumper’s quote, they pay. We learned years ago to at least try to negotiate a better price, but some places have posted price lists and they won’t budge at all.

There is a very old law that says companies cannot force you to hire lumpers, but we all know that isn’t always the way it is out there. Some places have a few rules to help you decide to hire the lumpers: time limits for drivers, none for the lumper; power equipment for the lumper, none for the driver; hire the lumper and they’ll back you in right away, but if you don’t they tell you to park it and that they’ll come and get you in a couple hours when they are ready for you; and the list goes on and on.

Not too long ago we got to a dock that we’d been to several times before. But when I checked in, there was a big change. I told the receiver that we would unload and break it down ourselves. He then asked if we had a Certificate of Liability Insurance on file. I hadn’t ever heard anything about that before. He looked through his book and, of course, we had nothing on file, which left us no alternative but to hire lumpers. It cost $115 to get 6 double-stacked pallets pulled off and broke down into 16 pallets, and it took four hours to get this accomplished. If a lumper is fair with us, we’ll hire them every time, but if they are not “fair” we will never hire them again. Wouldn’t they make more money if they got our business every time instead of just once?

I want to make drivers more aware of this Certificate of Liability Insurance because a lot of places are starting to ask for it. When we got back to the yard, our company had put a copy of this certificate in our file, so now we have it in the truck if it is ever asked for again. Later that night, while waiting in a long line to check in at a dock in Stockton, I asked some other drivers if they’d had this insurance thing come up at any places they had delivered to and a few had (and these places weren’t in California, so apparently it is happening everywhere).

Several things determine if and when we will hire a lumper such as the price, how bad the breakdown is (one time we had 14 pallets that needed to be broke down to 127), how we feel and what time of day it is (I’m not getting up at midnight to unload half of the trailer). We own our own pallet jack, and having it along helps us to not have to wait for one on the dock, but sometimes other drivers assume that it belongs to the warehouse and they walk off with it. We’ve had to hunt it down many times and convince drivers that it was ours just to get it back.

Costco is one company that does a great job and treats drivers well. At Costco, drivers don’t need to go on the dock at all – they unload the freight they ordered and don’t charge a thing for it! Many years ago we delivered to a warehouse in Woodland, California and they had the same policy. No driver was allowed to unload or break down freight. You were offered coffee in the break room and told where the facilities were if you needed them (and they were clean). They had a sign on the wall that said that the accuracy rate for the freight received and sent at this warehouse was 100%. I was pretty impressed by that. It really gives meaning to the old saying, “Do it right the first time.”

We went to Tennessee a couple of months ago and I couldn’t believe what happened at our last drop of the day. When I told the receiver that I’d pull the 2 pallets we had brought him off of the truck he asked, “Why, we ordered it.” He then got on his forklift and promptly pulled off the 2 pallets, counted the freight, signed all the paperwork and sent us on our way in about 5 minutes. We should clone him! It is such a pleasure to deliver to a place like that – it would be nice if they weren’t so rare.

We deliver and pick up at many of the same places each week, and I can honestly say that most are really good. I guess you can say it’s like anything else – there are always a few bad apples in every barrel. When you can get to know the people and they know you, it’s nice to be able to call and ask if you can bring a drop in early or maybe ask if they can stay a little longer because you are running late. And they either say “sure” if they can or “sorry” if they can’t. Enough said.

Maybe some day lumpers will be replaced with robots. Well, maybe that’s not such a good idea either. Maintenance and replacement parts might cost more than we have to pay now. In the meantime, we’ll do our best to keep trucking as perfect as we can, and deal with the other “stuff” when we have to. Remember, be sure to keep a copy of that Certificate of Liability Insurance in your truck at all times – it just might help you to avoid hassles and headaches (and expensive lumpers) down the road.