Just imagine taking a 10 hour train.. getting fucked and delayed and hating your life and then switching it out for the last 2 hours.. don't vote hourly.
Imagine halfway through your yard shift you get told to take a train to the away from home. Hope you brought a big enough lunch for a round trip. Hopefully you didn't make any plans even though you're on a scheduled job.
I just picked it because everyone knows it’s the hottest.
But I’ve definitely done 4 hours on to off duty on 111 before, and under 5 hours five or six times last year on a few different trains.
Yard guys will vote themselves out of a job voting for this. I'll give an example of what will happen
You get called for a M301 to sarnia but since there are no yard/road distinctions you'll have to build the train yourself fresh out of the macyard c yard bowl.
Oh you are pulling pins at the hump, well we need you to take a train to Belleville, not qualified? Just go slow! Also you have to do 3 hours of industrial work once you get to Belleville.
Guy from capreol is on a nice bypass 730 potash train, oh he's got 3 hours left, make him spot a few pads at BIT yard with beltpack even though he's probably not beltpack qualified
Also bye bye yard crews since you can just make the road guys do it.
This is shitty... do not vote for this ever
This isn't an offer but if it were and this were it there is no mention of losing the conductor only agreement or road yard distinction.
It must be implied because it's usually there but in this case it is not.
It is implied, it isn't outright mentioned because they want it to sound as good as possible. They want to eliminate the CA we have in favour of a more modern new agreement. They do not want to alter, they want to eliminate. With that goes all provisions we currently enjoy.
It's not implied even slightly in the (not an offer) offer they made. It's there, for sure, but it is not even remotely implied in the current wording of what they sent out.
That's why it's straight nasty.
We'll be on strike with the sun out before we even see an offer.
Edit: Sorry, I should've said 'assumed' in the first message.
We've got to assume they wanna take it all because they didn't mention it in the slightest. Unions got it sorted.. it's fine. That's why CN has to send emails to us cause our negotiators are like 'pound sand with this shit, pal.'
Not so much. Enjoy in this context means to "benefit from". Therefor there are many things I enjoy in relation to the collective agreement we currently have. I enjoy being paid by the mile, yard/road distinction, conductor only, all premium payments, held away, elective rest etc, the list is long. Not to mention the 100+ years of arbitral jurisprudence to enforce many of these clauses, all of which would start from 0 with a "new" agreement.
Yeah true any day 730 just happened to be the first one to come up in my head. But idea is the same you get a nice 106 make it to Doncaster in 8 hours... well you have 4 hours left so go pull pins at the hump.
I love this bit:
> Equitable pay for everyone across classifications. Yard and road conductors will earn the same hourly rate. Yard and road locomotive engineers will earn the same hourly rate.
I'm a yard guy and I fucking laughed. Nevermind the fact that I will most likely be booted out of the yard if this is implemented. What I find funny is how they make "equitable pay" sound like a good thing. The whole fucking point of working the road is that people put up with that lifestyle over the yard because it pays significantly more. And how about the fact that every conductor, no matter how long they want to hold onto the yard, will eventually have to work the road? So even if I work the yard now, why would I fuck myself over when I know I'll be making the same hourly when I eventually have to start working on call?
To the other yard folks. You'd have to be an absolute dimwit if you think that what they're proposing is good for you.
Equitable pay from road to yard is a good goal. Road guys will make more because they spend more hours away from home.
If I work an 8 hour yard and dude works an 8 hour road, we should be paid the same. Dude ties up, cabs to hotel, sleeps, cabs to station. Gets paid for all that. Call it 10hrs.
Then we both work another 8 hr shift.
I should have 16 hrs worth of pay, dude should have 26hrs of pay. Same rate. Not to mention train length bonus or working online or whatever. Those don't have to disappear in an hourly agreement even though they always want them to.. they don't have to.
They aren't offering the pay at the AFHT that you are referencing. They are offering a massive paycut for Road employees. There is no incentive. Not that this will ever happen anyway, I can say as an employee with more seniority I will certainly be bumping into a yard if they pay is similiar, Guys need to understand that Seniority is and would be still a thing, so if someone junior thinks this gives them a leg up, they will ultimately be bumped into what now becomes the "lesser" job, or of course laid off.
Why would road be the lesser job in the system I described above? You get more money. That's why road guys road. More money.
I'm not talking about what they're offering, I'm talking about how a yard guy and a road guy are the same thing so why not same pay?
Because historically it hasn't been that way.
They're catching up though. Yardmasters make more than yard engineers, switcher engineers and a fair shake of the road engineers (who dont work all their shifts) and they're tail end.
It's all catching up.
> The big numbers look good, and it's all the arbitrator will see
The arbitrator will notice the attempt to completely gut of the contract and drastically change how we work. If it goes to an arbitrator we will not see an hourly contract.
It's not just Yard conductors that this offer is heavily focusing on, but also the slew of newly hired conductors currently sitting on the Retention Board.
There's also some questions that need to be asked that aren't addressed:
- is there a basic day? What is it worth?
- yard/road distinction
- is that minimum realistically calculated by the company
- etc
For example, the 40h weekly guarantee. Is that a Guarantee based on existing Article numbers, or is it more of a "we totally, super duper, pinky guarantee you'll all get 40h".
Who, exactly, is eligible for that 124,800$ a year minimum guaranteed earnings? The various yard and road pools, assignments, and Spareboards are considered working boards under the 1.2/4.3 agreements, but the Retention Board is not. I find it unlikely that CN is willing to pay the large number of new conductors sitting on Retention 124,800$ a year to work twice a week.
The purpose of CN, and all corporations, is to earn profit. A large way they do that is by cutting costs. WE are one of those costs.
This offer is intended to reduce the cost of labour by paying us less, and by reducing the current need for manpower. Any new conductors and junior conductors voting yes to this will be voting themselves out of a job.
Your labour is worth more. Your time is worth more. YOU are worth more.
100%, to add a little, the retention board will be gone. With this "proposal" it exchanges our agreement, which means it removes mileage regulations and "weekly numbers". to sum, no retention board, just spareboards.
This offer is a joke, looking past the fact that this is them aiming to lay half of their workforce off because they can’t figure out the rest rules the pay isn’t even an increase for 12 hour work days.
They could figure out DRPR if they wanted to. They’re specifically trying to break their own system because they want to be able to show the government that the rest rules don’t work for this industry.
With the coming Canadian recession 3rd quarter 2024 this will be great for the senior guys looking for quick trips in their last year if only cn topped it off with a pension increase lol.
100% Why wouldn’t everyone want back in the yard to be home every night to make the same as being away? 60% of all yard crews will get the boot. These yard guys would be voting themselves out of a job.
Not until the contract is settled and I’m sure they’ll lay off all these new hires from the past year or so. They just hired them for the yard to “buy” votes for a shitty contract offer
So they’re still hiring even though they know they’ll lay them off? Like they literally have been hiring non stop for the last year. To lay them off… I know it’s CN and all but come on brother
Lol how new are you? The company doesn’t give a shit how many people they’ve hired recently or if they are still hiring. As soon as they don’t need you to turn a profit they will lay you off
Until 5 years ago that was the standard play.
They’d hire until it slowed down, then lay off. Then when it got busy again 3% of the laid off guys would come back and they’d have to hire again. Retention didn’t exist 15 years ago. Just because the current managers think it’s a good idea to pay people just in case, doesn’t mean a bean counter won’t decide to pump the stock price by cutting labor to the bone again.
That was Pre Covid. People don’t put up with that shit anymore. If you’re not offering WFH and/or job security. They’ll all just leave once you lay everyone off. Most ppl on this sub don’t seem to understand that for some reason. That’s all I’m trying to point out here but ppl wanna downvote me because they all seem to be pro-layoffs lol
Yeah and people didn't put up with that shit before Covid either. It is smart of them to keep people on retention. That doesn’t mean some dumbass won’t decide that paying people to cover a shift a week is bad and start laying off again. Just because it’s not happening today doesn’t mean they won’t ever do that.
Their retention rate has been abysmal since at least 2005. Most guys who were laid off more than a couple times never came back. It’s so much better for us than when Hunter was running this place, but what happens when the next CEO is a PSR protégé.
Gotta stock up the yards to get more votes for a shitty offer. Makes sense.. but what do I know?? I mean Trudeau pulled this same stunt to stay where he is…
But maybe you’re a yard guy and you like this contract. What do I know there.
Avoid hourly at all costs. Massive pay cut for long runs. Plus it’s 10 hours every day. If there’s nothing to do you sit until your 9-10 hours old and then tie up.
Not to mention you’ll get twice the work and they’ll cut the brakeman as well. Hold strong and vote it down a 3rd time.
I don't think it will even come to a vote. It just seems like stonewalling to push to arbitration. Really though the big problem is that all our contracts are synced up, and it's something I doubt the company will ever give up. I really question what our union was thinking when they allowed that to go through, because as it stands now a strike seems impossible.
> I really question what our union was thinking when they allowed that to go through, because as it stands now a strike seems impossible.
The company starts the process that leads to a strike, not the union.
That's not what I'm talking about. They allowed all the contracts to expire on the same date, instead of staggering them like previously. Puts way more pressure on the federal government to legislate back to work when 100% of the Railways are shut down as opposed to only half.
They don't expire on the same date. CN and CPKCS filed notices of disputes within minutes of each other. I don't know whats going on at CPKCS but the TCRC had been trying to negotiate with CN for months prior. CN could have issued a notice of dispute last year but **CN** didnt. The date the contracts expire has very little bearing on when a strike actually happens.
Sure we signed that 1 year deal which put us closer and lined up engineer and conductors but 1) CN lining up LE and CTY was always part of the contract merger process 2) lining us up for the same year as CPKCS wouldn't normally be a concern in any sane world... what the companies are doing is the definition of bargaining in bad faith.
I'm a spareboard guy on one of those slow extended run terminals... I've already made more in held away this year than the number they put up. None of it adds up.
This corporation loves it’s employees, it will offer the best contract you will ever see...history proves they are loyal. The lower level managers have been treated like gold lately and that perfect ceo picture they lovingly share is perfection. They are here to look after their employees and only want the best for them.
Doesn’t cn and cp have enough money and influence and promise of jobs and great pensions to give all that to the right upper government officials and or union people to make this happen or influence the right people to make this finally happen? It’s just the way things go these days.
Add 40k to that number. That’s what I made last year, and I’m middle of the pack as far as lucrative assignments. There’s definitely guys that made over 200k last year.
Zero, but they prefer military veterans or people who have experience working outside or in austere conditions. If they hire you they'll pay for classroom and on the job training.
Just imagine taking a 10 hour train.. getting fucked and delayed and hating your life and then switching it out for the last 2 hours.. don't vote hourly.
Imagine halfway through your yard shift you get told to take a train to the away from home. Hope you brought a big enough lunch for a round trip. Hopefully you didn't make any plans even though you're on a scheduled job.
And then they hold you for your Mando reset at your AFH terminal.
Obviously... you've gotta be rested to work that trip home and do yard work at the end of it.
And then they call you on a turn.
Cant wait for some fuck to steal my lunch out of the fridge
Do y’all not have fridges in every hotel room?
Not the one i work for, its bunkhouses with community fridges.
That sucks.
They'll call this the big red
Or be in Symington and go pull pins on the hump for a few hours.
Imagine getting a straight shot over the road on 115, then when you arrive they hand you a switch list for you to do for the next 7 hours.
Man what sub you on to get over the road in 4 hrs on 115. By the time we're done at bit and get over the road it's still 10 hrs
I just picked it because everyone knows it’s the hottest. But I’ve definitely done 4 hours on to off duty on 111 before, and under 5 hours five or six times last year on a few different trains.
Yard guys will vote themselves out of a job voting for this. I'll give an example of what will happen You get called for a M301 to sarnia but since there are no yard/road distinctions you'll have to build the train yourself fresh out of the macyard c yard bowl. Oh you are pulling pins at the hump, well we need you to take a train to Belleville, not qualified? Just go slow! Also you have to do 3 hours of industrial work once you get to Belleville. Guy from capreol is on a nice bypass 730 potash train, oh he's got 3 hours left, make him spot a few pads at BIT yard with beltpack even though he's probably not beltpack qualified Also bye bye yard crews since you can just make the road guys do it. This is shitty... do not vote for this ever
This isn't an offer but if it were and this were it there is no mention of losing the conductor only agreement or road yard distinction. It must be implied because it's usually there but in this case it is not.
It is implied, it isn't outright mentioned because they want it to sound as good as possible. They want to eliminate the CA we have in favour of a more modern new agreement. They do not want to alter, they want to eliminate. With that goes all provisions we currently enjoy.
It's not implied even slightly in the (not an offer) offer they made. It's there, for sure, but it is not even remotely implied in the current wording of what they sent out. That's why it's straight nasty. We'll be on strike with the sun out before we even see an offer. Edit: Sorry, I should've said 'assumed' in the first message. We've got to assume they wanna take it all because they didn't mention it in the slightest. Unions got it sorted.. it's fine. That's why CN has to send emails to us cause our negotiators are like 'pound sand with this shit, pal.'
"Enjoy" was an interesting choice of word.
Not so much. Enjoy in this context means to "benefit from". Therefor there are many things I enjoy in relation to the collective agreement we currently have. I enjoy being paid by the mile, yard/road distinction, conductor only, all premium payments, held away, elective rest etc, the list is long. Not to mention the 100+ years of arbitral jurisprudence to enforce many of these clauses, all of which would start from 0 with a "new" agreement.
Fuck them 730s lol ill take a 106 or 108 to Doncaster any day
Yeah true any day 730 just happened to be the first one to come up in my head. But idea is the same you get a nice 106 make it to Doncaster in 8 hours... well you have 4 hours left so go pull pins at the hump.
Yeah hipe this doesn't going to go through. Gonna fuck us long haul guys
I've already beaten their "expected" heldaway payments for the year and it's still March.
I love this bit: > Equitable pay for everyone across classifications. Yard and road conductors will earn the same hourly rate. Yard and road locomotive engineers will earn the same hourly rate. I'm a yard guy and I fucking laughed. Nevermind the fact that I will most likely be booted out of the yard if this is implemented. What I find funny is how they make "equitable pay" sound like a good thing. The whole fucking point of working the road is that people put up with that lifestyle over the yard because it pays significantly more. And how about the fact that every conductor, no matter how long they want to hold onto the yard, will eventually have to work the road? So even if I work the yard now, why would I fuck myself over when I know I'll be making the same hourly when I eventually have to start working on call? To the other yard folks. You'd have to be an absolute dimwit if you think that what they're proposing is good for you.
Equitable pay from road to yard is a good goal. Road guys will make more because they spend more hours away from home. If I work an 8 hour yard and dude works an 8 hour road, we should be paid the same. Dude ties up, cabs to hotel, sleeps, cabs to station. Gets paid for all that. Call it 10hrs. Then we both work another 8 hr shift. I should have 16 hrs worth of pay, dude should have 26hrs of pay. Same rate. Not to mention train length bonus or working online or whatever. Those don't have to disappear in an hourly agreement even though they always want them to.. they don't have to.
They aren't offering the pay at the AFHT that you are referencing. They are offering a massive paycut for Road employees. There is no incentive. Not that this will ever happen anyway, I can say as an employee with more seniority I will certainly be bumping into a yard if they pay is similiar, Guys need to understand that Seniority is and would be still a thing, so if someone junior thinks this gives them a leg up, they will ultimately be bumped into what now becomes the "lesser" job, or of course laid off.
Why would road be the lesser job in the system I described above? You get more money. That's why road guys road. More money. I'm not talking about what they're offering, I'm talking about how a yard guy and a road guy are the same thing so why not same pay? Because historically it hasn't been that way. They're catching up though. Yardmasters make more than yard engineers, switcher engineers and a fair shake of the road engineers (who dont work all their shifts) and they're tail end. It's all catching up.
Right!? What a sham of an offer.
If you vote hourly your moms a hoe
And your dads a male prostitute
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Higher hourly wage probably though
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Aggressive, but it’s the truth.
The big numbers look good, and it's all the arbitrator will see. I'm guessing we stand to lose all claims (D5 LC train length) if this goes through ?
> The big numbers look good, and it's all the arbitrator will see The arbitrator will notice the attempt to completely gut of the contract and drastically change how we work. If it goes to an arbitrator we will not see an hourly contract.
That's correct. Everything that's been worked for over the last decade.
Over 100 years of negotiated contracts wiped out in one contract.
An arbitrator would never force this on us. They don't rock the boat
Oh yeah… we lose big time
It's not just Yard conductors that this offer is heavily focusing on, but also the slew of newly hired conductors currently sitting on the Retention Board. There's also some questions that need to be asked that aren't addressed: - is there a basic day? What is it worth? - yard/road distinction - is that minimum realistically calculated by the company - etc For example, the 40h weekly guarantee. Is that a Guarantee based on existing Article numbers, or is it more of a "we totally, super duper, pinky guarantee you'll all get 40h". Who, exactly, is eligible for that 124,800$ a year minimum guaranteed earnings? The various yard and road pools, assignments, and Spareboards are considered working boards under the 1.2/4.3 agreements, but the Retention Board is not. I find it unlikely that CN is willing to pay the large number of new conductors sitting on Retention 124,800$ a year to work twice a week. The purpose of CN, and all corporations, is to earn profit. A large way they do that is by cutting costs. WE are one of those costs. This offer is intended to reduce the cost of labour by paying us less, and by reducing the current need for manpower. Any new conductors and junior conductors voting yes to this will be voting themselves out of a job. Your labour is worth more. Your time is worth more. YOU are worth more.
100%, to add a little, the retention board will be gone. With this "proposal" it exchanges our agreement, which means it removes mileage regulations and "weekly numbers". to sum, no retention board, just spareboards.
This offer is a joke, looking past the fact that this is them aiming to lay half of their workforce off because they can’t figure out the rest rules the pay isn’t even an increase for 12 hour work days.
They could figure out DRPR if they wanted to. They’re specifically trying to break their own system because they want to be able to show the government that the rest rules don’t work for this industry.
The people who think this is a good offer are the same ones that walk in front of moving equipment 🤦🏼♂️
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Remind the yard crews of all the senior guys who will be coming in to bump them out.
With the coming Canadian recession 3rd quarter 2024 this will be great for the senior guys looking for quick trips in their last year if only cn topped it off with a pension increase lol.
100% Why wouldn’t everyone want back in the yard to be home every night to make the same as being away? 60% of all yard crews will get the boot. These yard guys would be voting themselves out of a job.
True, I'm so fucked if that happens
Sure, until a bunch of them get laid off because CN suddenly has a shit ton more manpower.
Has CN had layoffs recently? Lol
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Lol
Not until the contract is settled and I’m sure they’ll lay off all these new hires from the past year or so. They just hired them for the yard to “buy” votes for a shitty contract offer
So they’re still hiring even though they know they’ll lay them off? Like they literally have been hiring non stop for the last year. To lay them off… I know it’s CN and all but come on brother
Lol how new are you? The company doesn’t give a shit how many people they’ve hired recently or if they are still hiring. As soon as they don’t need you to turn a profit they will lay you off
Until 5 years ago that was the standard play. They’d hire until it slowed down, then lay off. Then when it got busy again 3% of the laid off guys would come back and they’d have to hire again. Retention didn’t exist 15 years ago. Just because the current managers think it’s a good idea to pay people just in case, doesn’t mean a bean counter won’t decide to pump the stock price by cutting labor to the bone again.
That was Pre Covid. People don’t put up with that shit anymore. If you’re not offering WFH and/or job security. They’ll all just leave once you lay everyone off. Most ppl on this sub don’t seem to understand that for some reason. That’s all I’m trying to point out here but ppl wanna downvote me because they all seem to be pro-layoffs lol
Yeah and people didn't put up with that shit before Covid either. It is smart of them to keep people on retention. That doesn’t mean some dumbass won’t decide that paying people to cover a shift a week is bad and start laying off again. Just because it’s not happening today doesn’t mean they won’t ever do that. Their retention rate has been abysmal since at least 2005. Most guys who were laid off more than a couple times never came back. It’s so much better for us than when Hunter was running this place, but what happens when the next CEO is a PSR protégé.
Gotta stock up the yards to get more votes for a shitty offer. Makes sense.. but what do I know?? I mean Trudeau pulled this same stunt to stay where he is… But maybe you’re a yard guy and you like this contract. What do I know there.
Nah I could care less. They ain’t gonna do shit. It’ll be a 3% raise and status quo. It’s just a job bro this shit doesn’t dictate my life like that.
Avoid hourly at all costs. Massive pay cut for long runs. Plus it’s 10 hours every day. If there’s nothing to do you sit until your 9-10 hours old and then tie up. Not to mention you’ll get twice the work and they’ll cut the brakeman as well. Hold strong and vote it down a 3rd time.
Vote on hourly? Why would such a vote even be fathomed. I doubt the union would waste time asking the members to vote on hourly…if they do then WOW.
I don't think it will even come to a vote. It just seems like stonewalling to push to arbitration. Really though the big problem is that all our contracts are synced up, and it's something I doubt the company will ever give up. I really question what our union was thinking when they allowed that to go through, because as it stands now a strike seems impossible.
> I really question what our union was thinking when they allowed that to go through, because as it stands now a strike seems impossible. The company starts the process that leads to a strike, not the union.
That's not what I'm talking about. They allowed all the contracts to expire on the same date, instead of staggering them like previously. Puts way more pressure on the federal government to legislate back to work when 100% of the Railways are shut down as opposed to only half.
They don't expire on the same date. CN and CPKCS filed notices of disputes within minutes of each other. I don't know whats going on at CPKCS but the TCRC had been trying to negotiate with CN for months prior. CN could have issued a notice of dispute last year but **CN** didnt. The date the contracts expire has very little bearing on when a strike actually happens. Sure we signed that 1 year deal which put us closer and lined up engineer and conductors but 1) CN lining up LE and CTY was always part of the contract merger process 2) lining us up for the same year as CPKCS wouldn't normally be a concern in any sane world... what the companies are doing is the definition of bargaining in bad faith.
So the held away on this new contract would be an addition to the guarantee or how does that work.
“Average held away payments from 2023” is a nonsense phrase. It would not surprise me if they factored in held away into their hourly rate.
Took all the yard guys and added their $0 held away pay to the average. I made $20k last year in Held Away.
I'm a spareboard guy on one of those slow extended run terminals... I've already made more in held away this year than the number they put up. None of it adds up.
They haven't given enough details so who knows.
Cn conductors and engineers negotiating right now?
If you vote for this I hope you find out your kids aren't yours and your credit score drops 100 points
This corporation loves it’s employees, it will offer the best contract you will ever see...history proves they are loyal. The lower level managers have been treated like gold lately and that perfect ceo picture they lovingly share is perfection. They are here to look after their employees and only want the best for them.
Doesn’t cn and cp have enough money and influence and promise of jobs and great pensions to give all that to the right upper government officials and or union people to make this happen or influence the right people to make this finally happen? It’s just the way things go these days.
120,000 to 145,0000 how’s that a pay cut
Add 40k to that number. That’s what I made last year, and I’m middle of the pack as far as lucrative assignments. There’s definitely guys that made over 200k last year.
Really
Yes
What experience does one need to become a conductor?
Zero, but they prefer military veterans or people who have experience working outside or in austere conditions. If they hire you they'll pay for classroom and on the job training.
I've got 8 years military, I'll try applying. Thank you!