Schwan Food Co. announces job cuts

Warning to all route drivers (especially Excellence Routes!)
My husband has dedicated 20 years to this company and loved his job. NOW- he went from making $48,000+ a year down to a salary of $38,000. It is a mandatory rule to work 5 days a week 11.4 hours a day! Now, this does not include the time he spends driving to his route area and back, meetings....etc.

The "suits" came in and cut him (and everyone else) off at the knees. Now, he rarely sees the kids. I am basically a single mother now. The financial hit is devastating enough, the kids are heartbroken. Not to mention his psychological breakdown from going from one on the number one guys in the division to a base pay salary any 18 year old off the streets can make their first day there!

Some of it can be economy related, but remember that the delivery trucks run on propane (about$2/gallon) so they are not suffering as much as other companies.

Instead of penalizing the top guys, they should have gotten rid of the dead weight! A Chairmen's Club guy shouldn't have to pay the price for the company slackers!

To work a 4 day week, he would have to sell consistently $1500/day for a measly 1%bonus!

Look out Schwan Men and Women-this program is coming your way ...soon!

check out the Schwan's forum at www.retailreality.net . Over 400 members and it is free.

He only has to work 4 days if he makes 5850 a week. A chairman's route is 7250 a week so that should not be an issue. Most if not all chairman's routes should see a slight increase in salary.

I never did like salmanela chicken anyway

Gotta pay Campbell Mithun somehow.

Pragmatist wrote:

<quoted text>I think the business model is what isn't cutting it. Schwan's does door to door, during the day, with most households having two people working. They should move to an internet order model like Simon Delivers to move their wares, and give delivery windows with refrigerated crates. I am just never home to buy from them.

Blockhead!! They've had unattended delivery for a couple of years now.

Angry in PA wrote:

Warning to all route drivers (especially Excellence Routes!)
My husband has dedicated 20 years to this company and loved his job. NOW- he went from making $48,000+ a year down to a salary of $38,000. It is a mandatory rule to work 5 days a week 11.4 hours a day! Now, this does not include the time he spends driving to his route area and back, meetings....etc.
The "suits" came in and cut him (and everyone else) off at the knees. Now, he rarely sees the kids. I am basically a single mother now. The financial hit is devastating enough, the kids are heartbroken. Not to mention his psychological breakdown from going from one on the number one guys in the division to a base pay salary any 18 year old off the streets can make their first day there!
Some of it can be economy related, but remember that the delivery trucks run on propane (about$2/gallon) so they are not suffering as much as other companies.
Instead of penalizing the top guys, they should have gotten rid of the dead weight! A Chairmen's Club guy shouldn't have to pay the price for the company slackers!
To work a 4 day week, he would have to sell consistently $1500/day for a measly 1%bonus!
Look out Schwan Men and Women-this program is coming your way ...soon!

Honey, I hate to tell you this, but your husband isn't telling you everything (including who he's seeing before he comes home). If he's worked here for 20 years like you say and he's not running $8k a week and making +$55 a year then he's a slacker and should be thrown out the door!!!

The trucks run off propane not gas..Schwans times are bad casue beans and rice and cheaper in an uncooked bag then in pre made food..

Joel New Orleans wrote:

The jobs that were cut I beleive were the CSS(Customer Sales Supervisor) slots. Those were people hired to work on the trucks and help the Route men sell. These are all gone, could amount to the 184 "sales" jobs lost.
They had problems but I think its the fuel prices thats killing everything. I know a lot of people that have left the company at all levels, it seems to be a mess. Its a shame becuase I loved my time with them, but its doubtful I would return anytime soon.

Schwans making cuts -- next thing we'll here is that gastric bypass doctors will be laying off too.

the Schwans Company is crooked as a 3 dollar bill.

hopefully they will be out of business soon.

I worked for Schwan's Home Service for 14 years, as a Route Manager and as a Sales Manager. I was very successful in both positions. The company started going downhill whan they started to "go corporate" around the year 2000. The people that had led the company through amazing growth periods (Gordie Molitor, Gary Zent, Mel Bump, Steve Koch, et al) were leaving or were already gone, and high-level decisions were now being made by MBA's who had never loaded a truck, ran a route day, or managed a sales depot. The autonomy of the sales manager to make decisions was taken away in stages. The trucks were chronically iced up and overloaded due to too many products, we had terrible slow HHC hardware and software, and the entire route sales operation was slowed down. A route manager simply could not get to as many people in a day as he used to. Fewer stops = fewer BC's = less revenue = leff profit. That's what happened from my perspective.

Dave wrote:

Schwans does NOT run on FUEL. Propane tanks in all or most of their trucks.

DUH propane is fuel. Duh. Propane is gas and gas is fuel.

New pay scale starts next month I'm curious to see how it pans out seems confising to me been with company 3 yrs enjoy job but make changes constantly also only allow 5 days vacation in a row.

Just found out they are cutting back in Nevada