Splinter: Craft Beer's Moral High Ground Doesn't Apply To Its Workers

Very little jobs out there pay decent and require no skills. I trained on the job after starting out in a basic position at my shop. Of course prior experience and some schooling helped me get hired (though I have no degree) If anyone out there thinks good high-school grades = a lifetime of easy money, they're in for a rude awakening.

I do however believe in liveable wages for all jobs. Free market allows companies to raise costs quicker than wages, so we'll all forever be behind the 8 ball. Best to keep trying till you rise above the "basic bitches" out there.

 

There is no such thing as any job that does not require additional education and studies? I am confused as to what your asking? Any job I ever had I had to learn new skills along the way, acquire more specialized skills, and yes at times take a class or two in the evening if needed. I believe that is pretty much normal for any job. Lets say for instance you get out of HS and go into the plumbing trade. You have to apprentice and work your way into your position. It will take years and a lot of back breaking work but that is sort of what it takes no. Nothing is easy we all know that, but in the end you will have a life long career. You work in any large union city like NY, Chicago, etc and are a skilled trade worker you pretty much have a career for life. Now lets say your not a union guy or live out where I am in AZ which is a right to work state. If you are a skilled trade person you still can earn a great job. The key is your skill level. If your a top end person you can work almost anywhere. Guys here I know make good money and shops snatch them right up because they are good at what they do, they can run crews and are very valuable. Right now the trades have a short fall of "SKILLED" people. You have a ton of guys who are not very good or just want a job and care less about doing it well. They don't make much or won't get hired because companies don't want them. So the key is being a skilled tradesmen and I doubt you will have any issue landing a career job. Also, if you do come from a union shop and then move say to AZ the non union guys here love you because your skill level is beyond most due to your training.
I know that was long winded but its not a simple answer if that makes sense.

 

Not news at all, as I know many who work in small breweries.

 

I was going to make the same point that a lot of skilled people are retiring. The auto manufacturing sector will be crying for skilled workers in the next 10 years as baby boomers retire. CNC machining is the future, and not too difficult to learn on the operating side of things.

 

Yes sir, you have a generation of skilled people retiring and a massive gap now. People cannot run machines or craft things, the old timers are going or gone and there is a lack of skilled people. Your correct on auto, people have zero clue how to use the machines. Companies will pay top dollar for guys/girls who can. If you look across the country there is a massive sector that needs highly skilled tradesmen and again if you know your stuff you can command top dollar.

 

Just some info for fun.

Average Sheet Metal Worker Yearly Salary in Illinois. Sheet Metal Workers earn an average yearly salary of $74,890. Salaries typically start from $34,230 and go up to $101,510.

The median annual Bricklayer salary in Chicago, IL is $53,485, as of April 29, 2018, with a range usually between $48,815-$65,716 not including bonus and benefit information and other factors that impact base pay.

IBEW Local 134 Electrician salaries Chicago, IL Area $44/hr

Just pulled some basic info as a reference. This does not include benefits and other perks. Also this is base pay and not foreman and higher level spots as you progress in your craft. Again each company is different and that is just life, as you progress you earn more and if your skilled you earn even more, etc. Sure seems like better pay that $12 bucks an hour working at some office for 50 hours a week.

 

In a response to an earlier post, I mentioned that I had a union job for the summer. It was building the Schlitz Brewery in Winston-Salem. I made something like $11 an hour working for Kelly Brick. It was great for a young guy and I turned the windfall into a trip with my best friend to places including Vancouver, B.C. the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Crater Lake, and a week or so in Big Sur. While we didn't notice then the inklings of a craft beer explosion, but boy was it ever about to happen. We did seek out Anchor.....

 

Unions had their place, but I feel they are more geared towards appearing to be for the workers while padding their pockets. Just turn over the means of production to the workers and be done. New Belgium seems to think the same thing.

 

The thing about safety and good pay, is not many employers practice it willingly. Wherever there is money comes corruption, but the union still serves as a group effort to get good contracts for it's workers. I'll never pretend the union is perfect, I've seen it from the inside. But it does have its place even today imo.

 

I come from a union household. My dad and brother are in the trades (electric). They get paid good money.

Brewing pay all depends on the size of the brewery. It’s silly to assume that just because you brew in a 7bbl brewpub you will make the same wage as a brewer at that castle in St. Louis. The money’s just not there.

That being said, good breweries will spread out what they make and take care of their employees. I personally know a brewmaster that insisted on making the same pay as the brewers and cellarman.

There are also bad breweries where owners and higher-ups pocket the money and pay their workers shit. These people are called assholes. I don’t buy their beer.

Even worse, there are breweries who start small and therefore offer small pay to their employees. However, as they grow and start raking in cash, rather than letting that tide raise all ships, they insist on paying their skilled laborers minimum wage. These people are called super assholes. I don’t buy there beer.

Unions are a good thing and have done tons to protect workers who would’ve been screwed by the system otherwise. They also are sometimes not the answer. It all depends on the business.

Also, spare me on the ‘this is why big beer is better’ BS. Didn’t Bud sweat out the teamsters for like 4-5 months back in the ‘70s for a $2 raise? Unions call for boycotts of the big guys all the time because of distro conflicts.

 

The opportunities workers are facing in an economy with near record low employment?

 

Two kinds of people comment on the dangers of brewing beer in small breweries Ones who know how dangerous it can be. Ones who have never done it.

And those of you who don't pack your twelve year old off to work in a steel mill and then go work your normal fifteen hour shift can thank unions for that.

 

In my first post I said: “While it may literally be true that trades don't require a college degree, that seems a bit misleading.”

This point was being made in a sort of joint reply both to the comments you made:

“You cannot go to college with blinders on.... That does not work today and people need to wake up and see what does.”

“By the way, the trades as I stated above don't require a post-grad degree?”

and the one made by @Lahey who said, in an explanation of what he thought you were saying:

“He mentioned getting into the trades. Many of those don't require any degree, the ones that do are probably quite high paying.”


I would say that it has always been the case that going into anything with blinders on doesn’t guarantee anything and that almost any profession that can be named requires a lot hard work to maintain and grow skills, a fairly high degree of education/training, and some sort of certification (or validation) of completion. In other words, without the first two the third means little, regardless of whether the certification is a college degree or not. So the point of my question was to try and highlight that the simple possession of a piece of paper is not a ticket to a job in any area whatsoever, rather it is a ticket to be interviewed for a job in the first place.

From the general comments you both have made throughout this thread I think we are mostly in agreement that there is quite likely no such thing as a career that will be successful into the future that doesn't require years of preparation, hard work, ongoing development of skills and some sort of validation of competence, so the basic issues really being addressed have nothing to do with having or not having a piece of paper and go much deeper than that. Long-term success at anything needs certain skills, hard work, development of new skills and paying attention to where the future seems to be going so as to have adaptability. But I'd add that a second, equally important, thing that counts is whether or not the person has an employer who recognizes the value of those skills and that hard work (i.e., their human capital) and recognizes that claiming and holding the moral high ground includes creating and attending to a work environment for others that rewards their hard work and their development of skills in some way, whether it be monetary or not.

Thus, I'd say that the important point being made in the article, and by the OP. is that it is hypocritical, and dangerously self-deceptive for an employer to rail or cry out against how unfairly the big kids treat him/her when that same employer treats others badly or without respect for their contributions to keeping the business successful.

 

Great point about the employer needing to recognize skills and reward them. My current employer isn't very attentive when it comes to this. The most spoiled employees here get that way by means of intimidation or ass kissing. I think that's pretty common, but unfortunate.

 

Mechanical, electrical, fire, explosion, chem-liquid, chem-fumes, pressure, burn, enclosed space, slip, height, lifting, repetitive motion, extreme temperatures, boiling liquids. Sometimes even radiation and lasers.

Take your average manufacturing or production job and you’ll see 3, maybe 4 of these. Make beer and you get all of them. Brewing is dangerous work.

 

Good point also it leads to higher employee turnover which is not good for the employer.

 

I totally agree, and I also agree that an employer must enrich his/her employees also. I am a big advocate of that, you cannot have a company without your people. It all comes down to the company, how well they are doing, and if they can indeed pay higher salaries to their people. So yes, if a brewery gets large and is making good money their people should get raises and bonus, etc. and grow with the company, I am 100% against a company that does very well and still does not pay its people and that is not what I was ever saying above. It all comes down to where the company is at, if they have the means, etc.

 

In Colorado, in the automotive industry, the union guys don't get paid better wages than non union. This may not translate across to the beer industry, but when I have a union shop that can only pay $25 a flat rate hour or a mom and pop place paying $40 it makes me question what is the union really doing for the working class anyway.

 

Man, from my experience that would be an outlier, but I don't know other states situations. Not every union shop will make more than a non union shop (different jobs and processes etc). Not every union position in a shop will make more than non union (shop floor vs management). I can't imagine why in Colorado that would be though, interesting.

When I hear anti union people, it's usually a complaint that we make too much money (a liveable wage is apparently is an embarrassment of riches) and we don't work hard enough. I've worked with equally lazy people in both union and non, so to me that is bull.

 

That is true nationwide in the Postal Service.