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Loads of Opportunity
'No-touch' Freight Is Just Fine For Redlegs Lumper Service
By Mary Hance
Curtis McGuire totally supports the concept of no-touch freight and hours of service rules that would encourage fleets, shippers and receivers not to use drivers to load and unload trailers. The more truckers can do what they do best — drive — the better it is for McGuire's business.
McGuire's company, Redlegs Lumper Service, is a classic example of building a successful niche business within the trucking industry. It's a niche many truckers intensely dislike, but that has become as much a part of trucking as diesel engines. From his side, McGuire sees himself as a true entrepreneur — he saw a need for a service, figured out a way to provide it and went after it.
It is a real success story for McGuire, who nine years ago was laid off from his job as a receiver driving a forklift in a warehouse. As he stood around wondering what he was going to do, a trucker asked him if he wanted to unload his truck. He offered to pay $100 in cash for what was about an hour's worth of work.
He jumped at the unexpected job and realized that a whole company could be built around providing the loading and unloading or "lumping" service in an organized way.
At first, he hung out at a warehouse and asked if he could unload trucks. One thing led to another, and he expanded. He hired employees and began getting contracts with trucking companies and distribution centers. To get business and to demonstrate his reliability to prospective customers, he promised customers, "We would show up on time or it would be free." It worked. Today, Redlegs has about 40 workers in Columbus, Ohio, and another 25 in Montgomery, Ala.
Lumpers get paid by the load, not by the hour, he said. They can typically work three or four trailers a day at around $40 to $50 a trailer. The work schedule depends on the shift and on how busy a distribution center is. Having "hungry" employees is another key to his success. "A lot of people think of lumpers as being old alcoholics working to get enough money for a bottle. But here, I have college guys or guys starting a family, people who need money and want to work," McGuire says.
A lot of people ask McGuire why is the company is called Redlegs, and why the workers are called "lumpers."As far as the Redlegs moniker goes, McGuire is a member of an Ohio National Guard artillery unit. Red is the artillery branch's official color, and artillerymen are known the world over as "redlegs." Many of his fellow guardsmen were also his first employees when he started the company in 1992, and so the "Redlegs" name fit. Plus, people seem to remember it.
The term "lumper" is a West Virginia coal mining term referring to the people who would go behind the carts of coal and pick up lumps that fell off the loads. The mine paid them by the lump, just as trucking lumpers are paid by the load.
McGuire says the beauty of the business is that his customer base includes both trucking companies and distribution centers. He says trucking companies view the service as a perk for their drivers, who don't want to load and unload.
"With us, they can drop a trailer and pick up an empty trailer and go." The other half of his business comes from distribution centers that simply need help loading and unloading trucks and rail cars.
Truck One in Columbus uses McGuire's people to unload as many as 75 trailers a month in peak season. "I've been in the business for 23 years, and he is head of shoulders above the other people who provide the lumper service," said Dave Decker, operations manager for Truck One. "They show up, and it saves the driver from having to drive all night and then unloading half a trailer.
"Curtis is a super guy and is very dependable. His people are very professional. Quite honestly, some of the people just want to unload and get their money, but there is more to it. They need to be sure that the material that is taken off is the same as what is on the bill of lading. And if it is not, that the carrier is notified. Curtis takes the business seriously. That's why we use him," Decker said.
M.S. Carriers uses Redlegs' services at warehouses in both Columbus and Montgomery. Frank Irion, the division sales manager for M.S.' Midwest region, says Redlegs usually works for M.S. when there is a complicated or time-consuming load that must be sorted out and separated, Irion said.
"Our drivers get paid to load and unload, and some like it and some don't," he says. "This gives us an option. Sometimes if the load is really time-consuming, they can make more money if the wheels are turning."
You may someday see Redlegs in other cities. McGuire plans to move into markets in Pennsylvania in 2001, and hopes to be a national company within eight years.
Taking Your Lumps
Truckers are pretty clear in their opinions about lumping. They don't care who loads and unloads the freight as long as they don't have to do it. First of all, most drivers are not paid to load and unload the freight they haul. Even if they are, their hours are better spent making miles than doing heavy lifting. Secondly, it is simply not their job and should not be expected of them.
Todd Spencer, president of the Grain Valley, Mo., Owner-Operator, Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), says most of OOIDA's 45,000 members believe lumping or loading and unloading freight should never be one of a driver's jobs.
"Drivers are not lumpers," Spencer says. "They get no more pay to do it. Do you see the pilot of the airplane getting out and unloading the baggage? No. For obvious reasons. It is the same thing [with drivers]. They are rightly indignant about having to load or unload. That is not supposed to be dumped on drivers. The product is not theirs. It belongs to the shippers and receivers.
"The responsibility for that should never be theirs in any scenario. Their mission is to operate the equipment, drive the truck, to make timely deliveries. That is their obligation," Spencer adds.
Wayne Cederholm, with C.R. England Inc., the nation's largest refrigerated carrier, says lumping freight is a top issue for the industry both because of the agitation it causes drivers and also because of the costs associated with it.
"There is already a shortage of drivers, and this is one of the issues they are upset about," Cederholm says. "Shippers have to help save these drivers and keep them in the industry. We'd like to throw it [freight loading] back to the shippers and let them take care of it."
Cederholm, whose company has 2,500 trucks and 3,000 drivers, says using lumpers can be useful as long as the deal is negotiated ahead of time. "We don't want the driver in the middle of it. We don't want the driver having to negotiate on the spot.
"What we are trying to do is provide more initiatives to either get the shippers to take care of the service or to get them to pay the carriers enough to make it worth their while to handle it."
Bob Rothstein, general counsel for the 1,000-member Truckload Carriers Association in Alexandria, Va., agreed that drivers should not get stuck with the loading and unloading responsibilities — especially since there is a statute that clearly prohibits coerced loading and unloading without pay.
"We should never be asking drivers to unload," Rothstein says. "They are paid to drive. I think a lot of carriers are now sympathetic to that and are paying to have it unloaded," Rothstein says.
"The shipper or the carrier or the receiver ought to assume the responsibility for the unloading. They can get a third party to unload it or use homeless guys who are hanging around or whatever. But it should not be the driver," Rothstein says.
Rothstein adds there have been many problems with freelance lumpers, many of whom hang around docks, hoping to pick up a quick buck. They want to work by the job and often do not pay taxes or provide correct information to the carriers or distribution centers in case of an audit. "Then the carriers have a problem with the IRS with trying to take the lumpers' deduction," he says.
Rothstein adds that the issue of lumping may not be a Top Five issue for his membership, which consists of fleets, but the long waiting times at docks that is often associated with it certainly is.
"Asset utilization is down when the driver is hung up waiting for a lumper or having to unload himself," Rothstein says.
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