RWU Organizing Report #2 - June/July 2025

RWU

Organizing Bulletin

RWU Organizing Bulletin #2 - June/July 2025

Welcome to the RWU Organizing Bulletin where we 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!

MONTHLY ORGANIZING REPORT

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

June/July 2025

by Keegan Waller

RWU Membership Organizer

Since my May report, our organizing committee made meaningful strides to strengthen RWU's foundation and plan exciting initiatives to grow our reach.

We began mapping current and former RWU members by geographic location to better understand and identify opportunities for growth. Moving to weekly organizing committee meetings has allowed us to maintain momentum and coordinate more effectively.

We hosted a national phone banking event on Monday, June 23rd, during which a group of RWU working and solidarity members met on Zoom to co-organize and call those whose formal RWU memberships have lapsed and expired. This is part of an ongoing effort to reconnect working and retired railroaders, as well as our dedicated allies to our ongoing work. I prepared a call script for phone bankers, recruited callers, and created an orientation to phone banking inspired by guidance shared by the late labor organizer Jane McAlevey.

If you would like to renew your working or solidarity membership to RWU, you can do so easily and quickly by clicking on the pink button below. If you don't know the status of your membership (whether it expired or when it expires), just email info@railroadworkersunited.org with the subject line: "What's my membership status?" and we'll email you back asap with the info.

Click Here to Renew Your RWU Membership

The organizing committee and I also began work on a Virtual Town Hall that will take place this early September (details forthcoming). Our goal is to gather RWU members and non-members, alike, to grow our ranks and collaborate on ways to activate our base and focus our work. We've been working on the agenda, a slidedeck, and guidelines for breakout group facilitators. Keep an eye out this summer for more information on the Town Hall, as well as opportunities to advertise the event!

I continue my work with members in key metro areas on forming/reforming RWU chapters. If you would like to help grow RWU by being a part of a local chapter, reach out to me anytime.

Finally, I spent a good part of the past few months working with current members one-on-one to create lists and map out their workplaces and locals. These lists are the backbone of organizing in the workplace and growing RWU membership among rank-and-file railroaders. If you would like to set up a time to start organizing in your workplace, neighborhood, or union, please reach out!

To set up a meeting with me or to discuss organizing, email me (Keegan) at rwu.organizer@gmail.com.

CATCH UP WITH RWU

RWU launches new podast hosting extended conversations with rank n' file rails

RWU is experimenting with a podcast to include extended conversations with rank & file working railroaders, rail labor allies and activists. Currently hosted and moderated by RWU General Secretary and working railroader, Nick Wurst, Episode #1 features a long discussion with Hugh Sawyer, the treasurer of RWU, to speak about his 37-year career on the Norfolk Southern (NS), and his involvement in the effort to win direct elections with one-member-one-vote in the BLET.

Click above to listen to the episode on the RWU YouTube channel, or find us on Spotify.

RWU hosts recording of Weekly Rail & Labor News Digest on YouTube and Spotify

RWU is now sharing the audio summary of our Weekly Rail & Labor News Digest on both Spotify & YouTube.

Every week, ⁠Railroad Workers United⁠ (RWU) brings you the news of what’s happening in rail labor and the rail industry in both North America and around the world. Selecting from numerous news feeds, a group of RWU member-volunteers gleans the most important and relevant stories, focusing on issues of concern to working railroaders and our allies in the labor movement and the larger community.

You can read the news update online every Tuesday by ⁠signing up to have it delivered to your email inbox⁠.

Our friend Greg Giorgio presents a 5 to 10 minute news summary for us every week. Greg is an RWU Solidarity Member and a longtime member of the IWW in Upstate New York. He is also a union voice talent and actor, and is a member of SAG-AFTRA. Brother Greg generously donates his services to RWU, and our gratitude goes to him.

New stickers coming in August!

Merchandise is an organizing tool, and beginning in early August, RWU will have two new campaign stickers available. These grow out of our recent resolutions against any future threats to privatize or limit the expansion of Amtrak, and in support of a robustly funded and preserved Railroad Retirement system. Read the resolutions in full below and lookout for an announcement in August for how to order stickers in the RWU merch store.

RWU Resolution Against Privatization of Amtrak

RWU Resolution in Support of the Railroad Retirement System

Follow our friends at the Public Rail Now campaign

Visit the RWU Merch Store

RWU begins work with strategy specialists Social Movement Technologies to enhance social media organizing

As part of a generous grant awarded to improve the effectiveness of RWU's organizing on social media, we've enlisted the help of Social Movement Technologies ("SMT"), a non-profit/NGO seasoned in providing organizing strategy, training, and campaign support to build worker power and win in the digital age. They will work with us in the coming months to teach RWU how to maximize its impact on social channels, craft messaging aligned to articulated strategy, track engagement with our campaigns over time, and translate online organizing to offline movement building. We aim to grow our team of RWU members volunteering to work on social media. If you are an RWU member and would like to get involved, please email us at info@railroadworkersunited.org.

RWU mourns loss of recent fallen rails in June

RWU mourns the recent losses of our fellow railroaders killed on the job. Two in June, alone — a rail on the Union Pacific, and another working for Transtar in Alabama — remind us, again, to double our resolve to build a safer workplace where such tragedies are not so commonplace.

Get involved in the national movement against blame the worker, so-called “behavior-based" safety programs. Help build real union-based safety committees and programs that focus on hazard elimination and do not ignore the underlying causes of accidents, injuries and fatalities sustained on the job. For more information, see the RWU campaign page on opposing "behavior-based" safety.

Call for articles and content the Fall 2025 quarterly newsletter The Highball

Each quarter RWU brings you The Highball, our official newsletter with news of the rail industry, rail workers fighting back, and more. The summer issue will be landing in Inboxes soon!

RWU member and intrepid newsletter editor, Mark Burrows, is always looking for newsletter content suggestions and invites members to submit articles for consideration.

If you have suggestions or would like to contribute to the fall edition of The Highball, please contact editor Mark Burrows at potashpuller55@gmail.com.

Download the Spring '25 Issue of The Highball

RWU IN THE NEWS

RWU Trustee Ron Kaminkow interviewed in The American Prospect

James Baratta writing in The American Prospect on June 5, 2025, interviewed RWU Trustee and former General Secretary Ron Kaminkow in a feature entitled, "Industry Lobbyists Pitch Driverless 'Ghost Trains Across America."

Read the full piece here.

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.