Georgia-Pacific, International Paper, Westrock, Pepsi Co, Coca-Cola, Frito Lay, Kraft Heinz, Anheiser-Busch, Amazon, FedEx, UPS, USPS, 3M, Tyson Foods, Perdue Farms, Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Corning, Owens Corning, Proctor & Gamble, Vulcan, Martin Marietta, Honeywell, Sherwin-Williams, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Gerdau, DuPont,
All of these companies pay their maintenance mechanics or electro-mechanical people or electricians anywhere from very close to a whole lot more than NS. Every single company listed treats their employees way better than NS. It is mind boggling to me that people pretend anyone doing better outside of NS is lying. This is not even 1% of the opportunities out there. There are thousands of other companies not listed where you will bring home more money and often make more on the hour and also enjoy a better life. If you are intelligent, even having just a few years of experience at NS will get your foot in the door.
I have not checked the validity of this statement ( @ibf+19CntbEi, thread +19CntbEi ) with regards to all these companies, but it is true that some of them treat their employees much better than NS. I know because I have acquaintances who work in some of those companies. For me the bigger question is in which companies is a worker valued less than here? There are certainly not many of them.