heavy equipment mechanic

benefit specialist

journeyperson

human resources coordinator

financial analyst

Baffinland Iron Mines

complete gong show upon every aspect, camp is BRUTAL. the food is terrible, they'll tell you a new camp is being built but what they wont tell you is the "new camp" doesn't even have a kitchen so you will have to gear up and take a bus ride just to go eat your disgusting food. another thing, the main camp is full, they will even give main camp rooms to contractors which doesn't make sense. so they stick you in a camp called weatherhaven, basically a glorified tent. probly have dirty sheets when you arrive also, they will tell you they will pay you extra to stay there because they know its terrible. 2 beds in a room, they will jam you in a room with somebody on the same shift possibly, doesn't even matter if that person is sick. they will make you sleep 5 feet away from another guy. tooling on site is literally the worst ive ever encountered, loss time injuries usually weekly, management refuses to accept that they don't know what theyre doing and listen to the workforce. only there two months and their was bad injuries every single week on site....no overhead crane in the shop, one fork lift, for everybody to share, tool crib is pathetic, auto mechanics don't even have a lift!! the poor guy working off a creeper!! unreal. half the doors don't work in the shop. no lockers anywhere to put your things, and if you ask you will just seem like you are bothering them. supervision is completely incompetent, zero mining knowledge, no clue how to run a fleet...they lie right to your face in safety meetings but in all reality they just do not care. the turnover rate last year was 63% what does that tell you...the yearly salary is brutal, nobody has received a bonus in years, don't let recruiters fool you. the money is the worst in the industry when it comes to remote mining...you will be ridiculed if you ask for basic PPE, they didn't even give me winter boots! would barely supply the most basic things. the plane ride is terrible, the times you have for flights are completely brutal. if you choose to work on this site, be warned, nothing I said is a lie. management is buddy buddy system, theyre all snakes who will lie directly to your face. the moral on site in general is terrible...managers come and go literally every 6-12 months. the railway wont happen for years, trucks are falling apart, equipment of all sizes completely pooched....parts system is a mess. nobody on site knows SAP very well....place is a joke. good luck!

What is the best part of working at the company?
Initially, the whole place was really great to work for. But as the years went on, equipment maintenance became neglected, poor business planning created a financially strained operation and anyone with any real experience was either pushed out or quit. By the end of my 5th and final year I couldn't help but see the failure of a broken mine everywhere I looked. Management is underexperienced and grossly overpaid. The planes are a ticking time bomb for a fatality. They're scraping the bottom of the barrel for new recruits as anyone worth anything will not work there. The union is a joke, don't bother wasting any time talking to them and enjoy shelling out thousands of dollars a year out of your pocket for travel expenses

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Lack of experience from top level to ground levels. Unable to effectively or efficiently perform task due to lack of functioning equipment. Travel is an unpleasant experience 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Among colleagues, everyone got along and shared cultures from all over Canada. Learned a lot about inuit culture from speaking to locals. The company itself strives so hard to cater to a certain ethnicity that it can create a divide among employees 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Disappointing, miserable weather, stressful, lacks ambition, alot of laughing among the crew at the company's expense

The way Baffinland treats people is actually shocking.  Lets start with the plane ride. You get on a plane from the 1970s which is so uncomfortable that after the 5 hr plane ride you can hardly walk. Once you land if you're working at the port site you have to take a 2 hour bus ride on a freezing cold bus with no heat (keep in mind the average temperature here in the winter is about -40). If you are working at the mine site theres a good chance youll be put in a 4 man wall-tent as your accommodations. If you're not in a 4 man tent they might make you randomly change rooms in the middle of your rotation. The workers are all on some salary that means you dont get paid any over time, so if you work Christmas you're getting paid the same as a guy sitting at home with his family. The management here us quite poor and they will treat you like its the only job in the world. The good here can be good but in the winter they cut the food budget so you need to get creative when packing your lunches.  They promise bonuses and raises over and over again and have never pulled through. Also, they give you a certain allowance for flights to and from montreal each month rather than paying for your flights from home so if the plane is delayed from Baffin Island for any reason and you miss your flight out of Montreal its coming out of your pocket to change your flights.  I hope this will help you make your decision.

Was there for almost 2 years and drove B Trains scaling out at 213tons! The fun part is driving these huge trucks in the Artic. Ice roads narrow sections steep grades! Was a challenge. Guys are great but awful management. For example our superintendent had zero experience driving trucks. And said on more then one occasion if you don't like it here there are plenty of jobs down south!  We stay in large dome tents with communal bathrooms while at port. Mery river has hard wall camp with every room having a onsuit bathrooms!  That is nice but merry river has poor food and and poor cleaning service. Port camp is run by Horizons and well looked after.... it's also a large ⛺ tent in the artic! There is a union but there awful.  They are not a strong union and upper management always has the upper hand.  To be honest most of my time there was exciting! But it is a mine in the artic. They have their own rules and upper management cares only about production not the employees. There have been 3 deaths in 5 years of operation and one suicide on site. The one guy was run over at start of his shift and no one realized until after shift change.... this poor guy was repeatedly run over for 12 hours by huge loders no one knew until they found his bloody coveralls in the morning. Let that sink In for a sec.....very high turn over rate.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Best part is leaving. The place is full of crooked backstabbing useless tradesmen that are scared to lose their job because they can't make it anywhere else. This causes frequent sabatoge, talking behind your ur back  and spreading rumors up to and include ng hiding your tools. This goes on even at a supervisory level. Very toxic place to work and management from above does nothing but throws salt on the wound as they're completely out of the loop when it comes to construction and health and safety of their workers. DON'T GO! 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Everything and everyone. Very unstable toxic environment. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Toxic and unstable. Even supervisors will go behind your ur back and talk bad to other employees. Even if you're doing your ur work. You'll be forced to do the grunt work for other trades, you won't be provided all the tools you need. Other employees will hide said tools and supervisors will do nothing. Rumors will be spread like you're surrounded by a flock of high school girls. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Fixing everything broken, and maintenance on things that aren't.

I worked at Baffinland Iron Mines for 4 years. The positive aspects were the great coworkers and above-average camp food. However, the overall experience had many challenges.

Travel is extremely difficult, with long (7+ hour) flights that are often delayed or unreliable, sometimes leaving employees stranded in Iqaluit for over 12 hours without proper support. Compensation is not fair for those who live within 800 km of the Montreal hub, and payroll issues are common. I often had to chase missing pay, with little help from management or the union.

The most recent collective agreement was also disappointing, as short- and long-term disability benefits were removed, despite the majority of employees voting against it. Pay is a flat rate for 12 hours, which doesn’t fairly reflect the demands of the job.

There is also little job security. In the past few years, management announced potential shutdowns more than once, issuing layoff/termination notices to all employees regardless of seniority.

Overall, while the people on site are great, the company itself lacks fairness, stability, and proper employee support.

Good people, taken advantage of in a recovering economy.  Jobs threatened daily by unqualified supervisors who likely can't even start the equipment they oversee. A training dept that is so disorganized,  training records are lost all the time. Trainers signing operators off on equipment that they themselves don't even operate.  Advancement is possible at the price of back stabbing and brown-nosing. Management seems to think that this is the only place to work and employees should be eternally grateful and offer their first born to them for giving them a position. Everything is last minute, poor planning and they wonder why goals aren't met. A graveyard of equipment litters the site and completely surrounds the maintenance shop. Mechanics ran ragged and hunting for basic tools. A 3/8 ratchet is like gold. Finding 1 is like searching for the holy grail. This mine needs to be taken over by a real mining company to make it a good place to work. How can you run a mine when all the gear sits broken down forever? Maybe offer good pay to attract good operators that respect the machines....

•	Reviewed and verified invoices and their accompanying payment requests and departmental approvals to ensure proper authorization, appropriate account number has been assigned, accuracy and reasonableness of the charge code, commodity tax compliance (e.g. GST, HST and PST)
•	Recorded and deposited payments made on invoices issued and received
•	Reviewed employee travel claims to ensure accuracy and completeness of justification and Paid them by receiving and verifying expense reports
•	Created new vendors and supplier records in SAP and negotiated on the payment terms
•	Matched system generated copy of cheque with vendor invoice and file back-up documentation by vendor to distribute AP cheques and make EFT payments
•	Monthly reviewed vendor statements for follow up on outstanding and/or incorrect invoicing
•	 Paid vendors by monitoring discount opportunities and issued stop-payments for amended PO’s 
•	Liaised between departmental staff and vendors/customer to resolve outstanding issues.

Lots of contradicting management styles here, with some managers and supervisors bullying the staff. No one not even HR says antyhing, guess they're too afraid of losing their jobs. 
Very poorly organized and still operating as it they are in 1980. Managment doesn't seem to ahve the experience or drive to know how to improve the project which is too bad as its a really interesting place to work with lots of great people. 
Extremely high turn over but no one is willing to do anything about it.

Safety is only thought about in a reactive vs. proactive manner, and ut takes a fatality (that's two now in the last few years) for something (the bare minimum) to be changed.

Do not work here if you value your life, the lives of others, or if you want to be treated with respect.

A typical day involves repairing or operating filthy, worn out equipment. 
I learned to seek work elsewhere almost immediately. 
Management team is dysfunctional, unhealthy and effortlessly makes one bad decision after another. The mine is the definition of mismanaged into the ground. 
Workplace culture involves a lot of favoritism, walking on eggshells, gaslighting and a total lack of true health and safety values.
The hardest part is dealing with the filthy conditions, caustic substances, the four days of unpaid travel each rotation on cramped planes, the small paycheques, the leaky and black mouldy camp, the food cutbacks and the company took away short term benefits. 
You will see no union benefits or representation. 
The most enjoyable part of the job is knowing I will never work there again. 

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Heavy equipment mechanic 2 salaries reported	$61.82 per hour
Benefit specialist 2 salaries reported	$85,000 per year
Journeyperson 1 salary reported	$157,550 per year
Human resources coordinator 1 salary reported	$74,500 per year
Financial analyst 1 salary reported	$88,500 per year

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