Olymel/Red Deer questions?

[dalek]

Olymel has a help wanted ad out in the marketplace section of pretty well every paper in Ontario this weekend looking for workers to move to Red Deer at 10.75 an hour. Is Red Deer really that desparate for workers, or is Olymel THAT hard to work for? Not interested for myself, just seemed strange to be that hard up for employees.

[cowman]

Well dalek, they sure are hard up for workers! Why would any one in their right mind go to work for these A-holes for $10.75 when you can go to work at just about any job in the oil patch for one hell of a lot more?
Olymel is a typical low life employer! Work you hard in completely scummy conditions for peanuts! They actually could teach Cargiil/IBP a thing or two about being the lowest on the totem pole?
Actually one of the kids I have working for me, used to work for these scumbags? The stories she tells!
You can not believe how these people operate! To them "employees" are no better than the hogs they process! Don't even go there!

[WoolyBear]

One has to take all the stories you hear into context cowman..... $10.75 isn't much in relation to "oilpatch" jobs but I am sure that if you want to train yourself you would find better, higher paying jobs elsewhere too. Many of the worst stories too come from "scumbags" that are afraid too work, or too lazy too.

Granted when you hear of the "profits" that Olymel and Maple Leaf, IBP or Cargill are making, you would think that they could pass more onto the employees, rather than the investors. Come to think of it........... a little more to the hog farmers too, as I am one of those too!

The Olymel ads are running in the Manitoba papers too where they are trying to get workers from the ML trading areas too. I wonder where they will get their workers...... ML has been bring them in already from Central America, and the Eastern Bloc so I hear.

[WoolyBear]

$10.75 isn't a very attractive wage to anyone that has a family to support or even a single person with a mortgage, particularly if the work involved is physically demanding.
As cowman says the oil industry pays a lot more, but the type of work and location has got to be considered along with the fat paycheck.
Work in the oil industry isn't always in the most attractive locations in the province and spending time with family is sometimes a luxury for folks in the 'patch', and there are undesirable employers there too. Some that consider staff just a warm body to bring in the bucks !

Starting out in the workforce isn't always positive, but many of the folks that aren't necessarily young anymore can tell of jobs they had that weren't great, and employers that treated them like crap, but they needed the work to keep the wolf from the door.

[cowman]

Wooly Bear: I don't know if you sell to Olymel, but I assume you probably talk to people who do? Olymel operates on a "contract system" with producers. The contracts are pretty well all one way...in Olymels favor! Several mid sized producers have packed it in because of the screwing they got from Olymel! Several more are just waiting until their contract runs out.
I find it sad that these once very prosperous hog farms are falling by the wayside...not because they couldn't do an excellent job, but because they are getting the shaft by a Quebec packer! These family type operations put a lot of money into the local economy? Will the big mega barns do the same?
Ask a producer who sells to Olymel about how their hogs grade? Ask them about how the company demands a discount if their index gets too high? Ask them about pigs killed on Friday and don't get graded until Monday take a heavy discount due to "red joints" that the plant says is arthritis?
Olymel has a super high turnover of staff. They have brought in a lot of peasants from El Salvador and other South American countries. They usually hang in there until they learn to work the system and go on welfare!

[cowman]

cowman, why isn't the umbrella organization ( AB. Pork) doing something to ensure their membership isn't getting this type of treatment ?

[cowman]

Probably the same reason ABP can't do anything with Cargill/IBP? I don't think big packers care too much what some mickey mouse cattle or hog association thinks?
The fact is it takes a willingness by the people who make the rules, to enforce them and set limits on how businesses operate. That is our government, whether provincial or federal? Neither one of those seem to do much?
It would be helpful if our government could step in and dictate to these packers how they will operate, so they aren't always screwing the producer and the consumer? Unfortunately that will never happen with the people we have in power? I am not a big fan of the NDP and I surely would never advocate to let them run the show, but a common sense government that was interested in a fair system for all would be nice, instead of a bunch of corporate toadies who are only interested in carrying out their masters wishes? The big corporations actually rule Canada...not the elected sell out politicians!

[blackjack]

...pretty much looks like the corps have used the governments of today to set up the rules for legal slave trade...read the other day the Africans wish the G-8 countries would quit sending money to those that control their countries...I guess we're free to do what ever we want but do not most opportunities happen because of who we know not what the qualifications may be...