I am trying to get started in this industry. There are several plants located nearby, within 200 miles, owned by the same company. My preference is the one that is 30 miles away. Is it possible to work at another nearby plant for 2-3 years then transfer to the closer one? Is this something that could happen or just out of the question? I know most companies will have different policies but in general what are the options?
Not a common thing if you are in OPs! Plants are all different, even the one that are the same "model", so you have to totally requalify which mean they lose you for "real" work 6-12 months but still pay you. They will do it for special cases but have only seen it once in my limited time (less than 10years) for an NLO. Now outside of OPs well I have no idea beside who would want to do that :P ;D
That can vary company to company. I'm guessing you're looking at the Duke plants & I'm not certain of their policies or whether or not they have Union contracts at their plants. I would believe it might be easier for someone in maintenance to move between plants than Ops.
Actually anyone in the "skill" trades will have to qualify at a new plant before they can work on their own so it seems to be a practice that is not done much. Now it is common for people to work at other plants during outages or when special needs a raise but even then they are basically tethered to someone qualified at that plant and can do NOTHING on their own (well bathroom breaks are ok).