RWU Monthly Organizing Report #1

RWU

Organizing Bulletin

RWU Organizing Bulletin #1 - May 2025

Welcome to the RWU Organizing Bulletin! Every month we'll bring you updates on our organizing activities, what we're accomplishing, our ongoing campaign goals, and how YOU as a working railroader or railroad ally can get involved in our work!

CATCH UP WITH RWU

RWU hires a new membership organizer

Railroad Workers United (RWU) is pleased to welcome Keegan Waller as our new Membership Organizer. With extensive experience in labor organizing and grassroots mobilization, Keegan will focus on growing RWU’s membership, strengthening engagement, and expanding the organization’s capacity to support rail workers.

Keegan has a strong background in union organizing and rank-and-file empowerment. He has successfully mobilized workers, built solidarity, and fought for improved workplace conditions. His commitment to social and transportation justice makes him a valuable addition to RWU’s mission. Feel free to reach out to Keegan if you'd like to talk about how we can organize to build worker power, encourage railroaders to join, and grow RWU in your city or region at rwu.organizer@gmail.com.

RWU Conducts leadership summit in Chicago

RWU leadership and staff met in Chicago April 12-13 to assess current priorities and chart the future direction of Railroad Workers United. The group focused on identifying our most pressing campaigns in the context of today’s political climate, generating ideas for new initiatives, and developing strategies to grow RWU’s membership of core activists.

We zoned in on three essential campaigns: 1) the fight for public rail ownership, 2) the defense of railroad retirement, and 3) a new campaign to confront automation and associated rail job loss. Meeting participants emphasized the need to define automation broadly — not just in transportation, but across freight, passenger, and warehousing sectors — to build a narrative that unites all affected workers.

Attendees also discussed how frontline issues — such as long trains, job safety, and corporate control — intersect with the larger fight for public ownership and democratic control of the rail system.

Two organizing sessions led by RWU Membership Organizer Keegan Waller (see his Organizing Report below) helped build skills and strengthen RWU’s grassroots organizing capacity. Saturday’s session included a training on six-step structured organizing conversations adapted from the Organizing for Power program, while Sunday’s session focused on building local organizing committees, developing chapters, and workplace outreach.

Image Caption: RWU General Secretary, Nick Wurst, leads discussion at 2025 April staff and leadership meeting in Chicago. He is seated next to new RWU Membership Organizer, Keegan Waller.

Public Rail Now campaign forges ahead

In the Fall of 2022, in the heat of the contract fight with the Class One carriers, Railroad Workers United took a bold step forward and endorsed the idea of public rail ownership with worker control of the railroads in North America. This has been the norm in many countries around the world for decades, and most transportation infrastructure in the United States has been publicly owned for years, including the inland waterways, highways, airports, and seaports.

RWU initiated a Campaign for Public Ownership which has grown and developed in the subsequent 2 1/2 years. The campaign team's successful pursuit and stewardship of grant funding — now supporting a full-time campaign director, organizer, and a part-time researcher — means it is able to stand on its own as an organization. Public Rail Now has garnered an impressive and growing number of organizational endorsements from unions, community groups, environmental organizations and others.

In April, Public Rail Now officially constituted its own organization, with a governance structure and treasury separate from RWU. We remain committed to the organization and its mission, and hope to play a key role in its trajectory going forward.

RWU delegation hosted by French rail union

At the RWU Biennial Convention in April 2024, we invited an ally from Paris — a union activist and a member of the French railway workers union affiliated with the CGT — to speak at our 9th Convention. His union in turn invited a delegation of RWU members to join them in Paris, France for May Day 2025.

We will have a full report next month, but the RWU delegation just returned from their celebration of International Workers' Day with their French railway brothers and sisters in Paris, and we look forward to learning about their experience!

Image Caption: RWU International Steering Committee members and trustees march in Paris on May Day 2025. From left to right are: Ross Grooters, Cameron Slick, Nick Wurst, Chuck Abbate, Fritz Edler, and Matt Weaver.

RWU ISC adopts new resolutions

In April, the RWU Steering Committee adopted three new position statements (resolutions), the first two at the monthly Steering Committee meeting, and the third an emergency resolution adopted by the ISC via email discussion. Click and each resolution below to view the full text of each.

RWU Resolution Against Privatization of Amtrak

RWU Resolution in Support of the Railroad Retirement System

RWU Resolution to Bring Brother Kilmar Home

Debs Foundation invites RWU to join board

The Board of Directors of The Eugene V. Debs Foundation voted at their Spring meeting to accept RWU’s application for a position on the Board of Directors. The RWU Steering Committee has designated Newsletter Editor Mark Burrows to serve as RWU’s official representative.

Among its other endeavors, the Foundation oversees a wealth of historical archives and operates the Debs Museum out of his longtime home in Terre Haute, IN. They sponsor numerous public events honoring Debs’ legacy as a tireless fighter for railroad workers, the working class, social justice and ultimately a better world.

The highlight is the annual Debs Award Banquet, conducted every fall. Last year Sara Nelson, President of the Flight Attendants Union (AFA) was the deserving recipient (see the Fall 2024 issue of The Highball). Sara gave an inspiring call-to-action speech that would have made Brother “Gene” proud. RWU had more than a dozen members present at the event.

Image credit: Harris & Ewing, photographer. DEBS, EUGENE V., 1912. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2016864038/.

RWU newsletter for Spring '25 now available

Each quarter RWU brings you The Highball, our official newsletter with news of the rail industry, rail workers fighting back, and more. Click on the button below to download your copy. Members automatically get a free paper copy each issue mailed to them by U.S. mail. Some members and allies elect to receive a bundle of each issue and distribute them in their terminal to their co-workers.

Let us know if you want a bundle by contacting the RWU newsletter editor Mark Burrows at potashpuller55@gmail.com

And join RWU here!

Download the Spring '25 Issue of The Highball

RWU Members across the country join National AFL-CIO call for May Day demonstrations

RWU members — including Steering Committee member Gabe Christenson, Trustee Ron Kaminkow, and Founding Member Brian Lewis join the May Day protest sponsored by the Northern Nevada Central Labor Council at the Federal Building in Reno, Nevada. More than 1000 such actions across the country resulted in the biggest turnout ever seen for the International Workers' Day holiday in the United States.

RWU ORGANIZING REPORT

Organizing is the lifeblood of any organization, especially a labor organization. We've constituted a reinvigorated Organizing Committee and hired a new membership organizer, Keegan Waller, who will report on the status of our efforts in this Monthly Organizing Bulletin every month.

Monthly Organizing Report - May 2025

by Keegan Waller, RWU Membership Organizer

April was a busy month as I got up to speed with Railroad Workers United (RWU) as an organization, met key leadership, and started laying the groundwork the coming year. One of the big steps forward was getting the organizing committee up and running. We held our first meetings and began building contact lists, mapping out strategy, and talking through how we can grow RWU both locally and nationally. We also started planning virtual events like town halls and info sessions to connect more members and build momentum.

From April 11–13, I traveled to Chicago for the RWU Strategy Summit, where I led an organizing workshop and joined conversations about how we can build a stronger organizing culture across the organization. It was great to connect with active members from around the country and dig into what it will take to move our work forward.

Over the past month, I also began reaching out to current members to talk through local organizing strategies tailored to specific worksites and union locals. As part of this effort, the organizing committee started connecting with non-members who had been referred to us by current members. We also began following up with folks who filled out the 2025 Strategy Survey to keep building relationships and identify ways they might want to get involved.

If you’re a current member and we haven’t connected yet, I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to reach out at rwu.organizer@gmail.com if you’d like to talk about how we can organize together to build power and grow RWU in your area. And if you’re not a member yet but want to get involved, I’m happy to help you get on board.

CALENDAR OF UPCOMING EVENTS

Each month, RWU will share with our community notifications of upcoming meetings, workshops, conferences, pickets, labor actions, and other gatherings. These are hosted by various allies and partners, and are of relevance to worker struggle, organizing, and intersecting social and environmental issues.