Freight Handling

Ever since Roman times, trade flows have relied on the development of new transport infrastructures. Famous routes have included the Mare Nostrum or the Great East Road with its jade and silk routes, and later, those connecting the medieval fairs of Flanders, Lombardia, the Hanse, and the Ile-de-France region. The revival of the Mediterranean basin and the discovery of the New World further accelerated those trends. While these developments have strongly rested upon the work of those in charge of transport operations, the workers who handle and shift the freight to be stocked or delivered have played an equally important role. Ship suppliers, dockworkers, dock laborers, and longshoremen in the United States; stevedores in Great Britain; wharfies in Australia; timber rafters on the Lumber River in North Carolina; permanent packers and casual meat porters at the Paris Central Food Market; hucksters, street sellers, four-season merchants, and rag-and-bone men in the United Kingdom; junkmen in the United States; and warehouse [Page 587]assistants all over the industrialized world—all have been (or still are) the backbone of the freight chain.

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the emergence of major infrastructures around the globe—for example, the Pacific and Missouri Pacific Railroads, the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway, the Suez and Panama Canals, the Trans-Siberian, the Jingbao Railway, the U.S. interstate routes and Golden Gate Bridge, the railway connecting Zouerate to Nouadhibou in Mauritania, the Mont Blanc, Seikan, and Channel Tunnels, or the Pearl Bridge in Japan—was closely followed by the expansion and diversification of transport modes.

Until the invention of the shipping container by Malcolm MacLean in 1956, the transfer of goods required some significant physical activity. When the crate containing the goods was separated from the truck trailer frame, and when merchant ships were tailored to transport the freight, packaging became standardized, which led to the development of intermodal transport and the industrialization of port operations.

Following this short historical reminder, this article now turns to the numerous tasks performed by freight agents in the haulage and logistics sectors. This is followed by a focus on the organization of handling activities with especial attention to the constraints and enabling factors, including details about the tools and equipment commonly used by agents. The final section on the intensification of work and its consequences ends with an attempt to briefly outline future perspectives.