Anyone with info on Canada Cartage

Canada Cartage pays flat rate for almost every contract they have.

Drivers seem to be unhappy. There is talk of a Union drive and the company is on a hiring spree to prepare to service current clients.

Poorly managed contracts are starting to see competing carriers on contracts that were exclusive to Canada Cartage.

 

My husband and I are team LTL extended length, northern drivers. We moved to CCS first after our long time job changed when the company was sold.

CCS bid and won a contract with Sysco that required LCV qualifications. We were split up into two maxim rentals and sent to chase eachother five nights a week down the highway to Grande Prairie. They won this bid from a GP based company so they ran us from Edmonton to suit a GP base.

We would lay over in a Super 8 room until the P & D was completed on the Rocky units. This was never at the same time each day and we were on stand-by from 1 pm to 4 pm to rush back to Edmonton, turn and burn back to Grande Prairie. We would get to Grande Prairie at 7 am and Super 8 would always call the room at 11 am to check us out .AKA. no sleep for us. After about the third week, on a Friday, I went to drop the pup after arriving. When I bent over to drop the air, I barfed all over the yard in Grande Prairie because I was so tired. I gave a week's notice. Husband quit on the spot a week after I had left. He had come home on a Sunday, out of his mind with exhaustion and CCS called to demand he return to do extras for Sysco.

The pay off

Canada Cartage/Direct does pay flat rates but your paycheck shall be less than you think because payroll is never correct. The paystubs are almost as hard to interpret as Westcan's.
If you wash the truck, buy gloves or supplies to clean the truck and submit your receipts they will reimburse you. What actually happens is you submit your originals accidentally or lose your copy and then you forget how much but know that you didn't get it back.... But you're so tired you give up.

After that awful month of working for them we pocketed 185/round to Grande Prairie each.
185 for a ten hour round LCV trip with extras at both ends ranging from 0.5-4 hours depending on the situation.
That was $1850 net, minus the Sysco uniforms we were made to purchase for the contract (a sweater, a 3 n 1 coat, two pairs of pants, shorts, two t shirts and two dress shirts each) $375.

There is a union agreement. The rates are so horribly low that it's unnerving to think the rates may have been lower at one time.
This is a good first job if there are no other choices. It is not a place for skilled drivers.

 

Hmmm....they are known as Canada Garbage.....would I ever work for them.......a resounding NO

 

Are you sure they are Union????


Find them on this list.
http://employment.alberta.ca/apps/cba/search.asp

 

Haha yes they have a union and I can't remember the exact name. Something #401. It's been 3 years since then. You get a hand book and pay $12.50 per check. We came in when direct and CCS had merged so perhaps direct had the union in place. The unionized rates were so very low. Something like a minimum of .20/mile and $12/hour or so. The contracts pay differently and so the drivers are paid according to contract.

The air liquide is the most lucrative one but it's very irregular so you sit a lot. We left after three weeks and we regretted ever starting.

 

Yea there union. I applied and got an interview when I first came back to bc last year. They told me I wouldn't be home for more than my reset since they run the drivers hard.

 

If you want more information try going to their website http://www.canadacartage.com/

 

I worked there for 6 years. I was in the London terminal. Turned into a nightmare with the current management. Its nice to know when you have a serious issue that they throw you out the door for being a whistleblower.