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Public service employment has grown by 31 per cent

I know guys who worked in the coke ovens at Algoma, they also loved the work because even though it was a pretty hazardous to your health job, their bosses only made them work the minimum amount required so most their 12 hour shift was sitting around getting paid to watch tv.

Sounds like the "Power Shift" our department , used to , have.
 
Respectfully I think that's overly dramatic. Perhaps these are jobs more fitted to robotics and machinery than people.

If robots can build cars and make me a coffee they should be able to do these jobs. Or pay the human exorbitant amounts of money to damage their health like this.

So its not as bad now is what you're saying ? And the health risks are minimalized ?
Lots of people don’t realize how dangerous a bunch of jobs are. Back when my grandfather was training in the 50s they said one out of every thirty going into being a lineman would die on the job. Thats reality.

Automation and technology can potentially reduce risks but not eliminate them. Things are much safer today than they were even 30 years ago. Better personal protective equipment and more importantly corporations in Canada get heavily fined when a worker gets seriously injured or killed making it in their fiscal interest to try and protect their employees health.

But don’t delude yourself into believing they do it out of the goodness of their hearts. When they say offshoring work is cheaper, this is why.

These jobs do also pay above average generally.

Simple personal example, I am a repair Machinist/Fitter. My job if done wrong is extremely dangerous, I could show videos of people being turned into pink mist due to making simple mistakes. There is also a good chance by time I retire I shall be physically broken and I have increased risks of cancer over your general public due to the oils/greases/materials handled, smoke breathed, etc.

I still love the work.

Most blue collar jobs are dangerous to your health long term at the minimum. You can’t automate them particularly well. If they could they would because a robot is cheaper than a person.
 
I am of course talking about non-unionized employment.

We have a mix of unionized and non-unionized employees. I barely consider Unionized employees to be Company employees. The way some Unions act, they are more like private contractors/mercenaries that we pay to operate equipment we happen to own.

That's why it always pays to have spies in the union's ranks.

Follow me for more industrial age leadership hacks ;)
 
That's why it always pays to have spies in the union's ranks.

Follow me for more industrial age leadership hacks ;)
I worked for BC Ferries for a bit, it was so bad that at the terminal where I worked the assistant terminal manager and the shop steward had gone to school together and secretly conspired together, to get things done by not advising management or the union. The relationship in BCF between the union and management was utterly toxic.
When I worked at TC, the shop steward and the Regional Director General would do coffee once a week to discuss grievance and potential issues, so they can deal with them before they became a major issue. A far better relationship and far more productive and better for organization and the workers. Neither could really affect the bigger issues, but they could affect the day to day stuff.
 
I worked for BC Ferries for a bit, it was so bad that at the terminal where I worked the assistant terminal manager and the shop steward had gone to school together and secretly conspired together, to get things done by not advising management or the union. The relationship in BCF between the union and management was utterly toxic.
When I worked at TC, the shop steward and the Regional Director General would do coffee once a week to discuss grievance and potential issues, so they can deal with them before they became a major issue. A far better relationship and far more productive and better for organization and the workers. Neither could really affect the bigger issues, but they could affect the day to day stuff.

And then there's Canada Post ;)
 
People shouldn't be dying or selling off years of their lives for their employers. I can see the irony in saying that as a CAF member, but that worker at Stelco or in mines has a much worse job than me IMHO.

Resist Rise Up GIF
To a certain extent, but there are plenty of jobs that take years off your life on way or another (underwater welder comes to mind) so at least it was properly compensated. Plus as mentioned there was actually a lot of PPE as well as other controls in place to minimize exposure, so much less hazardous then it used to be.

Still plenty of minimum wage jobs that are more dangerous then they should be and the worst ones I ever worked were in small shops doing manual labour. Despite regularly doing dangerous things with the CAF, almost never felt especially at risk due to the training we had and the safety precautions in place where it was practicable. And that included being a live test weight on a heavy jackstaff transfer between two ships (PRE and FRE?) when that used to still be a CRR and subbies were disposable, or in actual fires and floods.

There are a few exceptions to that, but was on ships that limped out the door with less than the legal minimum and got worse during the sail, but that was a bit of RCN cowboying masquerading as 'managed risk' (that no one wanted to figure out what it actually was before they accepted it).
 
That sounds like alot...

More than 9,000 federal public servants apply for early retirement​


More than 9,000 federal public servants have applied for an early retirement package, with only three days left for employees to submit an application to leave the federal government early without penalty on their pension.

The Liberal government launched the Early Retirement Incentive Program this spring, inviting eligible public servants to apply to retire with an “immediate pension based on years of service, with no reduction for retiring early.” The deadline for public servants to apply for the program is Friday, July 24.

Last December, approximately 68,000 public servants received notices informing them they could be eligible for early retirement.

The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat says, as of July 22, 9,141 applications have been received for the Early Retirement Incentive Program.

A total of 6,581 applications have been “confirmed to meet the criteria” and approved for early retirement, while 25 applications have been denied.

Federal employees approved for the early retirement package must retire by Jan. 20, 2027.

The government says being eligible for the early retirement incentive program does not guarantee your application will be approved. The Deputy Head in a department will review the applications to confirm whether the following Treasury Board-approved criteria have been met:
  • The organization needs to reduce its workforce
  • Services to Canadians will be maintained
  • Current and future operational or business needs will continue to be met

 
If robots can build cars and make me a coffee they should be able to do these jobs.
I am involved in the robotics industry, and I can confirm that this is the case. I can also confirm that there is a global race on to deploy synthetic labour to counter the global demographic pressures,especially in Europe and Asia.
 
I knew there was something dodgy about you....wish I had known that when we met 35 years ago....
For the record, I worked on the Customs side, not the posties side. And that was long after we'd worked together.
 
Meanwhile, down at the Department ;)


Feds rubberstamp pay raises for 336,188 bureaucrats​


The federal government rubberstamped raises for 78 per cent of its employees last year, according to access-to-information records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

Meanwhile, departments barely meet half of their own performance targets.

And only 0.14 per cent of employees took a pay cut.

“Taxpayers have every reason to question why the vast majority of bureaucrats are taking bigger paycheques when departments can barely pass their own test,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Federal bureaucrats shouldn’t feel entitled to more money every year just because they’re on the taxpayer payroll.”

The federal government gave 336,188 employees a pay raise last year, according to the records. That means 78 per cent of its employees took a pay raise in 2025. Just 596 employees received a pay cut.

Most federal bureaucrats take pay raises every year.

About 385,000 federal employees took a pay raise in 2024. The government handed out more than one million pay raises between 2020 and 2023. The government has continuously refused to disclose how much these pay hikes cost taxpayers.

This isn’t the first time the government has refused to disclose compensation costs. The CTF launched legal challenges against the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Bank of Canada for refusing to disclose compensation for its senior bureaucrats.

“Taxpayers are on the hook for another wage hike, but the government won’t tell Canadians the price tag,” said Devin Drover, CTF General Counsel. “That’s another failure of Canada’s broken access-to-information system.

“Taxpayers pay these wages and they have a right to know the bill.”

In addition to a lack of transparency, the pay raises are rewarding dismal performance. In fact, federal departments consistently miss their own performance targets.

The government of Canada publishes its own data summarizing department performance results over five years. In two of those years, departments failed to meet half of their own targets. Their best year was 2024, when departments met 54 per cent of their own targets.

Government employees are now taking larger salaries than their counterparts working outside of government.

 
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