Against the grain

Print institutions across the country are suffering from undercapacity at their sites. “No, really?” drips your sarcastic reply. But I’m not talking about the shopfloors where staff spend their working lives, but rather the places they end up once their days at sharp end of a printing press are done.

I was gobsmacked to read on printweek.com that the Printers’ Charitable Corporation (PCC) has recorded a deficit because of undercapacity at one of its nursing homes. Am I the only one who finds this strange, especially in this, the age of the pension-deficit crunch? According to the Office of National Statistics, six out of 10 people of working age are not contributing to a private pension scheme, and things are not getting any better.

Listen carefully and you can actually hear the age of retirement making a Doppler effect as it disappears into the distance.

Printers, it seems, are just not that fond of hand-outs. In the same printweek.com story, the PCC said a measly 2% of its aid for victims of last summer’s floods had been claimed. Is this testament to the industry’s proud, battling-on nature, or are printers martyrs without a cause?

One thing that has long been overcapacity in the Printing World towers has been doom and gloom about the difficulties facing the industry. For some problems, there is the occasional respite: the rising euro could see work migrate back from the continent; the steady stream of shutdowns is putting more work back on the market and so on But as quickly as one dark cloud lifts, there is the crack of thunder on the horizon.

So don’t let a stiff upper lip stop you from taking advantage of small mercies, like charitable aid or somewhere to rest your weary bones after decades at the press face.