production associate

maintenance technician

production worker

material handler

maintenance mechanic

WestRock

Since the beginning of employment I had issues with paychecks. Durring my 90 days training was terrible. I was almost fired for doing lock out tag out correctly and being inside the machine. the senior operator pryed the damaged loto door and took the key out while I was working inside the machine. Boss came by and told me to get my stuff and go to the office.  I had to fight for the ability to explain the situation. Eventually the truth came out and they replaced all the boxes but I was still disciplined for it. 
The overall general expectations for new people is to know everything within a short period, all the while management walks around scrutinizing and watching for mistakes to write you up for. I would often find bosses hiding while watching other people. Once you establish yourself as good you can expect to be doing a variety of jobs regardless of seniority or job you signed up for. Favoritism is managements strong characteristics. If they like you, you can expect to be used with very little appreciation. 
I was trained as an operator, the saving grace of this place is my fellow employees who once you prove yourself will have your back. But at the same time some senior operators would treat certain people wrong. 
 I became their primary trainer after awhile on Flexos after awhile. Training new hires where I was successful with majority people trained by me staying past their 90 days. I also learned a lot. If a new hired made a mistake even if I was on lunch the whole shop would receive a write up except the new hire, on one occasion I was written up in front of a new hire as an example to them. I always took accountability for my failures but most any disiplary action I receivd while running shop was from inexperienced new people. Unfortunately any exceptional or above and beyond achievements went unnoticed as well as anything I did outside my responsibility ie managements job.
 Durring my 3 years there the management went from abysmal, to non-existent to forceful niceness because of overwhelming complaints. I had frequent pay issues due to management not entering the job I was doing. I frequently covered for operators but would receive assistant pay. Furthermore hours would be incorrect. I would always have to wait until next pay period for it to be fixed.
HR was even worse. At one point we had no HR or way to communicate with a HR. Was told our foreman would handle HR issues. 
I tried moving into maintenance but was kept where they wanted me. I found out they hired a few different people from outside  the company with no experience for the position.
 Upon leaving the company I found out HR did not follow their protocol which caused issues. I was never thanked or told good luck by any of management. They actually seemed irritated with me on my last few days. I did find it hilarious they posted a flyer for employee appreciation day scheduled for the day after my final day.  I also found out they told other employees they had to work longer hours because of the loss of one of their operators. 

Even though I gave advanced  notice it took them 3 weeks to get my final paycheck. It took me fighting as well as filing a claim against them to get it. which after receiving was actually short.
 I'm still waiting for a payout from the previous year. 
I lost many days I could've had with my kids from last min call offs. Which I was threatened with write ups if i was unable to. Forcing me to find babysitter or rescheduling appointments.  
All in all this company will hold you to a extreme standard that they themselves will not be held to.  
Work is easy enough once you get it down. But feels very uninspiring. Most the operators there are high strung and pressured. They pile on so much responsibility it's impossible to actually do it all legitimately.

This job is setup on seniority, but only when it's convenient to the company.  If you are considered  mandatory personal you're going to be coming in no matter what because they will have no one who can fill your position.  Why is that? Because the turn around is insane.  In less than a years they manged to hire and fire or lose 60+ people.  The District Business Manager was tasked with making the place "Profitable", but only succeeded in losing the plant supervisor, demoting the 1st shift supervisor who then quit, and losing tons management personnel.  They will post nearly every Saturday, and if your a "redhat" you better expect to come in.  Plus they will demand you come in early or stay late if someone skips or they are behind.  The pay is alright, but trying to get the good positioned pay is a mistake.  You don't want to be stuck in any one place here.  The machines have numerous issues which cause problems with customers and 4 hour down times which you will pay for with family time later.    Everything from the floor to management, to even your benefits is unorganized and a disaster.  I never seen a more unprofessional work place in my entire career.   I once watched an entire 2nd shift machine operating team quit all at once because the management is so out of line.  They called them and begged them to come back to the company which they did after some negotiations.  Some of the workers are so upset with the situation that working with them is almost as bad as dealing with management.  The new workers are usually not the problem though.  It's a very hot and physically engaging job.  I actually didn't mind this at all and because I never got locked in I got moved to many positions which I also liked.  The business district manager approached me my last day of my 2 week notice and tried to tell me they put $100k into fixing 1 machine, ya 1 out of many broken machines, that was still broke and things would get better when the bad apples where gone.  I told him nothing would ever fix this place unless management shaped up and real resources were put into updating the location.  I'm writing this not having worked there in 3 years and I'm still sorting out problems created by the company and their medical and HRA accounts.  I had an issue after I had left with the medical insurance that I had to fix.  Good luck getting a hold of anyone at this location.  Everyone I knew whether it was a coworker or manager has been fired or left.  Their directory is filled with old numbers that are all dead ends.  Let me ask you something as you read this.  Have you ever received a W2 from an ex-employer of 3 years past saying you earned income there for your current taxes?  I tried calling corporate and they either will not contact me back, the operator is upset dealing with multiple people who were affected by this, or the line just goes in loops.  The operators directions to fix this don't even match the website he directs you to.  More importantly, why am I being tasked with fixing this?  This is their fault not mine.  I called the HRA company after I received a letter from WestRock stating that the HRA caused this.  They informed me with undeniable proof that this is just another disastrous WestRock mess up that is 100% their fault and they are trying to make me pay for it. I called the IRS and I will be having them call WestRock to fix this and I will be sending emails for verifiable records of my request along with a 4852 form to get these guys in line.  So ask yourself, would you want to deal with this situation yourself?  Just stay away from WestRock.

Typical work day- 12 hour shifts standing on cement all day.  Every day you come in you try and run the most production you possibly can while ensuring a high standard of quality and safety while doing so.

Learned-  How to run a straight line gluer and cello machine.  I also learned how to use programs like schedule assistant and AS400.  I developed new techniques for leadership that were much different than the ones I implemented in the military.

Management-  I am more disappointed in the management at WestRock than anywhere I have previously worked.  One they are all very young and all good friends.  Normally this wouldn't be a problem but they let their personal relationships get in the way of doing their jobs, ie. long lunches and constantly going from one office to another instead of checking on their employees on the production floor.  There also is never a good change over from the incoming manager to the outgoing manager.  Each time a new manager comes in he or she tries to reinvent the wheel so to speak.  They make the same mistakes that previous managers have before because of their unwillingness to listen to those beneath them. (Operators and Lead Operators).  The best leaders in my opinion have a very servitude mentality, at WestRock it tends to lean more towards a dictatorship or Totalitarian type leadership.  The GM literally had to step in and tell them to come to work at 6 am so they could see the night shift some. (shifts are 7am-7pm/ 24-7).  Prior to that we could literally go months without seeing anyone in management but somehow they could always manage to write you a review that made you seem adequate and nothing more.

Co-workers-  Generally speaking the people working there are all individuals.  They care nothing about the machines or production.(besides the operators).  Their only concern is to do just enough to not get in trouble.  Out of those I'd say that a good 20% of them is nearing the retirement age and have lost interest in promotions or standing out or even being a part of the team. The ones that care and try get promoted to assistant operator or operator.  Which is good and bad.  Good because they are promoting good people but most of the time it is simply out of desperation.   It's bad because they have no physical way to grade their ability to be an operator.  They have no mechanical aptitude test in place to test even basic mechanical skills.  They have no standard operating procedures in place.  Each operator trains each assistant in whatever way he feels is right.  (Department Managers and Supervisors do not have experience in their own departments, most of them don't even know how to start the machines.  It's not viewed as an important part of their job.)  Each operator has a different way of doing almost everything and different levels of training based off of who was doing their training.  If you were trained by a good operator who is also a good instructor then your level of training was good.  If you were trained by a poor operator who was not good at communicating his thoughts than your training was terrible.

Hardest Part-  The demanding schedule, I have been approached on my last day of work (Tuesday) and told that if someone didn't volunteer for overtime on Thursday then it would be mandatory and everyone would have to come in or else receive an attendance point.  It was like they could make overtime mandatory at the drop of the hat and you had to come in or else.  

Most enjoyable-  Learning new skill sets, my relationships with my co-workers and exceeding personal goals that I set for myself.

I work maintenance at westrock hopewell. We have had more than 10 people quit or turn in two week notices in the last month. That should tell you something. The company has a horrible safety record. People get hurt all the time because the company preaches safety but they don't practice what they preach. They put production over safety every time. They treat their maintenance employees like property. They treat us like they own us. It could be 3 minutes before you are scheduled to get off and they will call you and tell you to stay for "coverage" and make you stay for a 16 hour shift for absolutely no reason. Your family will be calling wondering where you are and you are literally sitting in a chair doing nothing but your manager won't let you leave without threat of a write up or attendance point. Every single time you walk through the gate you have no clue if you are working 8 hours or 16. One guy in operations had to work 36 hours straight with no break because he had no relief. The mill consistently operates with the bare minimum, and it shows. They have tried to eliminate the use of contractors which means maintenance is now doing construction around the mill and preventative work is no longer being done. Which is increasing downtime and causing more work in the long run. The roof had several pieces fall down at the electric shop so they put up a scaffold to guard us from falling debris instead of fixing the roof. There are support beams so rusted you can see through them in the lime kiln area so they just put some caution tape around the sagging parts of catwalk. This place is unsafe and management only cares about the bottom dollar. We tried to get 12 hour shifts put in place but the company was afraid it would cost them a nickel so they asked us to take several cuts in order to change our schedule even though there was no increase in overtime at all. They constantly show us that they are not willing to spend any extra on their employees even though they waste money left and right and the maintenance employees are already making less then sister mills that produce less paper at a higher cost. The 401k is a joke. If I put in the max contribution for 40 years then I will only receive 1 year of pay from the company. One year in exchange for forty years of service! The health insurance is high deductible so its basically buy one heart attack get one free for the year. Any time an employee gets hurt they only care about how they can place blame on the employee even though alot of the injuries are due to their own policies, procedures, environment, and crumbling infrastructure. All in all, this is a horrible place to work. Its unsafe and management treats employees like they are less than human. People in the maintenance department are leaving faster than they can even be replaced and the only good thing I can say about this place is that if you need maintenance experience for your resume, this is the place to get it because they will hire you straight from construction with no maintenance experience under your belt due to the fact that experienced people won't want to work here.

I have worked at a westrock plant for 2 years now. There are a few positive things like job security. They can not keep employees so as long as you show up every day you will have a job. The down side is it is literally every day.....7 days a week. They do pay overtime over 40 hours, for now,  but recently have been trying to implement things like swing shifts where you work 7 days a week for straight time. This is no doubt an effort by the company to cut down on overtime costs. 

They have been compensating people for being off work for any CV19 issues weather you are actually sick, quarantined or caring for sick loved ones, that has been awesome. There have been several bonuses for being considered essential workers, also pretty cool. Every year during the holidays you get a turkey or ham, this year there was also a nice meat and cheese box sent to all employees, great gesture, would have preferred a raise tho. 

Where this company has major issues is the lack of leadership and accountability. This could be a great place to work but unfortunately its all about the bottom line in the end and morale and work life balance of employees suffers the most. I’m sure its great for anyone not involved in maintenance or production, but the company has simply cut to much pay and benefits for anyone in a union or production role to want to make their career here. Anyone who stays is left working 7 days a week to barely keep the place functioning. Preventative maintenance on the papermills themselves is horrible and they barley stay running. The mode of operation is run everything to failure, then all hands on deck, working multiple shifts in a row, with safety out the window to get back online. You could work 20 hours straight and then they expect you in on time for your next shift because there literally is no one else. The structure of the buildings is literally falling apart, they stick no money into repairs of the buildings. There is no standard of keeping anything clean. Production areas of the plant are disgustingly dirty. There are rats and cockroaches everywhere.  People in the neighborhood constantly call to complain about the paper that blows out of our stock yard and all around the city.

It is very frustrating to hear the stories of what a great place this used to be to work at. With a few simple “free” changes a lot of the morale problems could be improved upon, but mngmt is clueless as to what their real problems are. Corporate is way to busy congratulating themselves  for being such good social justice stewards and “inclusive to all cultures and peoples” to realize they are running people out of this place and eventually will not have employees to keep their factories running. Do a simple google search on westrock stock (WRK) it never comes up as recommended investment.

I will say this for Westrock finishing department...if you aren't a member of the "clique" or give them any flack you can hang it up. It doesn't matter how well of a worker you are at all. They have people in no air condition lifting cases of 50+ lbs for 12 hours with minimal breaks. The saddest thing is people that come in and learn the job very well are then kept from advancing to new postions. Always get the excuse of oh well we really need you back here until we hire more people. Then the new people come in and slack off and before you know it.....promotion.....all the good leads are gone quit and left for better jobs. Management is a joke. Even when you go to talk to them about things it is overlooked. Managers talking about employees to other employees, leads making fun of employees to management, too many problems with gossip and lies. Some employees will make up things to try and get you fired if they don't like you or if they feel threatened by you. I have never seen a place operate like this. No other incentives than what any other plant does, company moral is terrible, even if you are lucky enough to get a promotion its a guarantee you will be stuck in your same position until they hire someone else to do your job. Ive seen them fire people based on another employee say so but then get in a desperation mode and beg them to come back. People get fired for getting hurt on the job although they will blame it on other reasons. Lots of favoritism, jobs that grown men cant handle women are in there doing and never any appreciation whatsoever. All they worry about is quantity and how fast they can get the job done. Operators compete with each other to see who can run the fastest all for some free food but yet killing others just to get it. During the summer Ive seen someone with heat exhaustion throwing up and them making that person come back in there to work after cooling down a few minutes. Ive seen someone have medical issues that wasn't allowed to leave to go to dr and they just had to walk out. During summer you will get five breaks 4 ten minute 1 thirty minute lunch. After that it goes to 3 breaks 2 ten minute and 1 thirty minute lunch. This only applies to certain people others can get away with whatever. Everyone gets a chance to sit down throughout day(operators, fipp operators, leads, management everyone) except stack off in finishing. This is the most neglected mistreated looked down upon part of the finishing department. I feel sorry for anyone who gets hired to that particular department and has to endure what Ive seen people go through.

I worked at WestRock as an Assistant Operator for about 2 and half months. It’s a good job if you don’t mind spending the majority of your time there in exchange for a decent paycheck. 

The shifts are 12 hours long with lots of short breaks about every 2 hours(Three 10 minutes and two 20 minutes, too many in my opinion, I’d rather have a few longer breaks), and when I was there the work schedule was a 3 week repeating cycle which varies depending on what shift you’re on. For 1st and 3rd shift it was 4 days on then 1 day off, second week was 2 days on 2 days off 2 days on then 1 day off, the third week was 4 days on then 5 days off or something like that, I may be a little off. It was kind of confusing. Which sounds great in theory, but to me the 5 days off wasn’t worth the 2 weeks of practically non-stop work. I live my life on a day to day basis, not a 3 week basis. You barely have time to accomplish anything outside of work. If you are a family person or have young children that need you to be present I would not recommend working here. 

Co-workers were friendly if you could keep up, but if you were slow or couldn’t learn quick on your own you would be treated poorly, very derisive environment to new hires who aren’t able to meet the demands once they’ve completed training. 

There’s an unnecessary focus on production where it seems the goal of management is to keep the machines constantly running 24/7 and keep employees working even when there wasn’t much actual work to do at times. They’d rather have you work 12 unproductive hours just to keep you on stand-by in case  the machines go back up than work 8-10 hours where you could accomplish just as much if you weren’t so tired and the machines actually worked properly without breaking down. 

Machines are constantly down and you would have to do mundane tasks such as sweeping areas that were just swept a couple hours before. When I tried to clean areas or machines that actually needed it I was essentially told by others I was doing too much or working too hard. There are a lot of pretty decent benefits to the job though. Such as tuition reimbursement(as long as the education you’re pursuing is related to the job in someway). 

Overall, in my opinion, the money isn’t worth what you have to sacrifice. I could say more, but you probably get the point. The actual work really isn’t too bad and you’ll make good money. It’s just the time and energy that the schedule demands that is tiring.

The rate of pay is decent compared to similar jobs. The benefits are pretty great as well, but if youre looking for something that gives u a sense of belonging, teamwork, or fair treatment, this isnt the place! Also, if u like to be trained on a job or feel like u shouldnt be made to feel or look stupid when u dont know something or when u ask questions at a new job, this isnt the place! They start u out at the load former and one of two people will "train" you; either the machine operator or the assistant machine operator. Neither of which are required to have any people skills or training qualifications, and literally nobody cares how they train u, speak to u, or what your opinion is. If you try to have a conversation with your supervisor and youre lucky enough to be able to find them, they arent any help. Its also likely that theyll just make u feel even more stupid for trying to express your opinions. And im not basing this off experience with one supervisor. It seems like they are all the same. The president of the company was the only person who seemed to have any people skills, but i saw him twice in 6 months. Its very hot in the plant and the further back they put u, the hotter it gets. Overall, this is a terrible place to work, but if u have no feelings, and u dont mind being treated like s*** and like listening to gossip and bad mouthing of your coworkers, and all you literally need is money and health insurance, then go ahead and apply! Oh but u also need to be ok with staying in the position u started in for 3-15 years, and basically youll never get further than being a floor supervisor, and staying within that company, thatll take about 30+ years. They tell u in the beginning that they like to advance within the company but that seemed to be not so true. In fact, it seemed to be the opposite to me. I ran into a couple of people in supervisory positions (and higher) who had never operated any of the machines and were hired based on education alone. U also get 20 minutes for lunch and itll take u 5-10 minutes to get to your locker, get your food, and get to the breakroom, and then if u need to use the microwave, u might have to wait and u might not. And although the operator of your machine isnt supposed to be your boss, theyll tell u how long u can actually take and when u can go. And they will take 30-45 minutes, but it just depends on who they are whether u get more time or not. 

Probation period is 90 days after hire, but once you go full time as of 2019, your pay will go up to $18.48 per hour for our lowest paying job. Raises are only 50 cents per year, but there will be a new union contract signing soon which will be a bigger raise hopefully. 
Honestly, its a pretty easy job all around no matter what postion you have there.. I believe some should have a higher pay. Not much overtime is given unless someone is on vacation. You normally only work 40 hour weeks, and sometimes on Saturday. After your first year of working here, you will receive your first week of paid vacation. Working for 3 years gets you 2 weeks, witch eventually at 20 years, you get 5 weeks. The benefits are not bad. Also, you can get free boxes for moving or if you ever need them. We have 3 breaks. Two 6 minute breaks and a 15 minute break. We have 3 breaks because people wanted more time to smoke. Even tho they say two 6 minutes and a 15 minute, everyone normally takes two 10 minute breaks and a 20 minute break which adds up to 40 minutes total for the day. Supervisors normally dont care, just dont go over that. Some days can get stressful for working to hard, but some days, there is hardly no work and looking for work to do. 1st shift is nearly impossible to get on unless you have been working there for years, but 2nd and 3rd shift are where you will mostly start. 2nd shift is more relaxing because the supervisor is more layed back, but 3rd shift, you will most likely be working constantly. If you make it to the point where you are now operating a machine, you will be making around $21-$22/hour. Which is not bad, but operating positions never open up really. 95% of the time, whatever machine you are working on, you will be running through breaks, which means one person will take their break and when they come back, another will then go, and so on... Which can be stressful because you possibly have to work harder, but sometimes it will just feel the same. It takes a while to get use to. Overall, its not a bad place to work at, just wish a few things would change. One more tip if you try to work here, when you are on your 90 day probation period, work your hardest because you will get walked out the door if you mess up badly or just have a poor work ethic. But once you are officially part of the union, its much harder to get fired, you will most likely just get a slap on the wrist.

Stackers are paid less. They do the most general labor compared to other positions. Doing good gets you noticed but little mistakes can get you in trouble. Management is changing since there’s a new GM in the plant. The Production manager goes out on the floor and has that attitude where  you can tell is fake by acting like you matter. Since there’s new management, rules are changing so don’t let the PM see you standing around for just a few seconds because you’ll automatically get in trouble. Instead, act as if you’ve been busy at all times during your shift. Best advice I can give to anyone planning to work in the Tulare, CA area. “Work relaxed during the night but when morning comes around, act as if you’ve been working the best so the mangers arriving in the morning don’t think you’re lazy.” A thing I did learned from working in this area was the “put up with the work and shut up,” saying. As a stacker you will do a lot and get little to no credit out of it. You will see employees doing things they’re not supposed to be doing. Don’t advise the supervisors because remember. You’re a new hire and your co-workers have been there longer. So in the end your opinion doesn’t matter because you can be replaced easily. 

Both A and B shifts which are Morning/ Day have the best workers and helpers. 
C - Shift recently got a new supervisor and does good in making sure his workers stay on task but try not to be on the second line. From experience, the workers on that line aren’t as helpful as line 1.

So finally we have D - Shift. 
What can I say, you have the most chilliest supervisor in the work area and you have the best night crew in my opinion. 
The supervisor is always there to help out or let you know how to fix an issue when you’re having trouble with a task. Be grateful if you manage to land on Shift D not only do you have a supervisor who is always around but you have the greatest night Operators on both lines compared to C - Shift.

So if you are applying for this job. Just know that you will be working 12 hour shifts/ night but since they’re ow staffed for stackers, they will end up adding days on your schedule which will make you want to quit immediately because you won’t be having the days you’re expecting off. 

Best of luck if you decide to be a part of this company.

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