Back in the early 1970s, I briefly worked for Canadian National Railways as a car checker. My job was to walk the tracks at three in the morning in the dead of winter with a flashlight and a clipboard and write down the boxcar numbers of trains that had just arrived. One condition of my employment was that I had to belong to the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway, Transport and General Workers (CBRTGW), the union that represented clerical staff at CN.
