Canadian National Railway Reviews in Edmonton, AB Area

Pros

Early starts with early quits. Can make 760 $ followed by two days off. At other times work once a week while collecting a 2800$ guarrantee

Cons

Stressfull job : jumping on & off moving equipment, climbing on & off cars, carrying switch lists, radio gloves, safety glasses, loud noises. A good portion of fellow workers are uneducated & hostile for some reason.

Advice to Senior Management

Only promote from within the ranks

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

The employees, the wages, benefits and variety of jobs and hours. Railroading allows you to choose a variety of jobs and hours. There is a price to be paid, it's called "seniority", as it used to be , the longer you were with the company the better the jobs and the hours became. Now it doesn't change much with seniority but you will see a slight improvement in income.

Cons

Harrassment, school yard bullying by Upper management. Unfair and inconsistant disciplinary action on a daily basis. Cut and dried, anyone who refers to his employees as "snowniggers" in any context, pretty much shows how much he will respect you, your family or your needs. (12% approval rating?, his friends and family must have voted) If you want any type of "quality of life" I suggest you find someone else to work for. The up and coming management shows little sign of improvement.

Advice to Senior Management

Learn how to treat people, the employees you have are fully capable of running this railroad without your foot up their butts.

Pros

The job is very easy to do does not require an extreme amount of effort or knowledge and they are willing to train you on any other job that you are willing to learn or any piece of equipment or machine you want to learn about. The senior staff is very easy going and willing to help you in any way to make your job easier. They are not afraid to spend money on new equipment if you can convince them you need it to make the work go faster or easier they will buy it. The pay is great for the amount and difficulty or the work.

Cons

The hours can be quite long they are shifts that work 12 hour days for either 3 or 4 days then they get 3 or 4 days off. Also normal workers are asked to work a lot of overtime and give up days off to work overtime on weekend but you are paid well to do it making 1.5 times for overtime and double time for Sunday's. While the overtime is not mandatory not working the overtime will make it difficult to make it into senior management fast.

Advice to Senior Management

Find more workers to your current ones do not burn themselves out with the overtime.

Pros

Used to be a decent place to work, now after 33 years I just want to retire and move on. Can't really think of a good reason to work for CN and based on the turnover rate of their new employees, I'm not alone!

Cons

Harassment and bullying from the top makes it an difficult environment to work in. Unionized employees are fired for any reason and then several weeks later contacted and offered their jobs back with time dismissed to serve as a suspension. Older employees are targeted and dismissed for being sick or fatigued.

Advice to Senior Management

Try treating workers with some dignity and respect, you might be surprised with what you get in return. If you are going to flaunt your five principles then at least live up to them, employees are People and Assets! Here's one way out in left field you might want to consider. If you enter into a collective agreement with a workforce, live up to it instead of violating it every chance you get. Shame on you for tarnishing what was once the good name of CN.

Pros

Money is pretty good, pension plan, like my co-workers I work with, most are pretty good people. Scenery is always beautiful.

Cons

Long hours. Probably looking at 70-80 hours a week gone from home. Hard on wives/families. Still, CN wants the "slave contract" where your never home except for your annual vacation once a year. This would replace the 70-80 hours a week with 120-180 week because Hunter says 80 hours a week is just not enough! That's from the "steam engine days" and we now need something to reflect today's needs and desires of the railway. They have this already in the US. How does it work? Well, about 10 years ago we a lot of surplus employees here at CN who went and worked in the US because of their acute shortage with finding enough people for their railroads. Considering you have a country with 200-300 million people and a lot of low paying jobs, you would think that there would be no shortage of people vying for $80,000 and up jobs. Wrong! No takers! Gotta import 'em from Canada. What was it like for the workers that went down there. They were treated great. But basically a taxi took you from your residence to work, you made you round trip, and then you went back to your residence where you'd better get to bed, because in 8 hours you were gone again on another trip, and on and on it went. Finding time to do laundry after a week, or get groceries got to be difficult. But this is the kind of conditions Hunter wants to force on us. Legalized slavery. Plus they really don't value us. In my 30 plus years, there has never been a company staff party at Christmas for the running trades EVER! Christmas party, what's that? Their annual showing of affection is offering a free hot dog in a parking lot by the diesel shops in a dust storm. Oh you shouldn't have. Need I go on? Can you spot the pattern? Oh and the growing earings. Every quarter. It gets slower and slower and the earning go up at CN-ron. Skies the limit.

Advice to Senior Management

Grow a brain and join the human race!

Pros

Riding trains with fellow running trades employees.

Cons

There are numerous downsides.
CN was singled -out in The Railway Safety Act Review of 2007 as instilling a "culture of fear".

CN promotes bullying harassment tactics in its management, and has created a poisoned work environment. CN does not respect the collective agreements, the health, welfare and safety of its employees, and as demonstrated the basic human right of families not to suffer serious interference. CN has a diminutive view of governing bodies, legislation, and holds in little regard anything unrelated to its bottom-line.

Advice to Senior Management

I'm not sure how they sleep at night or justify the treatment of the employees.
The "employee based safety culture" is not working and never will.

Pros

Salary and pension in that order

Cons

No idea when you are going to work, work all major holidays, only 12 days off per year and not when you want them, excessive discipline, constant contract violation, poor training practice for new employees causing unsafe working conditions, zero job satisfaction, benefits sub par, extremely unharmonious vindictive working environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat people with respect, live up to the contract you signed, stop firing people because you can, start thinking longterm and less importance placed on your next bonus. When a 35 year employee extends advice he is not so much mud but an experienced person with something to offer.