Canadian National Railway Reviews

Pros

Money is good only if you look at the $
Benefits
Shares
Pension

Cons

You never know when your coming and going to work, you cannot plan anything with anyone, you wait for the phone to ring all hours and when you check the computer and think you'll go to work everything will change and you will keep waiting. You have no set days off, board change is every friday....One check will be good and the next you sat waiting days and days to go to work cause the board isn't turning....You will sit at your destination town bunkhouse for hours and hours and hours thinking about everything you have to do when you get home or all that you missed while sitting there unpaid. (kids playing sports, birthdays etc). They have a CN mentality of feeling there is never enough time to get things done.......meaning nothing will wait. Sleep deprived constantly (misses 1 night sleep per week at least) poor eating habits and a short short fuse and you'll never know if they'll be home to help with sports, school, chores, appointments or anything! You can book 1 personal day a month.....if there is not too many guys off already and vacation in October/Nov unless you have 30+ years senority....
Why he stays, it never used to be this bad only the last approx 8-10 years and he's invested to much time and energy into this company, can see light at the end called retirement and he has a spouse who is capable of multitasking.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat employees as humans who have spouses and children not robot who can sit waiting all the time for things to start happening, while there waiting, life at home is passing them by...The honchos at there desks need to listen to the employees in the field, on paper is never the same as the real thing in action. Poor work moral = poor work respect- poor work habits= poor health of CN employees and their famillies...

Pros

The paycheck is OK and it is only usually an 8 hour shift, you don''t have to stay for overtime. The Dental plan is OK

Cons

It is very hard to get time off for family and social events and you will be working every weekend for years and years until you have enough seniority to you can get a job that will give you part of the weekend off. Most of the supervisors are not very competent and promotions are based on who you know not how much a person knows about the operation. If you don't show any passion for working their shifts and weekends be prepared to get RAILROADED!

Advice to Senior Management

treat your experienced employees with respect!

Pros

pay and benefits. but the caveat is the employer whittles away at the benefits package at every opportunity.

Cons

draconian discipline. double standard exists in that managers are never fired for rules violations but labour are almost always fired. employees are treated by managers like something scraped off their boots. managers fudge numbers to meet production goals. the disparity between the customer service image the company portrays to potential investors and the workday reality we see is not even close to being closed, if an attempt is even being made. most cannot understand how the corporation continues to make a profit as they drive customers away in droves, unless it is that the company is raising its rates higher to those that have remained.

Advice to Senior Management

please go away and let more competent people take your positions.

Pros

Good pension for existing employees.

Cons

The company has zero people skills.
The leaders are maglomaniacs.
Most of the employees no longer care whether the company succeeds or fails.
If you get hurt, you get fired

Advice to Senior Management

Stop harassing employees and start drumming up some business. Do not forget the adage of a happy employee being a productive employee.

Pros

It could be a great career as a railroader but there's so much that they don't teach that they harass you instead

Cons

If you thought school yard bullies are only in school then work for Canadian National

Advice to Senior Management

Get a life and treat people with respect.

Pros

Scheduled work windows, safe environment, great pay.

Cons

Middle management does not always understand what conductors and engineers go through on a daily basis. We are treated like people that know nothing. Our input is ignored, and our skills, talents, and abilities are ignored and unrecognized, and most certainly not appreciated.

Advice to Senior Management

Allow the train crews to make suggestions. Most of us have been doing this for a long time, yet we are treated like morons. Most of us would love to give input and have it recognized. Managers need to be hired out of the ranks, and not off of the street or fresh out of school. If current managers don't know what it is like to spend 12 hours a day on a locomotive, or pounding the lead, etc., then they are not capable of making intelligent decisions. I cannot begin to tell you how many times our crews have been lied to by middle managers in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin's Shops Yard. To me, this is the worst place to work on the whole system. No where else that we have been on the CN have crews been treated so poorly. Be honest with us. Treat us right and we will give you the shirt off of our back!

Pros

Field positions don't have a boss looking over your shoulder at all times, actual work itself is not that physically or mentally demanding. When supplied, equipment (tools, vehicle, etc) are a great asset. Benefits (insurance, 401K, stock) are good.

Cons

Grossly incompetent management, absolutely no technical support in the US, dangerously failing infrastructure that you are responsible for, work/life balance not worth the money, no time off ever, management blatantly disregards union contact, critical information for job withheld in order to advance agendas/personalities.

Advice to Senior Management

Management thinks that they are some type of untouchable deities. Their word and belief's trump laws, union contracts, common sense, reason, scientific fact, and the word of their field employees who are actually on the ground and can see the way things actually are.

Pros

Stable employment/job security; average salary but total compensation/benefits is good; learn from peers/work with some really smart people

Cons

Politics, bureaucracy, lack of recognition/advancement, lack of transparent communication, lack of flexibility (no more than 2 weeks of vacation at a time), lack of leadership, apathetic workers in a big organization, lack of real collaboration/team spirit

Advice to Senior Management

Mean what you say, do what you say. There is no leadership when you don't back up your words with action. Make the right decisions. Communicate honestly with your employees. Give us flexibility, not more rules and restrictions.

Pros

CN pay is very good but that is totally it!!!

Cons

CN is the worst place you can work period! they make up stuff to get you fired when they have a beef with you. one train crew was totally fired because they blew the whistle for track men moving dangerous material cars with track machines. one was even arrested over made up charges!!! i hope that man has a field day in court with the railroad. the managers make you break rules and then when something goes wrong they call an investigation and fire you. you look over your back everyday you come to work wondering if today will be your last day before you are fired. what kind of life is that dealing with this much stress wondering how you will support your family working with the set of double standards this company uses to get the work done. you could end up fired or worse they try to ruin your life by making false acusations that get you tosed in jail!! this isnt railroading and i have no idea what you would call it. these people need to be investigated by the federal government or something.

Advice to Senior Management

step up to the plate and stop harrasing employees. stop lying in company investigations and elsewhere. treat us like you yourself would want to be treated.

Pros

The only good thing about this place is the money. I don't know anything else positive to say, its sad really.

Cons

There is an unspoken double standard that exists at the CN. They have a rule book in which you are to comply with that has, literally, over 1,000 rules in it. If you go by all the rules, which is next to impossible, you will not get your job done. If you break the rules to get your job done, you risk getting written up or even fired.

The double standard is that the company expects you to break certain rules in order to finish your job. However, the company must complete efficiency tests in where company officials go out and spy on employees in the field to catch them breaking the smallest rules. If an employee goes by every single rule and does not finish their work, the company thinks the employee is "screwing them".

If you ask any company official about what I just wrote, they will deny it. At this place, you get penalized for breaking the rules, and you get penalized for going by the rules. This is no joke and very frustrating for people that just want to come to work and do a good job.

Here lately, within the last few months, it seems that the company has gotten even more vigilant for employees breaking the most smallest and seemingly ridiculous rules.

Advice to Senior Management

My advice to the CN would be to wake up and realize that the more employees that you write up for breaking the small rules, the more employees you will have that are going to go by ALL the rules. As this happens, customers will not get switched and trains will be severely delayed. Make up your mind about what rules you really want to enforce and how slow or fast you want your operation to be. If it is the FRA that is making you enforce all these silly rules, lobby Congress, apply for FRA waivers, do whatever it takes!

You have been warned!