Lumper, swamper, devanning, floor load: a plain glossary of dock labor terms

Lumper. A worker who loads or unloads freight at a dock for someone other than the facility that owns the dock. The word is old dock slang for the person doing the lifting and it has outlasted every attempt to replace it. It is not an insult and it is not a job title on a W-2 form; it is what the trade calls the work.

Lumping Agency. The company that employs, supervises, dispatches, and pays lumpers, and that sells their labor to warehouses. In practice this is the entity a facility contracts with, invoices, and holds to an insurance certificate. See also what separates contract dock labor from staff.

Swamper. Regionally, a helper who rides with a driver and assists with loading and unloading. In some markets swamper and lumper are used interchangeably; in others a swamper is specifically the driver's own helper rather than a dock-based crew member. Ask which is meant.

Facility Operator. The warehouse, distribution center, or third-party warehouse that owns or runs the dock and buys the labor. The buyer in almost every conversation on this site.

Crew lead. The agency's working supervisor on site. The person who calls a load out of spec, signs a shift sheet, and is the reason a dock can be handed to a crew rather than managed worker by worker.

Yard jockey, or spotter. The driver who moves trailers between yard slots and doors. Part of Yard Management & Trailer Spotting, and sometimes provided by the same agency that provides the unloading crew.

Unloading. Removing freight from a trailer or container. The core of Trailer & Container Unloading (Devanning).

Devanning. Unloading a shipping container, especially an ocean container. The word comes from "van," which is what containers and box trailers were once called. Devanning a forty-foot box is materially harder than unloading a trailer, mostly because of how the freight is packed and where the box sits. That difference is the subject of container devanning at the warehouse.

Sorting and segregation. Separating freight by SKU, destination, store number, condition, or any other rule before it moves into the building. Often the largest share of the labor time on a mixed trailer.

Restacking. Rebuilding pallets so they meet the receiving facility's specification: height, overhang, pattern, or shrink wrap. A trailer built for cube efficiency at the shipper frequently has to be rebuilt at the receiver.

Palletizing. Building pallets out of loose cases. What happens to a floor-loaded trailer before the freight can be put away.

Transloading. Moving freight from one mode or one vehicle to another without putting it into storage. Rail to truck, container to trailer, trailer to trailer.

Cross-docking. Receiving freight at one door and shipping it out another with little or no storage in between. Related to transloading and often confused with it.

Rework. Changing the freight itself rather than just its position: repackaging, relabeling, kitting, building display-ready assortments. Slower, more detailed, and priced differently from unloading.

Reverse logistics. Handling freight moving backward through the supply chain: customer returns, store returns, recalls, salvage.

Floor load, or floor-loaded. Cases stacked directly on the trailer floor with no pallets. Maximizes cube for the shipper and maximizes labor for the receiver. The reason two identical-looking trailers can have unload times that differ by hours. Covered in floor-loaded versus palletized trailers.

Palletized. Freight arriving on pallets, which can be moved with a forklift or pallet jack. Fast, if the pallets meet spec.

Slip sheet. A thin sheet of fiberboard or plastic used instead of a pallet, handled with a push-pull attachment on a forklift. Common on imports.

Mixed SKU, or rainbow pallet. A pallet carrying more than one item number. Requires sorting before put-away.

Load shift. Freight that moved in transit. A shifted load is a safety question before it is a productivity question, and the crew is entitled to stop and document it.

Seal. The numbered tamper-evident device on a trailer or container door. The seal number on the paperwork should match the seal on the door, and a mismatch is a documented exception, not a judgment call.

Live unload. The driver stays with the trailer while it is unloaded and leaves with it.

Drop trailer. The carrier leaves the loaded trailer in the yard and the facility unloads it on its own schedule. Different clock, different labor plan.

Bill of lading, or BOL. The document describing the shipment and acting as the receipt for it. It tells the crew what is supposed to be on the trailer, though not always how it is packed.

Packing list, or manifest. The itemized contents, often more detailed than the bill of lading.

OS and D, written OS&D. Overages, shortages, and damages. The exception categories recorded at receiving when what came off the trailer does not match what the paperwork claimed.

Lumper receipt. The document a driver takes away after paying for unloading. It has to carry the agency's legal name, the date, a trailer or purchase order reference, the amount, and the services performed, or the carrier will reject it.

Certificate of insurance, or COI. Evidence of the agency's liability and workers compensation coverage. A facility's vendor process usually will not move without it.

Proof of delivery, or POD. The signed record that freight was delivered, with any exceptions noted on it.