a project in buisness

CN Railway 

* Privately owned since (1988), former crown corporation. 

* His Position: 

- Locomotive engineer, train driver

 -Freight trains(not a passenger train) to diff. locations  

 Transports everything that moves by freight, a lot of dangerous  commodities(gas, ash, chlorine gas)  

 -Brakeman making up trains and graduated a conductor, hooking up  the trains. Been at CN for 31 years. In 1994, graduated to locomotive  engineer. 

Why so many strikes? (2013, 2012, 2007)

-Roughly every 2-3 years there is a strike.

-Bargaining power taken away, b/c govnt order them back to work. 

-Deemed as essential service, safety sensitive employee.

-When they give a 48 hour strike notice to company, then govnt starts back to work legislation in the chamber. Question period, go through parliament procedure to pass the back to work legislation, sometimes opposition holds it up, but usually they pass it within 4 days(meaning they are ordered back to work) if not they are faced with massive fines individually, technically breaking the law.

-Strikes are about the working conditions, being forced to stay away from home for a long time, ability to compare oneself to work with accurate rest(never knowing with you work) 

-Works 12 hours in 1 shift but can give a notice saying you can only work 10(1st tour of duty, which is violated daily, becomes a safety issue because employees are tired and they keep them working. Once 12 hours is up, you must stop the train wherever you, if you did not make it to the destination they will make you sit and wait for roughly 2 unpaid hours and wait for a taxi to take you to a hotel, even after the employee has given over 3 hours notice that their time is almost up and where they will roughly be, they make they wait as punishment for not making it on time. Disregarding the fact that it takes time and you can not rush the train considering how big it is and the time it takes to put it together.) 

-Work up to 18 hours in a 24 hour period(2nd tour of duty)    

-They seem to have an unlimited budget for paying for taxies are staying in hotel which never happened until 10-15 years ago. Bunk houses a hole in the wall that has a bed with a bathroom in the hall. 

-If you whistle blow you get fired

-Spotted; It means you put the car on the customers tracks so that they can load it or unload it. 

 Abusing  it: They say it is spotted before it is to keep their bonus

-There are roughly 50,000 outstanding grievances (pay, discipline issues ect.)  

Dads Perspective: 

* Treated unfairly by some front line managers(who don't actually know how to do the job so there is confrontation) its a war game between employers and front line managers (ex: 2 Christmases ago, they put out a train line up for christmas, he canceled everything for Christmas eve, without any warning at 10pm christmas eve they ordered an extra year which they didn't need, they called 10 employees who did not answer their phones so they got called in for discipline, the next 3 employees had to come in cause they answered started work at 10pm till 6am 5mines to midnight, their radio channel opened up, assuming management, played the theme to the grinch who stole christmas. Keeping mind these people have families to get home to their kids.) 

* Some managers are not all bad and some try to help but they cant because they are not allowed to manage their terminals because they take orders from superintendents of the territory. Management style is confrontational because the want an reaction from the employee.

* Ex CEO of CN Hunter Harrison, sent 2 hard cover books to every employee written by himself, explaining his reasoning for “how we work and why” and “clearing the mud” which costed millions. 45,000 people. When they were bigger problems like busted rails, broken engines he was handing out books... 

* CN is on the brown system, a disciplinary system so at 60 “brownies” you are fired, which include, getting 20 “brownies” for booking off when your called recently they added book off on fit (meaning not fit to work, which the govnt put back in) since you call work with your employee number they know which employee is calling and so they look at the schedule and if your due to work they wont answer so that you cant book off.  

-20 years ago, 3 people used to be able to handle 600-800 carts a day in a 8 hour shift, now they 2 people can handle 52 to 100 in a 8 hour shift. The company is managed so poorly that their productivity is decreasing.  

-Used to be able to go to Meville and back in 11-12hours now its 16 to 18 and sometimes don't make it, you only get paid when you are moving so it is actually decreasing his working wage.  

-Grey language in agreement: You work work 6 days a week( 6 day a week assignment) then your 7th day if suppose to be a rest day but they will work you into your 7th day, usually 12 hours into it, and so get 12 hours off because they then can call you back into work the next day which is your assigned day.

What can they do better:

-Organize the train schedules so employees know when they need to go to work, so they are able to be well rested and prepared to perform the job safely

-Better communication between management and employees, losing the confrontational war between managers and employees

-Work life balance, having a life outside of work to be happy at work

  ie family, friends, vacation, sick days. to be happy at work you have   to be happy with the life you have as well   

-To be treated with the respect they deserve  

-When giving suggestions to managers, consider it, don't run to the books to tell them you cant do it get back to work. 

-Better form of training overall and experience in the location they are at. (ex: what they do is ship someone from Vancouver to Regina, and expect the employee to go to work immediately without any familiarization  about the work, they will give you a list of things to do like switch different rain carts to different tracks and they don't know which track is which(keeping in mind this is all done in the middle of the night), each rail yard is different, also weather conditions are very different from Vancouver to Regina. 

-If you are getting called to go to work, you should have easy access to call the crew office to find out when the trains are running(sometimes it takes 3 hours)