For any of you in the trucking business that don't know what a lumper is, it is a person who unloads or palletizes freight. Most people not in the trucking business assume wrongly that all freight is put on pallets and a forklift puts on and takes off the freight from a trailer. We wish it was that easy. Despite the fact that trucking companies are paid to haul freight from point to point, most companies have gotten sucked into the unpaid business of unloading and sometimes loading the customers own freight off of and on to their trailers. With the hours of service rules being as strict as they are and the succeptibility to injury, many companies do not allow their drivers to unload freight by hand. Instead, they hire a lumper. Lumpers are typically meth addicted thiefs who will rob you in a heartbeat if they can. They accept cash payments from the trucking company's driver to unload freight from the trailer so it is arranged the way the receiver wants it arranged. Logic begs the question, "If the customer wants the frieght arranged a certain way, why don't they order it that way from the supplier, and why is the trucking company paying to arrange it?" Great question, and one that I personally have never been able to answer. Apart from weak minded trucking company execs who cave into unscrupulous tactics from receivers in order to keep hauling freight, I can't fathom a reason. Most lumpers do not pay any taxes on the money the make. Many are receiving unemployment checks while making 400 - 800 per day tax free. They are the scourge of the industry and a law to require shippers and receivers to oad and unload their own freight is desperately needed. A law demanding this would stop tax free monies from being paid to drug addicted thiefs, would allow drivers to focus on driving instead of arranging for and sometimes unloading the freight themselves, only to find themselves too physically worn out to drive.
LUMPERS are terrible and should be eliminated. Write your congressmen today to le them know about this little known bad side to the trucking industry. |
