Playing the Waiting Game and Losing

Lost your profit margin? Try looking at the loading dock. The Truckload Carriers Association of Alexandria, Va., released a study in June showing that dry van drivers spend an average of 33.5 hours a week waiting to load and unload-at an estimated $1.5 billion US in lost productivity. The results are similar to the findings of two surveys conducted in 1998 and 1996 on refrigerated carriers, which concluded that drivers spend over 43 hours a week in unproductive time.

The true costs, of course, are higher. Loading and unloading hassles probably contribute significantly to drivers’ decisions to quit hauling certain types of freight (produce, mainly) or quit driving trucks altogether. The physical exertion, particularly when done under stress or following hours of sitting, also increases a driver’s risk of injury.

Freight rates or contracts can be structured to specifically exclude loading and unloading, but the exclusions are often ignored. A common ploy: the consignee doesn’t have the right equipment or the equipment is broken down. The truck has to be unloaded by hand. The warehouse is, of course, shorthanded. So drivers must either do it themselves, hire lumpers, or wait . and wait.

The law offers little recourse. Canadian laws don’t say who is responsible for loading and unloading. U.S. law says a shipper or receiver cannot force a driver to hire help loading or unloading. Nor can a shipper or receiver employ what’s called “constructive coercion” to force drivers to hire lumpers. For instance, a driver who refuses to pay help can’t be told go to the back of the line. And if a shipper or receiver insists that a driver hire help, the shipper or receiver must pick up those costs. Despite ominous penalties (up to $10,000 US in fines and jail time), the law is rarely enforced.

Unfortunately few carriers, shippers, or receivers bother to specifically address the issue in their freight contracts, settling instead for an all-in rate. In most situations loading and unloading is assumed to be the carrier’s common-law responsibility-i.e., it’s the carrier’s vehicle and the carrier’s obligation to see the freight is loaded onto and off of it, regardless of how long it takes once it’s at the dock. Only after the freight is past the tailgate is the carrier’s duty fulfilled.

But if details aren’t worked out up front, real-world responsibility almost always drops to the low man on the totem pole-the driver or owner-operator. “It puts the driver in a tough spot,” says Wendell Erb, vice-president of Erb Transport, a refrigerated specialist based in New Hamburg, Ont. “Responsibility for loading and unloading should be clearly stated in the contract with the shipper.” And, for that matter, in the contract between an owner-operator and carrier, says Todd Spencer of the Owner-operator Independent Drivers Association, the Grain Valley, Mo.-based association representing 40,000 truckers in the U.S. and Canada.

Clever recruiters often lure owner-operators by promises of “no touch” freight and by vaguely worded contracts that say the owner-operator is responsible for loading and unloading “if applicable,” he warns. “Regardless of what they say, they’ve just dumped it on you.”

Erb insists the best answer to the $1.5-billion question are rate structures and contracts that define and assign loading, unloading, and extra services like sorting and stacking. “If the shipper or receiver will need help loading or unloading, we separate and clearly show that charge,” he says. Once it’s identified, the parties can decide among themselves who will pay the fee.

Spencer says that’s a good move for drivers. “The responsibility may ultimately end up with the trucker, but at least it’s no longer buried,” he says. “It becomes an item that’s there for all to see and for all to decide who will pay for what.”

The biggest mistake the industry can make would be to continue to ignore the problem, he adds. “You can’t just bury the issue on the shoulders of the driver,” Spencer concludes. Nor can carriers afford to leave $1.5 billion sitting at the docks.