maintenance technician

maintenance manager

production worker

production supervisor

truck driver

Canam Steel

The company had changed alot over the years. Currently the morale is low and the market is unstable. Every so often we shut down for a week at a time with very short notice. Unpaid,  unless you us use your vacation time. Every employee there is negatively affected by this. Also, they have a production bonus incentive in place but the shop almost never hits it.  It's the old horse and carrot trick to keep you hoping for bonus. The truth is that the site director and the plant manager will push and push and push because tonnage is all that matters to them. So even though the production employees are breaking their backs on a daily basis, they don't throw any bones to us. No adjustment to the schedules so we can make some extra change. It doesn't feel like family. It's a bad vibe with management.  seems like a great place to work, and they sell it real well. Once your working here and see how your run through the meat grinder daily, you quickly realize you've made a mistake. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME HERE!

As a welder, I made sometimes 8000 identical welds a day, for 10 hours a day, 6 days a week.  Get in on time, put your nose to the grindstone (at least until you get in the union after 3 months) and you might start making some good money after those union raises start stacking up. 

The order of priorities goes Cheap, Fast, Safe, and then Good. The work pace is grueling, but could go much faster and better if they'd spend just a little more on better shielding gas and combo cables that aren't always breaking. I regularly saw management doing things that could be fatal (reckless positioning of suspended loads over people) to keep up with production, and it wasn't even to make anything any good. The weld standard is "is there a weld there" and in many cases we had people who had been welding there for decades making porous welds (if they even put them in at all) before sending it down the line anyway so they could start on the next stack of joists. 

If you can look at a molten mess of bubbling steel falling through where your weld was supposed to go and say "Quality" I know you've worked at Canam.

The pay is great for the location IF we work overtime. But it evens out after you take into account the poor working conditions, lazy coworkers, and unrealistic expectations. I will hand it to them they are stepping up as far as safety goes but in some ways they are going a little overboard. Working in a 100+ degree shop you shouldn’t have to be covered in thick clothing from the neck down. The machinery is barely holding together at no fault of maintenance, they are not given adequate time to repair the machines and maintain them properly. They refuse to have maintenance shutdowns like they used to so every time a machine breaks down maintenance has to try to fix it as fast as possible all while management is breathing down their neck about it. The “union” is a joke and the only real benefit you get from it is someone to sign a piece of paper if you do get written up and a Christmas party and picnic. All in all if you need a job and aren’t afraid to work hard and show up to work you can make decent money but don’t get too used to who you work with because very rarely do they last. 

I'll start by saying I really enjoyed and got along with almost everyone I worked with there.  The company has decent benefits and perks, and the flexibility is very understanding and very family friendly. That being said...Job responsibilities always change along woth processes, almost every process used is heavily outdated. Work loads are way too high and my department was completely understaffed for the near decade I was there. Work equipment and space was good, getting new equipment when needed takes too long. There is heavy favoritism within departments, unjust pay between peers, some people just scate by amd get rewarded while hard work goes unnoticed. Company Loyalty doesn't seem to matter. I thought my supervisor looked out for my best interest and I busted my butt for years just to figure out I was being insultingly underpaid (Less than new hires) and I had zero chance for lateral movement or advancement within the company. It's a great place to work, just don't stay too long. 

They emphasize safety and quality on the surface but they push speed in reality, with safety being an afterthought. Management should take the time to focus on their training new hires better instead of playing the hire and fire lottery. You don't get fast quality. You have to sacrifice one or the other. Train quality FIRST, then let the speed happen. Rushed quality is never a good thing. Again, if you want efficiency, you need to build up with the starting block of quality FIRST. Communication and building a team is not cussing at them, and telling them to figure it out and hoping for the best. It's you, the leader, putting in the hard work to make sure that you are communicating what needs to be addressed, and elevating your team. Guilting and chastising isn't going to get you to the promised land. 

These are all things the management at Canam needs to learn. Instead of just creating burn out, and a toxic work environment. 

I enjoyed working for Canam Steel Corporation. When I started with Canam in January 2007 my engineering degree was not complete. After about eight months working with them, I realized the steel floor and roof joist market was about to take a turn for the worse. I went back to school month nine of my employment, and finished my degree by December. When I made it back to Canam January of 2008, the writing was on the wall. 20 and 30 year veteran steel joist/ girder designers were not sure what was going to happen with them. I was low on the food chain. Unfortunately, I found employment elsewhere so others would have a chance to keep their jobs. These folks were great people to work with and to learn from. It was just cut short by the reality of the job market. I would work for Canam again anytime.

I had the hardest job in the warehouse(line 3 shear operator) got paid the same as night shift welder with 10x the amount of work and stress the managers don't really care and the employees the ones I've talked to don't like working there, they were supposed to give me a 90 day bonus they never did they were supposed to give us 1k on the 15th of December 1k bonus..they laid me off before than..I was in all accounts a good worker only missed work when I had surgery on my groin..I brought a doctor's note stating I was out and excused they still didn't accept it and said I should have came to work there anyway..I really tried to give canam steel a chance but due to a toxic work environment toxic coworkers and lying I cannot recommend anyone to work for this conpany..laying people off at the holidays like that should be ashamed.

I would come in in the morning at six AM, check e-mails and then start checking CAD files or programming for the steel cutting machines in the shop. I learned a lot about steel and its tolerances and how the pieces should be cut by the machines. I learned some about camber on bridges and what welds have to go where on steel. The management was okay, i worked a lot of Saturdays which i didn't like. it seemed like we were pushed to hard to fast with somethings. i kept saying that they need more CAD employees but they never hired anymore. the most enjoyable part was seeing what that over all out come looked like, like the whole bridge starting to come together and seeing what the over all look was going to be. another good part was i liked the other co-workers around me.

Retention is horrible along with talent acquisition. Amazing how those two coincide......You breathe, you'll be hired. If your a solid good worker, get ready to work harder to make up for others. Mismanaged,  no Supervisor accountability,  ran like a theme park. Generally don't like to trash previous work places, but it became very clear those operating this particular facility lacked a clear vision, execution, and strategic planning.  Very disorganized amongst various departments. Supervisors back talking other Supervisors, as long as they could look like a hero...The famous motto around the facility " we're working on it" .

I worked second shift which basically makes it so you sleep eat work but I didn’t mind it if you work first shift and live close and don’t mind long hour this job is great I made 1k+ a week starting out the entire crew is pretty great to work with I didn’t like prep department they complain too much for nothing but for anyone who likes jokes they run it like a office more than a construction place so watch what you say they get offended real easily (the reason I left also distance) 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Maintenance technician 1 salary reported	$30.40 per hour
Maintenance manager 4 salaries reported	$17.00 per hour
Production worker 1 salary reported	$19.72 per hour
Production supervisor 2 salaries reported	$101,250 per year
Truck driver 2 salaries reported	$30.00 per hour

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