material handler

bindery operator

forklift operator

press operator

machine operator

LSC Communications

Management has no clue that they are messing up the company and running it very poorly. (Yeah, this is a bit long – but managers, you really NEED to read ALL this!) 

They are actually inhumane to workers. Because they refuse to fix the air conditioning in the shop, the temp rises to insanely hot temperatures indoors. This is Las Vegas, it’s often over 100 degrees outside and in the summer over 110 – and in the shop it’s not much better. That’s just plain cruel! It’d be illegal to have animals in that environment. People get sick from it. It’s not sane. Three-quarters of the year it’s incredibly hot in the shop – over 90 and probably close to 100 degrees INDOORS - and people are doing physical work! But because the a/c works in the office areas, management doesn’t care that it’s unbearably hot in the shop and refuses to fix the swamp coolers, instead constantly making excuses. But this has been going on for many, many years. There’s no excuse. They just refuse to fix it, because they treat their workers like they don’t matter.

They don’t treat people like they are people. They treat them like they are objects. And they are not making intelligent decisions, as well as being outrageously disrespectful and uncaring to their staff. 

They are switching workers’ shifts from three or four 12-hour shifts per week - to six 8-hour shifts per week - thinking they will save on overtime. But take a moment to do the math. That actually INCREASES labor cost! It’s definitely NOT a savings! (Plus prior experiments in these shorter shifts have led to less efficient productivity and therefore, also, not a production benefit nor savings!)

But more importantly – it’s a horrible way to treat employees. Many families will never see each other – and those who rely on daycare would need to pay for two or three more days a week of daycare – no one can afford that! So they’ll be forced to quit, because they can’t afford to work there. 

AND management is also talking about changing worker shifts every few months – switching 1st to 2nd, 2nd to 3rd, rotating them every few months. That’s not okay! It messes with people’s HEALTH and their FAMILIES and their ability to work at all if they have children and daycare – or other needs! They may go to school, they may have other responsibilities – they didn’t sign up for this. It’s outrageously disrespectful to treat workers like they’re just “things” that you can do whatever you want with! People choose to work the shifts they do, you can’t just keep changing them! You need to treat people with humane respect!

Management still holds an antiquated, proven-wrong attitude that workers “are just lucky to have a job” and in management’s minds that justifies their feeling that they can do whatever they want to their staff. As a result good workers quit, and others won’t work there. Word gets around, people know this is NOT a good place to work unless you want to be taken advantage of, treated like an animal and not a person.

Certain times a year they make workers work a 12-hour shift EVERY SINGLE DAY for MONTHS - with no days off! Unless they’re lucky enough to get a single day off every few weeks, which is by FAR not enough to recover from the severe strain of having to work every single day, doing physical work! Management makes them work through major holidays when families are counting on them, even when the time off was pre-arranged and pre-approved and travel tickets were already purchased. Again, that’s inhumane, and insane to make people work this way. And again, it screws with people’s health and their families and their entire LIVES. 

People are PEOPLE. They have a right to their lives, and to be treated like people. Not like worker animals that you can do whatever you want to. 

On top of that, these are downright stupid choices management makes to try to save money – when the answers to saving money are right in front of them and they refuse to do it. How? By being careful with their projects! The project management is HORRIBLE. There are continual incidents with major, extremely costly press mistakes, bindery mistakes, etc. that are easily avoidable if people are just doing their jobs properly, writing job tickets properly, paying attention to job tickets, paying attention to what’s running and how it’s running. That’s all. Instead, management would rather waste insane amounts of money on poor project management and then take it out on the workers by treating them like subhumans. 

AND if they continue this way they will lose all their good workers, leaving only the ones who make the mistakes that keep costing them more and more money. Do you see how that’s a vicious cycle, management? A cycle of poor decisions and poor management leading to poor cost control that you try to “fix” with insane things like NOT fixing essential air conditioning – not only making work conditions unbearable, but also screwing with people’s health AND it increases mistakes and demoralizes the workforce (because you’ve made them not-care, because obviously you don’t care about them!) - and screwing with people’s lives and basically forcing them to leave by your illogical, disrespectful and inappropriate shift changes along with other poor working conditions. See how that’s all *management’s* responsibility for what goes on, why costs rise, why you lose good workers and can’t get good ones to hire in??

Management: Open your eyes, or you will just keep losing the things you need to be a success. It’s just plain bad business! Bad printing = lost clients. Bad processes = costs out of control. Bad employee treatment = lost good employees and no one to do the work well. These are all avoidable if you only open your eyes and get with the times.

The pay starts off decent, but the mandatory 12 day work week and excessive forced 12 hour shifts gets old. It is great for stacking cash, if you're willing to have no life, for some weeks a material handler will be forced to work 60-70 hours per week. You cant make plans outside of work in advance, because you wont know until they day before, or sometimes even the day of, if you're going to be forced to work 12 hours on any given day. The job itself is simple, just some times can be hard work, and in some cases they expect superhuman effort in an effort to save them from crewing and paying the proper amount of feeders and operator. Management tends to be discriminating and sexist, hand holding new hires and promoting people based on popularity, connections, or good looks rather then ability. The hardest working individuals are passed over for promotions time and time again, because management likes paying less for more work. Worked there for 3 years and watched several newer employees promoted over me, even though they had much less experiance and a weaker work ethic, because they either had family who worked there, were a woman who wore revealing clothing, or were brown nosers. 75% of operators tend to be lazy due to how the management handles promotions, as they feel no real need to work hard. Also rules are enforced on a selective basis, with more liked individuals for example one operator who sits around on their phone all the time has several final warnings about cell phone usage,  but due to being friends with the one supervisor, retains their job and another operator got promoted even after their third final warning about cell phone and third warning about less then satisfactory work performance, while other less liked individuals find themselves terminated on second warning.  The majority of employees themselves are two faced, backstabbing gossip queens who make up a majority of what they gossip about, and not much is considered personal or private. No pension, their 401k match is so ridiculously low as to be almost non existant, and the health care rates are exorbitantly high. All in all, it's like high school, where the popular people get perks and promotions handed to them, and the less popular are left frustrated to pick up the slack, work harder, and are ignored or nitpicked in an effort by management to find a believable reason as to why they're passed over for perks and promotions to avoid discrimination lawsuits.

Let me start this by saying I'm not just a jaded employee.
I actually loved my team. My machine crew was amazing, my operator and assistant operator are arguably the best in the plant.  

The job itself is pretty fast-paced; some lines can move pretty quick.  The day starts at about 6:55 in the morning and ends exactly 12 hours later.  You get a 30 minute break every hour, so that was nice.  The benefits weren't amazing, but better than paying 100% out of pocket.

There is some heavy lifting, fork truck usage (pull-behind motorized), log hoists, conveyor belts, prepping for shipment, and paper cuts.  Lots and lots of paper cuts.  

The quality control there is kind of lacking; it is solely based on their employees on the line which, depending on the line, may be low or high.

The management leaves something to be desired.

There's no regard for people who have a family there, there's only concern for results and production.  Have a child that may have emergency situations?  Want to catch little Johnny's football game?  Look elsewhere.

I can say there seemed to be some favoritism...specifically to those that were convicted felons...and there were several of those.

The management was the most difficult part of the job.  Not the standing on concrete for 12 hours, the monotony of doing the same thing day-in-day-out, not even the occasional hard-to-work-with employee.  The management.

I won't bash the management  too harshly, just realize what you're getting into if you accept a job there.  There isn't a great deal of professionalism, understanding, organization, or anything else really when it comes to managing a floor.

THEIR superiors were okay, but didn't seem to take complaints about the supervisors too seriously (consider the felons, though). 

This is a great place to work if you are transitioning to a different job soon...but look elsewhere if you want a career.

The one thing I can't stress enough, though, is that the everyday people you work with (felons or otherwise) are usually pretty great to work with.  Most of them were willing to help when needed, answer stupid questions that you should already know (myself included), and basically take you under their wing if you were a hard worker.

So do I regret my time there?  No.

Will I ever go back?  Not likely.

Fork trucks in BAD shape. 
The onboard computers and scan guns are very old and outdated VERY VERY SLOW
The scan gun I was using had problems reading thru stretch wrap. making you get off the hoist and rip open the wrap, or type in 8+ number, takes a lot more time.
I have to admit it did seem the rest of the crew did not have that much problem. so makes you think "the new guy gets the worst tools" so be warned on this.
The scan plates on the ceiling are very hard to read because of lack of lighting, on top of that, what lighting they have causes bad glare making them harder to read
You get NO map of the place ( its big) and no map of the areas your working in telling you where the scan locations are. You have to recall the many location by finger points only. Got less than 2 hrs instruction and I was on my own . You have to ask your questions of other workers that are super busy doing there job. They don't get paid to train and have time limits  getting trucks out. Its not there fault
They started me in the north plant, training there for a month. It was with a lot better condition of a hoist and the scanner worked better the scan plates are a lot lower because of low ceilings, and there is small fraction in the north plant compared of what is going on in the south plant shipping.
once they moved me to the south plant I soon learned I was not trained on some very important details. I don't know why this happened. Here is 1, I didn't know what a Skew search was  after 1 month of training. And its a very important part of your job in the south plant. In the 2 days I worked in  the south plant, I was on 3 different hoist all in bad shape, bad computer systems, bad scan guns and one hoist the computer  that would not stay on.  Someone move the wires around and it rebooted. While I was unloaded a truck it shut down 3 times during that time, all taking time to reboot. RF gun made me either get off the hoist and rip the stretch wrap or type in a 8+ number both taking time 3 out of 5 loads. I bet that was the slowest they have seen a tuck be unloaded.
ok I will stop because there is more.
 Don't know about any other part of LSC
People I worked with was good folks, they didn't want me to leave. 


Morale in the production areas here is near rock bottom. The equipment was really left to run down and preventative maintenance sometimes amounts to just keeping equipment on life support. Everybody gets the same annual one percent - below the cost of living - raise which means that every year you work here your family must try to find a way to do more with less. Some of our new material handlers are food insecure and skip meals while waiting for payday. Employees who can manage to show up to work on time, but that some other employer would fire because they are worthless are retained by the 1% annual raise and the good ones leave. Felon is almost a job requirement. This job works best for those people who have no family or friends. Over time your coworkers will become your substitute family and friends, and eventually the drama becomes better entertainment than anything on TV. Management complains if an employee who has been working 56 to 72-hour weeks for months takes one day off for personal time and will complain at the end of the year if they didn’t take it earlier when nobody else wanted off. Additionally, some supervisors speak in an abusive aggressive manner toward employees. Management complains about the employee’s lack of gratitude for all of this treatment.

Hiring in the office and for management is mostly on the “Friends & Family” plan, with little regard to hiring the best. It all comes down to how you do on the interview. If you know or are related to the right people you can get the interview questions in advance and be coached on how to answer them to assure you will get the job. Everybody in the office vies to be the best bobble-head doll “yes” man, which means that nobody that upper management will listen to is capable of challenging ineffective quality, mentoring, training, incentive and productivity programs. No one in management would ever want someone they care about to work in production.

Work-life balance
Lower level management for the most part is great. They take care of their employees the best they possibly can. Upper level management those who dont have offices in the warehouse are terrible and could care less about their employees. They have went bankrupt due to extremely poor shareholder decisions and are very good at lying to the individual.

Pay & benefits
Since bankruptcy they have cut their paid time off to their current employees and have stopped matching 401k contributions. Healthcare is state minimum. However they do pay fairly and offer tons of overtime as well as holiday pay. This being said they are hiring new employees and offering pto and matching 401k contributions (I think 3%).

Job security and advancement
Since upper management is terrible people at lsc dont tend to stay long. This being said they give plenty of chances and try to keep all the help possible which keeps a lot of bad employees around to make your job harder. They will fire indiscriminately for cell phone use where not allowed and things of that nature.

Management
As said earlier your direct management tends to be amazing. Once you get high up however it does a severe downward spike. My manager I’m charge of me and his assistant are the best managers I’ve ever had in my life and so everything in their power to make my life easier.

Culture
If you aren’t in an office job you can’t work remotely and I think most of them are now working in office now since most of the COVID scare is over

Overall
Pay is very competitive and fair for the work you are expected to do. Anyone who says otherwise is either lazy or has never worked a truly hard job before. Direct management is amazing but upper is terrible. Benefits are close to state minimum. Company is on process of being acquired by private investors due to bad shareholder decisions.

You'll stand on hard concrete for 10-12 hours and rotate ball-heel-ball-heel again and again with a single 30-minute break and little forgiveness for requiring a break at any other point.

You can't tag someone in while you step out for 10 minutes, you can't stop by the break room to solve blood sugar or dehydration, and the training is basically a 3-day affair after which you're dumped at your post and forced to cope with a neverending flow of work that a single person can not do alone, let alone as a new hire.

The basics of each job aren't difficult to learn and are more so taxing on your feet, ankles, knees and lower back as you go, which is the real difficulty. It's not really exhausting so much as injurious; your tolerance decides how much of your health you want to trade for the money, which in my case was $14/h. I've done $20+/h for years with other jobs that posed drastically less risk and overall damage to my well-being. Keep in mind that LSC offering *factory work*, not sitting at tables and knitting book spines together.

Personally, I would only recommend this company if you're desperate.

They provide very minimal training to all new employees. They hire direct through the door as well as through Temp services, so you may be a temp who has worked there and about to get hired in and someone else hires direct and makes several dollars an hour more than you which is normal right? well whats not normal is When you get hired in and do not recieve any kind of raise or so minimal that new temps are making more than you are! The management is very sneaky, they will lie directly to your face they will make you feel as if you are less than them. You are made to feel very unappreciated, disrespected, its like they could care less about you or your family. The upper management has a buddy system where they only look out for each other. Management will talk you you privately and ask you not to tell anyone what they just discussed with you. your answers from management are very vague. Lsc as a whole has started bankruptcy proceedings but there has been no meeting to let their employees know at least at the off set plant in kendallville, IN. SO if you would love to work at a place that does not reward its employees, shows absolutely no appreciation to its employees, gives you one 20 min paid break for 8 to 10 hours of work, has managers in places they should not be, if you like to be made feel stupid, dumb, and not important at all, well than LSC Communications at 2500 Marion Drive in Kendallville, IN is the place for you!

This used to be a decent company to work for. It gets progressively worse every year. I have worked at 3 different RR Donnelley / LSC plants for a total of 17 years. At the first plant, I didn't survive the company- wide workforce reduction. The second one got to be so slow that we had to use vacation time to cover shut-down days, otherwise we would be short 2 days pay on each paycheck. The plant I am at now has horrible management and supervisors, severe lack of communication, poor training, and no respect for employees. The majority of the workers are from one of our 3 temp services and don't have to follow the same policies that full time workers do. They can pretty much do whatever they want and even despite that fact, they can't keep people here. The company has taken away almost every benefit and / or incentive there was to working here. No bonuses, no pension, only a 1% pay increase that doesn't even cover the huge jump in insurance premiums, and no appreciation for hard work. The bathrooms are dirty, the breakrooms are disgusting, vending machines hardly ever work and in the summer, at times, it gets so hot in here that they have to shut lines down because it is unsafe to work. You are no longer a living, breathing human being once you enter the door to LSC. Corporate sees dollar signs and stock options and management sees their annual $10,000+ bonus. And you....? Well, you are just a robot to them.

LSC Communications is a decent place to work if you have no life outside of your work life. Scheduling is the most difficult thing to deal with at LSC. If you plan to go back to school or maintain a second job it is nearly impossible with the rotating 8/10/12 hour schedules with an average of 4 days per month off, scheduling 12 days straight before a 2 day weekend, you will mostly live for the paycheck and sacrifice your daily life. Every month you rotate between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd shift at the whim of the supervisors. I personally am moved from line to line every week which makes it near impossible to plan anything in advance as it alters both the hours I work and the weekends I have off. As a member of the Indiana National Guard the supervisors have a tendency to refuse working with my drill schedule which negatively impacts my income as I make less during my military duties than I do at LSC. While they do not penalize me they refuse to allow me to be on normal scheduling which prevents me from maintaining a proper workout, sleep, and diet schedule. I have repeatedly spoken with the supervisory staff about these concerns and every time they apologize and ask me to work with them refusing to yield to the notion that they and their illogical scheduling could impact the lives of their employees.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Material handler 2 salaries reported	$16.21 per hour
Bindery operator 3 salaries reported	$15.68 per hour
Forklift operator 6 salaries reported	$16.63 per hour
Press operator 1 salary reported	$28.00 per hour
Machine operator 6 salaries reported	$28.58 per hour

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