THIS IS A GOOD QUESTION, GET SOME COMMENTS LETS ON IT

No more rails in MOST places. A lot more variety, tube grinds, grind & temp logs, use of gloves, case lighting...you could go on for a while guess that means we've been around a while. Wages have remained fairly stable though + $1.22 in 27 years, that don't even cover the raise in insurance co pays!

No more whole rounds or bone in chucks. Customers are more cautious about what they buy. Prices are at 100% or more mark up as opposed to the 35 to 50% markups I was trained to do. Owners have taken greediness to a whole new level. Meat depts are run by women more often now than before. Experience and knowledge is not valued as much as it once was. No security. Sanitary awareness is better. Safety is taken a lot more seriously.

Stores getting rid of meat cutters to bring in precut meat, unions getting weak, lowers pay for journey men cutters, health care benefits decreasing. mostly union type of bs nor more sunday pay, decreased holidays, no birthday pay. COOL (country of origin labeling), wrapping machines. i still cut bone in chucks and whole rounds.

Following my father’s retirement and the sale of his last butcher shop in 1984, I went to work for Albertsons - specifically its “Grocery Warehouse” division here in southern California (a chain in which we processed carcass beef, lamb and some amount of hogs).

My final wage while working for my dad was $10.50-an-hour under the table with a yearly bonus of 1% of net profit, which, throughout the final ten years, amounted to an average of $1.700 per full-time employee per year. Therefore, the weekly wages per full-time journeyman meat cutter, including myself, totaled $462 (based on 48 hours of work, and excluding any and all monies derived from the sale of beef hides which we were allowed to keep and to sell provided that customers did not want wish to keep them).

When I went to work for Albertsons in April of 1984 (hiring-in as a journeyman meat cutter), also in April of 1984, the hourly “straight-time pay” for a journeyman meat cutter working under the terms of the United Food & Commercial Workers’ (UFCW) Southern California Contract was $12.98 per hour, which amounted to $570.77 for a 48-hour work week.

Fast-forwarding to 2013, we find that the current hourly “straight-time” pay scale for a journeyman meat cutter working under the terms of the UFCW’s Southern California Contract is $21.08.

But, as impressive as that may appear to some, when we consider that, in 1974 the UFCW contract set journeyman cutter pay at $5.32 per-hour and that that hourly wage rose to $12.98 per hour by 1984 (an increase of $7.66 - or roughly 140% throughout those ten years), said hourly rate has risen by a mere $7.10 - or roughly 60% - throughout the past twenty-nine (29) years. And the same holds true for meat cutters throughout the entire United States, not to mention the entire working class throughout the entire U.S.

So, to answer Leon’s question (“What changes have you seen in the meat business during your career or lifetime?”), I would have to say - the attitude of grocery capitalists toward their employees. Yes, a lot of the downward pressure on wages has been the result of non-unionized competitors - most especially Walmart/Slavemart.

Nonetheless, given that grocery capitalists are faced with very little international competition, the fact that our wages and benefits have been driven down quite drastically over the past thirty years or so, has much to do with greed.

So, for those of you regret your having “missed out” on such things as learning how to break beef, be grateful. For breaking beef on a regular basis for long periods of time is hard on the body; just ask a few of the disks in my lower back.

In brief, for those of you who are still young enough to switch careers, piss on the grocery-meat industry. It isn’t anywhere close to being the “good trade” that it once was, and it is only going to get worse, not better. Mark my words.

Persevere.
Guy

I started working for a chain of independents in the Phila. suburbs. It was an up and coming Independent with the reputation for the best meats

THEN:  all hanging meat we broke down on-site . Wooden blocks.  Sawdust on the floor.  "Dynamite" used to bring old meat back to life. Crushed ice added to the grinds to "chill" it (and also add weight). Old ground meat "pressed" for 3 days, slime scraped off, then re-blended and comes out cherry red, with no chemicals added.  Old poultry or fish soaked in salt water to bring it back or if too far gone for that, then soaked in Borateam and water. Turkey cutlets slicd "just right" sold as Italian style veal cutlets for 4 times the price.

Sanitation almost non-existent, department only cleaned once a week.  Triple-time on Sundays.  2 1/2 time on Saturday nights. 1 1/2 time on weeknights and over-night.

By the time I retired from a major chain in in 1995: all poultry chill pack with a 5 day code so that it still had a week's life in the customers fridge after the code.  Meat Mgrs terminated for trying to sell poultry after the 5 day code expired. No dynamite on rewraps, no ice in the grinds.

Sanitation like an operating room.  Cutting room totally broken down and sanitized  twice daily. All grinders and blenders broken down and sanitized after every grind, which must be at least every 4 hours.  Met Mgrs termnated for regrinding hamburger or not marking down after 4 hours and throwing out at 24 hours. Cardboard on the floor instead of sawdust. Nylon cutting tables instead of wood blocks. No hanging beef, all boxed.

Sunday pay down to 1 1/2 time, Saturday and Saturdy night straight time.  Time and 1/2 on weeknights only after the first night at straight time.  Night shift down from time an 1/2 to just a $2.50/hour premium.  Can you see why I left the business?

Oversll, sanitation and food safety much improved, but compensation way down!

-- Edited by jimhenry2000 on Thursday 4th of April 2013 08:30:17 PM

Guy,

  Your last paragraph is dead on. There are better ways to make a living today. 

However I do not see the decline in this trade as due to greed.  The first and foremost obligation of any business is to its owners (or stockholders).  In the process, it's just a great thing that they create jobs for  us along the way. Businesses have to be able to compete and one of the major "controllables' is labor cost.  If one can earn more elsewhere, we should do that!

 

 

I started working for a chain of independents in the Phila. suburbs. It was an up and coming Independent with the reputation for the best meats

THEN:  all hanging meat we broke down on-site . Wooden blocks.  Sawdust on the floor.  "Dynamite" used to bring old meat back to life. Crushed ice added to the grinds to "chill" it (and also add weight). Old ground meat "pressed" for 3 days, slime scraped off, then re-blended and comes out cherry red, with no chemicals added.  Old poultry or fish soaked in salt water to bring it back or if too far gone for that, then soaked in Borateam and water. Turkey cutlets slicd "just right" sold as Italian style veal cutlets for 4 times the price.

Sanitation almost non-existent, department only cleaned once a week.  Triple-time on Sundays.  2 1/2 time on Saturday nights. 1 1/2 time on weeknights and over-night.

By the time I retired from a major chain in in 1995: all poultry chill pack with a 5 day code so that it still had a week's life in the customers fridge after the code.  Meat Mgrs terminated for trying to sell poultry after the 5 day code expired. No dynamite on rewraps, no ice in the grinds.

Sanitation like an operating room.  Cutting room totally broken down and sanitized  twice daily. All grinders and blenders broken down and sanitized after every grind, which must be at least every 4 hours.  Met Mgrs termnated for regrinding hamburger or not marking down after 4 hours and throwing out at 24 hours. Cardboard on the floor instead of sawdust. Nylon cutting tables instead of wood blocks. No hanging beef, all boxed.

Sunday pay down to 1 1/2 time, Saturday and Saturdy night straight time.  Time and 1/2 on weeknights only after the first night at straight time.  Night shift down from time an 1/2 to just a $2.50/hour premium.  Can you see why I left the business?

Oversll, sanitation and food safety much improved, but compensation way down!

from hanging beef to boxes i remember the union meeting where the rank in force ok'ed boxed beef. when i started Saturday at 6 pm we covered the counter with a red mesh you couldn't buy meat on Sundays no one worked we spent time with family ect... it was hard work but nobody bitched

Female Cutter made a great point too

We went from Butcher to Meat Cutters to Hackers

Not a lot of pride out there in some shops
Just cut it quick and slap in a package

jimhenry2000 wrote:

---

I would add that when i started, every Saturday when the week's work was done, the wrappers would be having sex with the cutters in the meat cooler while the doors  at each end were guarded.  I want to stress that this was not me, as I was just an innocent 16 year old apprentice at the time!

---

 You know I keep hearing this story from you older guys but I am not sure you are just telling stories or if all this really did happen.  I just don't see it.  WHY was the wrapper always in the cooler having sex with the cutters?  some of you make it sound like she was taking in a train of cutters.   Okay maybe it really did happen  BUT WHY?   Was she promised a raise?  Was she rewarding their hard work for the week?  Was she just a really nice girl?   She was probably so ugly she couldn't get anyone outside of the meat dept right?   I just don't see it.   I have worked with alot of female wrappers who had been in the business since the 60s to 80s and I never heard anything like that until i joined this club. I have also worked with even more male cutters who had been in the business just as long and I never heard any bragging from them either.  So forgive me for being skeptical. 

 

FDarn,

  It definitely happened and I can tell you the wrappers were not at all unattractive.  But these people were my parent's generation and I cannot explain it either. 

Jim

it was a different world

many meat dept. had 3-5 wrappers, hams were wrapped as was all poultry

this was back in the 70's and before....different world

you go in the breakroom, it was a cloud of smoke- most folks smoked back then, and you did in the breakroom..
this was an era before the sexual harrassment policies of today- you could joke around, not afraid to offend someone,

you worked hard, and liked to joke around for levity, to break the monotony- it was a close knit group, and when you have males and females working together-things happen-you still see it today- people in stores have affairs and such-

i can tell many stories, but i'd have to change my screename to be anonymous to protect the innocent (and guilty)

Here's one example- I was working late doing inventory on a saturday night and one of the wrappers was on the rotation- she shared some "troubles" and wanted to talk, so i listened....next thing you know , she's wanting a hug, well,
if i didnt stop, things would have happened quickly...



I remember having to move to get "full-time" in a new chain store, the meat supervisor drilled me on being professional, and conducting myself with dignity -he did this to everyone...
well, the second day i was at this high volume state of the art store, im walking to my car, and there are the meatcutters in a car in the parking lot-drinking beer....always keeping an open seat for a wrapper or deli girl
again a different world.

i remember going to a store with my grandmother in the mid 70's(before i got in the business) the meatcutters were handing out free "eggnog" that had alcohol in it- while smoking cigarettes right in the store.

lots of things went on,,or are still going on,,,but its not for public consumption-thats why you dont hear about this stuff

my first job as a clean up kid,,,was because a friend of mine,,who had the job, got caught smoking weed in the cooler - he got caught, and fired,,but from what i heard, that was a store tradition on saturday nights, even with some managers

you dont "hear" about alot,,because most wont air dirty laundry or water under the bridge, or frankly, was not too proud of it...

once all the stores installed cameras everywhere- alot of people got let go- even managers-but officially, they wouldnt tell you it was because they got caught drinking or messing around...bad press- no store wanted that stuff aired

different times back then,,,,doesnt make it better or worse, just a different world-

I remember one meat manager had to be carried to the compressor room -to get him out of sight of the district manager-it was before christmas, and he had too much to drink

i could write a book-but im on the other side of it now- we had a new store opening, and i was interviewing for meat dept personell
I could smell whiskey on this meatcutter's breath-
he had good experience- i took him outside and said " if I smell whiskey again, you will be asked to leave immediately"

today you have to take an overkill attitude because of liability- that wasnt such an issue years ago, and once a manager "knows" about something and doesnt "react" he and/or the company can be sue'd severely.

when i talk to the old-timers that worked in the 60's and 70's, the stories they tell are hard to believe- it was a different world


I get some young fellas asking me this stuff from years ago- i dont volunteer much-although i have some good stories,,,,doesnt set a good example or tone for today