Wages

Just trying to get a feel for wage’s a windmill op. would receive
beginner verses a journey man
anyone want to weigh in on this
thank you
Kirk

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Hi Kirk;
It depends on where you are in the country.
I would compare starting wages- Walmart starts at $11/hr, and you’re getting a chance to learn a trade, a craft skill, so you’re going to earn less at first. So $11/hr to start. My last journeyman windmill op was making $23 an hour in Santa Rosa, CA. If you’re motivated, follow instructions, and show up on time you should move up quickly. -Bruce

Kirk; So I still think the range I gave you is valid; $11-23.
The $11 op is going to be a feeder and will be learning from the ground up from a journeyman with at least 4 years’ experience on the Heidelberg. His/her first week will be watching the press run, loading-unloading stock, learning various maintenance duties. They will familiarize themselves with the 2 operators’ manuals and have access to the parts manual. I would not stick an inexperienced person on the windmill without training; the results will be poor. The $23/hr person will be experienced in all aspects of the press, and assist in training, job planning, and be able to answer questions like ‘will this job run on the windmill’ and know how to plan a job for register. In my opinion, the shop production manager makes about 15% more than the journeyman printer. Is this info helpful at all? Let us know.

Generally in a union shop the apprentice wage is 60 percent of journeyman. The top wage will wind up being a reflection of what you can teach the new hire. Ideally you would want the employee to know more than you do at the end. The employee is making you money, so treat accordingly.

You got some good information. You did not say if you know how to run the Windmill or not. I feel that changes what level of pressman you seek. In my case I was self taught. I kind of understood what should happen and learned on the fly and asked a lot of question here in the blog. One big help was 40 years of running printing presses and having / seeing letterpress done for me. I had run GTO’s so the feeder was not an issue. With a beginner any like kind press background should help. Keep in mind this press has very few safety features. One mistake and fingers or body parts can go missing. Good Luck

20.50/hour gets you a 43,000 dollar annual salary if you work 40 hours x 52 weeks in a year.

41.00 an hour with paid vacation is an 86,000 dollar take-home salary for a 8x5 or 40 hour work week.

11.00 an hour is 22,880 annual salary if you work 40X52.

Think about what the minimum you need to earn from the press in a year, what it takes in annually if you keep it feeding jobs. A good operator should be able to earn their salary and/or put you above what you’re thinking is the minimum; consider what you would like to offer as an attractive salary and benefits package to gain an operator who is willing to put the time in and sell you their expertise.

Another way to look at it is, what value does that press/operator create?

If one presumes that the pressman is running a 300 cards an hour and prints 3 color cards that retail at $5.00 each, in 3 hours generates $1500 in value. At the 5:1 ratio of finish value to production costs, the cost of production is $300, the pressman should be able to set up and run 1 color in an hour, so 3 hours to run the job. Even at $30 an hour full cost (wages+taxes), that pressman is still a good value, if your production systems are doing their job correctly.

Thank you all
this is great information, it will help me a lot
Kirk

In the UK there once (50s-60s) were so called ‘National Agreements’. As each department in a printing house had its own separate Union there was a resultant set of Agreement booklets. The London lot (and a tightly specified area around) had one set and much of the rest of the countryside, another different set. ( Entirely different Union of course) The pay rates were nationally agreed, and in theory. fixed. To give a flavour, there were ‘machine extras’ for coping with a second colour unit, there were very firmly fixed overtime rates, (a special chant was uttered,” first two hours at time and a quarter, next two hours at time and a half all thereafter at double time’. and so on
There were house customs as well, eg in one of my employs, the office staff, non union of course, were in extremis allowed to help in the bindery with simple tasks like sticking stamps on a million envelopes by midnight, and were delighted to get Union overtime rate for it! Firms’ ‘following the Jewish customs’ had quite amazingly complicated rules about days off in lieu of Christmas if it fell on a Wednesday and so on. The full book was about thee inches thick.
Almost that entire industry has now vanished, a lesson for history perhaps? If I still had my book, I could easily look up Windmill platen minders rates.