Who should get more? Prepress or Press Operators

Hi guys. I know this is a touchy subject but I'd like to know whom you rather have a higher pay check: Prepress technicians or Press operators? Why?

I believe this is an issue that can be best answered through the principle of supply and demand. The more prepress people there are to choose from the lesser the pay they receive, the lesser number they are the higher they get. The same principle applies to pressmen.

Unarguably, there are more prepress men in the market because of the proliferation of IT schools that result in more IT graduates. On the other hand,there are less people who are interested in being a pressman, except press helpers who graduate to become pressmen. Since there are less pressmen going around, then they get the higher pay than college graduates venturing into prepress.

This is not the ideal situation, of course. We need both educated pressmen and prepressmen and their pay should be based on their experience and skills. While it is good to note that we have very highly educated and trained prepress people, this cannot be similarly said of our highly paid pressmen. Why should we allow our precious machines, costing millions of pesos, to be operated by uneducated pressmen and risk a breakdown?

I say we should have more pressmen who are college graduates, preferably engineers, and pay them well above the minimum wage your former helper is willing to accept.

Personally, I think Prepress technicians should be paid more not because they do "more intellectual" jobs than the press operators, but they are always on their toes whenever they are confronted with a demanding and yet uneducated customer.

A prepress technician has to worry of so many things such as font problems, transparencies, preflight checking, color transformations, scanning, photo retouching, layout, proofing, imposition issues such as bleeding and creeping, RIP problems, moire, gray levels, angles, dot shape, dotgain, ink limit, GCR, hue, saturation, chroma, L*a*b*, spectrophotometer, densitometer, platereader, CTF or CTP operation and calibration, chemistry, processor cleaning, spot colors, color matching from monitor to proof, proof to print, print to monitor, etc. Whew! That's a loooong list!

These things are so critical and they will have to make sure that they meet the deadline specified in the job order.

The pressman, on the other hand, need not worry so much of his color matching abilities....not anymore...especially in the 21st century. The only thing he has to make sure besides taking care of his machine and its auxiliaries is to print the job according to the densities that was provided to them by the prepress guys.

Well, there is an exception. If the pressman is operating an 8-color machine, or even more, then I guess he should be getting the same pay as the prepress guys since it's so hard to find an operator who could run such machines.

My thoughts only.

Hi Larry !

Sorry to disagree but both parties I think should be highly paid .A pressman is handling a machine that cost Millions of pesos and also has to think of other things like dot gain,density,paper expansion,scumming,paper grain,packing of blanket,"lubog sa blanket",proper maintenance of machine,meeting deadlines,and correcting the mistakes done on the pre-press.etc..

Both are specialized skills that should meet your standards.

This is truly a difficult issue. The graphic artist and pressman tend to blame each for a lot of things, so the debate over wages is not at all unusual.

I guess Luigi is right about giving both parties equal importance. It is crucial for both parties to develop a very good working relationship, otherwise the company is in trouble.

Of course, everyone in an organization should work in harmony with each other, but management should particularly ensure a healthy work bond between his graphic technicians and pressmen.

This is because when they go after each other's necks, they will do so at the owner's expense.

Maybe depending on the set up.

A) Company that has a Prepress and Press Machines > both parties may have equal importance.

B) Company that has Prepress , Press and a Digital Press > this time, the prepress man does not need the pressman. And the prepress man has dual role, so you give more importance to him.

Prepressman > has more things to upgrade knowledge (isipin mo na lang kung ilang software ng adobe, workflow and color management)

Pressman > more on manual work and it requires lot of experience

Parang chicken and egg. Kung walang prepress walang plate, kung walang press wala ring print.

Depende na rin sa skill.

Kofi Baracko wrote:

Of course, everyone in an organization should work in harmony with each other, but management should particularly ensure a healthy work bond between his graphic technicians and pressmen.

This is because when they go after each other's necks, they will do so at the owner's expense.

Amen!