Friends,

According to Forbes.com

Top 10 blue-collar jobs:

Elevator installers and repairers $63,620
Locomotive engineers $57,990
Electrical and electronics repairers $57,400
Railroad conductors and yard masters $55,530
Power-plant operators $55,000
Ship engineers $54,820
Construction and mining supervisors $53,850
Gas-plant operators $53,670
Farm managers $52,070
Transportation inspectors $50,370


Stijloor.

Let me add one more job in it.

11. Management representative - $ 50,000 ;)

Any idea about management system ( QMS, EMS, TS…) auditors

Let me add one more job in it.
11. Management representative - $ 50,000 ;)

That's not considered a "blue-collar job" according this definition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-collar_worker).

Any idea about management system ( QMS, EMS, TS…) auditors

If you are referring to external (3rd Party) auditors, see above comment.

Stijloor.

I don't know how common this is, but I know of at least one plant...

1. Paper Machine Operator, $100,000+

No breaks, no lunch, and if the web breaks things get interesting in a hurry. The paper is moving at 60 mph.

I don't know how common this is, but I know of at least one plant...

1. Paper Machine Operator, $100,000+

No breaks, no lunch, and if the web breaks things get interesting in a hurry. The paper is moving at 60 mph.

That's probably an exception. "No breaks, no lunch".....:( Would that not be in violation of labor laws?

Stijloor.

That's probably an exception. "No breaks, no lunch".....:( Would that not be in violation of labor laws?

Stijloor.

Technically they can take a break, I guess, but when YOU are RESPONSIBLE for a machine that is that costly, and can make a HUGE and EXPENSIVE mess in seconds, well...

Have you ever seen a roll of toilet paper "take off" by itself and roll itself out onto the floor? Speed that up by a factor of, oh, 10 or so, and widen the roll to 40 feet. And change the toilet tissue to copier paper or news print. Potential paper cut from Hades.

Not only do they have to stop the machine ($$$$$) and clean up the mess, they then have to get this 40 foot wide roll rethreaded into calendars, ect. before the machine can start again.

Wanna go for a cup of coffee?

The few times I have been to a paper plant, the Operators I have seen are guys who don't want to talk, and when they do they still don't take their eyes off of the machine. They don't much appreciate anyone walking around their equipment either.

I think I'll just stick to the QA gig, thank you very much.

That's probably an exception. "No breaks, no lunch".....:( Would that not be in violation of labor laws?

Stijloor.

:topic: Sad thing there are many labor violations that IMHO seem to have grown worse over the the last 20 yrs. That is one example, another one is in my previous company people get called into work for 2hrs and sent home. Sometimes they are told what time to come in as they are leaving the plant and if they are called at home and don't answer the phone or arrive when they are asked at notice it is an absence. This is in 2007 USA (An ISO 9001:2000 certified company). The attitude was that "no one is breaking your arm to stay there". I think its an ironic state of affairs when I have to hope that our Asian cusomters will demand their suppliers go to some type of social accountability standard.

I wonder if Police Officer is considered blue collar? My Step Dad is a Sargent, Deputy Sheriff in MA. He makes anywhere from 80K to 125K per year depending on how much OT he chooses to work. His motto is "business is booming", which maybe in some correlation with the above labor violations! :confused:

I don't know how common this is, but I know of at least one plant...

1. Paper Machine Operator, $100,000+

No breaks, no lunch, and if the web breaks things get interesting in a hurry. The paper is moving at 60 mph.


You know, for 100k a year (if I could handle the stress, which I can't), I can forgo the breaks/lunches. Talk about process ownership!

Say an average college education is $50,000, and you have a kid who... well... hates school. Get out of high school and go to work for a plumber. By five years they can have their masters license, and 60k+ to open their own business. Or, go to work for someone and make a decent living. As a plumber, there will always be work.

I think the line is getting more blurred as time passes. As more technology enters every industry, the difference between schooled and non-schooled is getting smaller.

When is the last time you carried your car to a mechanic? An independent mechanic, or to the dealer? The mechanic I go to is good and charges reasonable rates. I feel pretty confident he is not starving.

Friends,

According to Forbes.com

Top 10 blue-collar jobs:

Elevator installers and repairers $63,620
Locomotive engineers $57,990
Electrical and electronics repairers $57,400
Railroad conductors and yard masters $55,530
Power-plant operators $55,000
Ship engineers $54,820
Construction and mining supervisors $53,850
Gas-plant operators $53,670
Farm managers $52,070
Transportation inspectors $50,370


Stijloor.

I find it interesting that tool and die makers are not on this list. Good tool and die makers, last time I was in a position to check, just a few years ago, with overtime could frequently clear 6 figures in the automotive industry.

Geoff Withnell

I find it interesting that tool and die makers are not on this list. Good tool and die makers, last time I was in a position to check, just a few years ago, with overtime could frequently clear 6 figures in the automotive industry.

Geoff WithnellIn the year 1999, as a contract manufacturer in the Chicago market, I was paying CNC machine tool programmer/operators $52,000 base plus benefits. Rarely did anyone work more than 40 hours per week, but those who did received time-and-a-half for each hour over forty, in 15 minute increments. I wasn't aware of any competitors who regularly scheduled overtime - we were all pretty savvy about scheduling within budget so overtime did not eat into our profit. The only time I scheduled overtime was on rush orders from customers who paid a super premium which allowed me my same profit margin on the overtime pay. Even then, I only agreed to take such an order after polling my operators for "volunteers" to earn overtime pay.

My big advantage, of course, was that once the programming of the CNC was done, most of our machines were able to run "lights out" and would send an alarm to the skeleton crew if and when a tool broke beyond the redundant tooling built into the programming or when the stock hopper needed to be refilled. Automatic sensors on in-process work would stop the machine if a dimension was out of spec for that segment of the production cycle. Once the machine stopped, the skeleton crew would investigate - if it was more than a routine "fix," the machine sat idle until its programmer came back on duty - no overtime because we built a cushion into due dates so we rarely, if ever, had to "fight a fire" to get a product out the door on time. Since we had such contingency plans, we were able to take things in stride routinely when folks who hadn't performed a process
FMEA were running around like decapitated barnyard fowl.

In the year 1999, as a contract manufacturer in the Chicago market, I was paying CNC machine tool programmer/operators $52,000 base plus benefits. Rarely did anyone work more than 40 hours per week, but those who did received time-and-a-half for each hour over forty, in 15 minute increments. I wasn't aware of any competitors who regularly scheduled overtime - we were all pretty savvy about scheduling within budget so overtime did not eat into our profit. The only time I scheduled overtime was on rush orders from customers who paid a super premium which allowed me my same profit margin on the overtime pay. Even then, I only agreed to take such an order after polling my operators for "volunteers" to earn overtime pay.
<Snippage>

.


Wes, I'm not talking about machine tool programmers/operators. I mean the folks that build new machines or lines. The people that make the tool for the sand mold to cast a new engine block. Or the tool to forge a transmission housing blank. In 1999 at a facility that made engine blocks in Saginaw, MI, it was not at all unusual for a journeyman toolmaker to break 100K. They had significant overtime, but there were several reasons for that. One, not running any over time actually may be inefficient, if you have a good benefits package. We figured that it was less expensive to work overtime than to hire unless the overtime was routinely in excess of ~15 hours/week. Two, we usually were not able to hire enough toolmakers. We had an active apprenticeship program, but openings went begging. High school guidance counselors considered a student who went into our program a failure, even if he/she was well suited for it, and would make more money and be happier at it then as a liberal arts major!

Geoff Withnell

....if it was more than a routine "fix," the machine sat idle until its programmer came back on duty - no overtime because we built a cushion into due dates so we rarely, if ever, had to "fight a fire" to get a product out the door on time. Since we had such contingency plans, we were able to take things in stride routinely when folks who hadn't performed a process
FMEA were running around like decapitated barnyard fowl.

Wow. You had a PFMEA process that accounted for every possible contingency and never had customers who screwed up and needed you to get them out of trouble (unless they were willing to pay a "super premium" for you to consider it). You are to be commended for having the only job shop in the history of the universe where there was never any fire-fighting, and you could dictate due dates to customers. Congratulations. :applause:

Structural Iron Workers - $81,500.00 ; and worth every penny of it.

Wow. You had a PFMEA process that accounted for every possible contingency and never had customers who screwed up and needed you to get them out of trouble (unless they were willing to pay a "super premium" for you to consider it). You are to be commended for having the only job shop in the history of the universe where there was never any fire-fighting, and you could dictate due dates to customers. Congratulations. :applause:Absolutely! Note - we were contract manufacturers, not strictly a "job shop." If we did "one-off" production, we charged a very hefty premium and we were worth it. If the due date we were willing to agree to wasn't satisfactory, the customer could always go elsewhere. After our third year, we never struggled for business. We "cherry-picked", selecting only jobs which fit our capability and capacity, giving priority to highest profit. I have previously written how we fired customers who were not profitable, mostly because of their desire to "test" our will to stick to our principles about payment and pricing.

For one thing, we NEVER "bid" on any project in competition with some other company. Read here (http://elsmar.com/Forums/showpost.php?p=101893&postcount=3)for a description of our quoting procedure.

We had contingent spare time to accommodate an urgent request, but we were a profit-making enterprise - no charity to customers. If you continuously train your customers to be "last minute Annies" by accommodating requests for "urgent" treatment without a penalty, the only one paying a penalty is you. Our business grew every year, by plan, not by accident.

We never over-booked and we never had the kind of stress on personnel or machines which comes from pushing either beyond limits without regular maintenance and in the case of humans, rest and relaxation, with time for self, family, friends, and community.

Absolutely! Note - we were contract manufacturers, not strictly a "job shop." If we did "one-off" production, we charged a very hefty premium and we were worth it. If the due date we were willing to agree to wasn't satisfactory, the customer could always go elsewhere. After our third year, we never struggled for business. We "cherry-picked", selecting only jobs which fit our capability and capacity, giving priority to highest profit. I have previously written how we fired customers who were not profitable, mostly because of their desire to "test" our will to stick to our principles about payment and pricing.

For one thing, we NEVER "bid" on any project in competition with some other company. Read here (http://elsmar.com/Forums/showpost.php?p=101893&postcount=3)for a description of our quoting procedure.

We had contingent spare time to accommodate an urgent request, but we were a profit-making enterprise - no charity to customers. If you continuously train your customers to be "last minute Annies" by accommodating requests for "urgent" treatment without a penalty, the only one paying a penalty is you. Our business grew every year, by plan, not by accident.

We never over-booked and we never had the kind of stress on personnel or machines which comes from pushing either beyond limits without regular maintenance and in the case of humans, rest and relaxation, with time for self, family, friends, and community.

Are you still with this fantastic enterprise?

Are you still with this fantastic enterprise?Alas, no! When my partner died of cancer, no one in his family wanted to work. I liquidated the business to pay his heirs in cash (key man insurance wouldn't pay off because my partner had neglected to include a family history of cancer), rather than financing the business to pay them off; placed all the employees with competitors and helped all customers move to competitors, often with the same machine and same operator running the product. I took another one of my multiple retirements and stayed retired for almost a year before taking an ownership position in an aerospace designer company moving into manufacturing its own products. I exercised my exit plan once the manufacturing part was up and running profitably.

As I have frequently written (http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=9117), I am semi-retired, occasionally advising and working on my book. I do give about a dozen keynote speeches a year and also indulge my hobby of story-telling for adults (I get paid for storytelling, but usually donate the checks to some favorite charities.) I'm older than most of you readers, but in excellent health and physically active as a co-instructor five mornings a week in an aquacize class at my local YMCA.