This company has these skilled workers with loads of responsibility on their shoulders. Any small mistake could mean huge consequences for public safety. The company owns their lives, they have to be away from their families to an unhealthy degree to work all across the country, or be on-call for 24-hours for 22 days of 28 and out all hours of the night. Yet this company is trying to force travel on the workers dime, stiff them on expenses, make them share rooms in hotels, force them to purchase housing where they bid, they haven’t increased the pension in 30 years, there are no sick/personal/floater days in contract and most of all the pay is on par with the replacable track forces (requires 12th grade and a couple weeks of training). And yet, for some reason, all their best workers and management have been fleeing for the likes of Metrolinx and Siemens for 30-40% more pay. And yet, for some reason, they can’t keep their apprentices, even after removing basic aptitude tests as a barrier to entry (yikes).
The companies have seen what their US counterparts get away with, and are wanting a piece.
Good for them. I hope they get a fair shake. There’s a lot of sectors in Canada that are woefully lacking solidarity, but every individual worker is backing these guys 100%
Neo lib regimes have done nothing for the working class… Well besides ensure that we never get any pay bumps beyond bare minimum to maintain regime talking points that wages “go up”
I’ve moved to the UK from Vancouver. When I was still there, my work partner (who is edging towards retirement, 65 and still slinging 50+kg stones onto the wall) told me we’re being offered half the piece rate. It’s a struggle to get $20/ft² and back in the 70s and into the first half of the 90s $50+/ft² was the norm. And this isn’t some backwoods slap-it-up job, talking 20,000ft² around the base of 5 new apartment towers $18/ft², ¾ of a billion dollar mansion, $16.50.
