A lumper service is when a shipper or receiver hires third-party workers to help load and unload freight from the trailers or trucks arriving at their facility. There are a few reasons for this. Chief among them is the intention to give drivers an opportunity to rest and recuperate while someone else loads or empties the trailers. Lumper services are most common in food warehouses.
Basically, the thinking here is that drivers are already on the road for so many hours of their day. Therefore, you want to avoid additional strain on the driver at various stops. By having a third-party service handle this job, the benefit should, in theory, be threefold:
- Drivers get more time to rest.
- Drivers avoid risking injury on unfamiliar docks.
- Quicker loading or unloading allows drivers to save time.
Unfortunately, nothing is ever quite that simple. In this case, drivers may question the efficacy of the final point above.
That said, let’s hold that thought for a moment and dive into how a lumper service actually functions.