NashtenS

Very interesting. Would it be accurate to say that there is a gross mismanagement of labour and hours? Having hundreds of job postings up for all direct railroad roles - conductors, engineers, track maintenance, etc... yet continually laying people off and requiring those not being laid off work harder would be considered gross mismanagement in my field.

Attrition I get. In my industry, it’s very rare to get people to stay for more than 6 months. Or when people complete their apprenticeship because they decided to stay, they quit the field outright and never go back.

Just as a personal note again; I’ve applied to the major hiring spots and got nowhere. Makes me think that ‘getting in’ is like a lottery. My dad is a longshoreman, and his work is 100% barred from entry by a lottery.

Your responses on other questions are very informative.

Would having more people working for CN alleviate many of your long working time issues? I noticed they have lots of job positions all over the country.

It seems to be like the Skytrain system in Vancouver; it’s perpetually understaffed to the point where overtime is mandatory to make the schedule happen. Yet, while they are yearning for workers, they absolutely do not want to train people from scratch, nor sponsor apprentices. A subrequirement /to even be considered/ for a Skytrain security officer is to be former RCMP. But the Skytrain security will be paid less and have worse benefits/perks for essentially the same job as an RCMP officer. How does that make sense?

Does CN train people from scratch? How do they hire people? Would you encourage people to join if having more people around would make your job easier?

Just a side note: I do want to be a railroader. ;)

Me, personally, I’d like to be a part of a train crew - beit engineer or conductor.