HOW SELF-SERVICE MEAT COUNTERS AFFECTED MILWAUKEE'S APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM AND THE WORK OF MEAT CUTTERS
Scope and Content Note: The formal apprenticeship program was ending when he became active in Local 73. “There was not enough interest from the employer's side.” The union's position was that employers could train meat cutters in stores if they so desired, but that in 36 months, the apprentice moved into the journeyman wage scale regardless of how well trained he was. He thinks store management wanted meat cutters trained in stores because self-service meat counters altered the traditional work of meat cutters. Instead of having to learn all meat-cutting tasks, meat cutters now became specialists: one worked on fish, another on poultry, another on beef, another on pork and lamb. “I've seen journeymen meat cutters who worked for A & P for 20 years and only worked on chickens.” “So they became mechanics.” “Today, journeymen, as we used to know them, are extinct. I don't think that 5% of our journeymen remaining today would know how to skin a calf.” Many others do not know how to break down a carcass into primal cuts because many stores receive meat only in primal cuts. There are proportionately fewer meat cutters than in previous years. Although the International had once urged locals to discourage young men from becoming apprentices, this was not done locally to Dubinski's knowledge. Store managers often preferred to train their own apprentices because companies had different ways of cutting and merchandising meat.