Weekly Digest Number 9 - February 28th, 2023 |
|
Welcome to the RWU Rail & Labor News! This news bulletin is produced and emailed out each Tuesday morning. We hope you find each week's news and information useful. If so, please share with co-workers, friends, and colleagues. If you like, you can sign them up to get all the news from RWU HERE. Or forward them the link. Note: If you read over this news bulletin each week, you will be sure to never miss the important news of what is going on in the railroad world from a worker's perspective!
|
|
(Editor's Note: Some advice for townspeople, environmental activists, politicians, left-wingers, right-wingers, and the public as a whole: PLEASE to not go off on tangents, conspiracy theories, and ideologies. Stick to the facts. Trains CAN be kept on the rail. In fact, rail is the safest and most environmentally efficient means of transport known. The reason for train wrecks is no mystery. Railroads must be operated safety, professionally, and efficiently. Read below to discover why they are not being run that way, and what needs to be done. And it 'aint rocket science!) |
|
To Prevent More 'Catastrophic Derailments,' Rail Workers Outline Plan for Immediate Reforms
"We demand that the railroad be run safely, efficiently, and professionally, and not as some 'cash cow' for Wall Street investors and billionaires," said one union leader. "Much of what is wrong with the rail industry today can be fixed easily and quickly."
|
|
Three weeks after the lives of East Palestine, Ohio residents were upended by a fiery wreck involving a Norfolk Southern-owned train overloaded with hazardous materials, rail union leaders on Friday implored federal regulators and lawmakers to "focus on the primary reasons for the derailment and take immediate action to prevent future disasters."
In a statement, Railroad Workers United (RWU) pointed to the National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) newly published preliminary report on the February 3 crash and subsequent burnoff of vinyl chloride and other carcinogenic chemicals, which suggests that an overheated wheel bearing likely caused the train to derail. The inter-union alliance of rail workers also cited NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, who said Thursday at a press conference: "This was 100% preventable. We call things accidents—there is no accident. Every single event that we investigate is preventable."
RWU, which has previously highlighted how industry-led deregulation and Wall Street-backed policies such as "precision-scheduled railroading" have made the U.S. rail system more dangerous, said Friday that "Class 1 freight rail carriers, including Norfolk Southern, have prioritized profits over safety, cutting maintenance, equipment inspections, and personnel in all crafts while increasing the average train size to three miles or more."
In the words of RWU co-chair Gabe Christenson: "Railroad workers experience firsthand every day the dangers inherent in this style of railroading. It has impacted their safety and health, state of mind, and lives on and off the job."
"Limits on train lengths and weights are necessary to prevent catastrophic derailments."
Jason Doering, general secretary of RWU, echoed Christenson's message, saying: "Every day we go to work, we have serious concerns about preventing accidents like the one that occurred in Ohio. As locomotive engineers, conductors, signal maintainers, car inspectors, track workers, dispatchers, machinists, and electricians, we experience the reality that our jobs are becoming increasingly dangerous due to insufficient staffing, inadequate maintenance, and a lack of oversight and inspection."
"We recognize," Doering added, "that limits on train lengths and weights are necessary to prevent catastrophic derailments."
One week ago, RWU made the case for nationalization, arguing that the U.S. "can no longer afford private ownership of the railroads; the general welfare demands that they be brought under public ownership."
|
|
(Editor's Note: Unbeknown to many of us workers in the rail industry, wayside defect detectors are unregulated by the feds. Part of the justification for the demise of the caboose and full train crew was that technology had made them superfluous. This is course has always been subject to debate. Regardless, should not this technology be regulated? Should there not be some standards of how far apart they be located? How often inspected and serviced? By licensed professionals? With standardized temperature ratings that warrant a train inspection by the train's crew? Etc? Common sense, right? This tragic wreck holds the capability to expose a lot of this kind of irresponsible shenanigans that has gone on for far too long. Workers and citizens have an opportunity to win a number of safety reforms out of this debacle. Regulation of defect detectors is one of them.) |
|
A Norfolk Southern Policy Lets Officials Order Crews to Ignore Safety Alerts
In October, months before the East Palestine derailment, the company also directed a train to keep moving with an overheated wheel that caused it to derail miles later in Sandusky, Ohio
|
|
Norfolk Southern allows a monitoring team to instruct crews to ignore alerts from train track sensors designed to flag potential mechanical problems.
ProPublica learned of the policy after reviewing the rules of the company, which is engulfed in controversy after one of its trains derailed this month, releasing toxic flammable gas over East Palestine, Ohio.
The policy applies specifically to the company’s Wayside Detector Help Desk, which monitors data from the track-side sensors. Workers on the desk can tell crews to disregard an alert when “information is available confirming it is safe to proceed” and to continue no faster than 30 miles per hour to the next track-side sensor, which is often miles away. The company’s rulebook did not specify what such information might be, and company officials did not respond to questions about the policy.
The National Transportation Safety Board will be looking into the company’s rules, including whether that specific policy played a role in the Feb. 3 derailment in East Palestine. Thirty-eight cars, some filled with chemicals, left the tracks and caught fire, triggering an evacuation and agonized questions from residents about the implications for their health. The NTSB believes a wheel bearing in a car overheated and failed immediately before the train derailed. It plans to release a preliminary report on the accident Thursday morning.
ProPublica has learned that Norfolk Southern disregarded a similar mechanical problem on another train that months earlier jumped the tracks in Ohio.
In October, that train was en route to Cleveland when dispatchers told the crew to stop it, said Clyde Whitaker, Ohio state legislative director for the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, or SMART. He said the help desk had learned that a wheel was heating up on an engine the train was towing. The company sent a mechanic to the train to diagnose the problem.
Whitaker said that it could not be determined what was causing the wheel to overheat, and that the safest course of action would have been to set the engine aside to be repaired. That would have added about an hour to the journey, Whitaker said.
But Whitaker said the dispatcher told the crew that a supervisor determined that the train should continue on without removing the engine.
|
|
(Editor's Note: The DOT and FRA have been shill organizations for years, posing as the citizens' and workers' advocates for safe, efficient, modern public transportation. The previous administration was particularly egregious, with shipping magnate Elaine Chou at DOT and rail CEO Ron Batory at FRA. If the current administration of Pete Buttigieg and Amit Bose wants to win the support of workers and citizens, they need to do a lot more. For example, stop "expecting", "hoping", "demanding", and "urging" the rail industry to act. Promulgate the rules and MAKE the industry conform.) |
|
'Too Many Holes': Rail Workers Say Buttigieg Plan of Action Is Not Enough
"Rank-and-file railroad workers can diagnose and fix the problems. We will believe Pete Buttigieg is serious when he starts talking about public ownership of critical railroad infrastructure and enacting some of our solutions."
|
|
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg's newly unveiled plan to improve railroad safety is inadequate, an inter-union alliance of rail workers declared Tuesday.
The U.S. Department of Transportation's (USDOT) blueprint for holding rail corporations accountable and protecting the well-being of workers and affected communities comes after a Norfolk Southern-owned train overloaded with vinyl chloride and other carcinogenic chemicals crashed in East Palestine, Ohio on February 3, precipitating a toxic spill and fire that has sparked fears of air pollution and groundwater contamination.
In contrast to the hundreds of U.S. derailments that go largely unnoticed each year, the unfolding environmental and public health disaster on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border has helped expose the dangerous consequences of the Wall Street-driven transformation and deregulation of the freight rail industry—a long-standing process intensified by the Trump administration and so far unchallenged by the Biden administration.
"Profit and expediency must never outweigh the safety of the American people," Buttigieg—who has yet to exercise his authority to restore previously gutted rules and was mulling an industry-backed proposal to further weaken federal oversight of train braking systems as recently as February 10, according toThe Lever—said Tuesday in a statement.
"We at USDOT are doing everything in our power to improve rail safety," said Buttigieg, "and we insist that the rail industry do the same—while inviting Congress to work with us to raise the bar."
USDOT called on Norfolk Southern and other rail carriers to "provide proactive advance notification to state emergency response teams when they are transporting hazardous gas tank cars through their states instead of expecting first responders to look up this information after an incident occurs" and to "provide paid sick leave," among other things.
The department also urged Congress to increase how much it can penalize companies for safety violations, noting that "the current maximum fine, even for an egregious violation involving hazardous materials and resulting in fatalities, is $225,455." As Buttigieg tweeted, "This is not enough to drive changes at a multibillion-dollar company like Norfolk Southern."
Finally, USDOT committed to strengthening its regulation of the rail industry by "advancing the train crew staffing rule, which will require a minimum of two crew members for most railroad operations," and by "initiating a focused safety inspection program on routes over which high-hazard flammable trains (HHFTs) and other trains carrying large volumes of hazardous material travel," among other proposals.
"Each of these steps," the agency said, "will enhance rail safety in the United States."
But according to Railroad Workers United (RWU), which focused in particular on the issue of train crew staffing, "there are too many holes" in Buttigieg's plan to ensure the safety of the nation's rail system.
|
|
(Editor's Note: In his defense, the Ohio Governor is doing what they all do, with rare exception; i.e. - accept big donations from big corporations like NS. Why do the Class One railroads spend tens of millions on these donations? Because they pay off in spades. No new safety regulations on safety, creating loopholes in existing rules, and outright abolition of existing safety regulations all add up to mean millions in cost savings - hence profits - for the rail industry.) |
|
Investigation Shows Rail Giant Donated to Ohio Governor a Month Before Toxic Crash
If Norfolk Southern "can pay for lobbyists and politicians, they can pay to clean up the mess they made in our community," said one local group.
|
|
An investigation published Monday revealed that just weeks before a Norfolk Southern-owned train overloaded with hazardous materials derailed and caused a toxic chemical fire in East Palestine, Ohio, the rail giant donated $10,000—the maximum amount allowed—to help fund the inauguration of the state's Republican Gov. Mike DeWine.
According to WSYX, the Columbus-based news outlet that conducted the investigation, "This contribution, which is part of $29,000 the Virginia-based corporation has contributed to DeWine's political funds since he first ran for governor in 2018, is merely one piece of an extensive, ongoing effort to influence statewide officials and Ohio lawmakers."
"In all, the railway company has contributed about $98,000 during the past six years to Ohio statewide and legislative candidates, according to data from the secretary of state," WSYX reported. "Virtually all went to Republicans, although Norfolk Southern hedged its support for DeWine in 2018 with a $3,000 check to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray."
In addition to shelling out loads of campaign cash, Norfolk Southern has also extensively lobbied DeWine, statewide officials, and Ohio lawmakers.
Quarterly reports disclosing the company's lobbying activities show that DeWine and other statewide officials were targeted 39 times over the past six years, while Ohio lawmakers were targeted 167 times during the same time period.
"Most of the disclosed attempts to influence Ohio leaders came on generic rail or transportation issues," WSYX reported. "Some efforts, however, were devoted to defeating legislation that would have established tougher safety standards for rail yards and train operations."
River Valley Organizing, a local progressive group, declared on social media that "this is what we're up against."
|
|
(Editor's Note: It is encouraging to see EPA take a hard line with NS. And while NS pledges full cooperation in the clean up process, you know that their political arm is hard at work lobbying "their friends" in Congress to lighten the load on the company. See Editor's note above.) |
|
EPA Orders Norfolk Southern to Clean Up Contamination From Ohio Train Crash
"Let me be clear," said EPA Administrator Michael Regan. "Norfolk Southern will pay for cleaning up the mess they created and for the trauma they've inflicted on this community."
|
|
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan on Tuesday met with residents of East Palestine, Ohio Tuesday as he announced that the Biden administration has ordered railway operator Norfolk Southern to take responsibility for all cleanup work associated with the train derailment that forced the town to evacuate temporarily earlier this month.
The EPA issued a legally binding order to the company, requiring it to identify and clean up contaminated soil and water, reimburse the agency for cleaning services that will be offered throughout the town to give residents peace of mind regarding the safety of air and drinking water, attend public meetings, and pay for the costs the EPA incurs during the cleanup.
"My job is to hold the company accountable and make sure that they clean up and pay for it," said Regan at a roundtable discussion with residents. "I think it's important that we have these conversations, so that as we enforce the laws and as the company does the cleanup, they do it in a way that is satisfactory to some of the requests that you all have."
Any required work that Norfolk Southern fails to complete will immediately be done by the agency, said the EPA in a statement, and the agency will "then seek to compel Norfolk Southern to pay triple the cost."
"The Norfolk Southern train derailment has upended the lives of East Palestine families, and EPA's order will ensure the company is held accountable for jeopardizing the health and safety of this community," said Regan. "Let me be clear: Norfolk Southern will pay for cleaning up the mess they created and for the trauma they've inflicted on this community... To the people of East Palestine, EPA stands with you now and for as long as it may take."
|
|
(Editor's Note: It is fascinating to see politicians of both political parties seeking to be the friend of rail workers and trackside communities. In this environment who knows, we might actually achieve some bi-partisan legislation to make rail workers conditions of employment safer and more rewarding, and trackside communities' futures more secure and happy. Watch closely in the coming months for who is all talk and no action.) |
|
Ohio Senator Condemns Train Operator and Lobbyists Over Toxic Derailment
Democrat Sherrod Brown says derailment, which released toxic chemicals, was caused by Norfolk Southern
|
|
The Ohio senator Sherrod Brown had harsh criticism on Sunday for corporate lobbyists and Norfolk Southern, the Atlanta-based operator of the train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, two weeks ago while carrying toxic chemicals.
Speaking on Sunday to CNN’s State of the Union, the Democrat said the derailment, which released toxic chemicals including the carcinogenic vinyl chloride, was an episode of “the same old story”, and that Norfolk Southern “caused it”.
“Corporations do stock buybacks, they do big dividend checks, they lay off workers,” Brown said. “Thousands of workers have been laid off from Norfolk Southern. Then they don’t invest in safety rules and safety regulation, and this kind of thing happens. That’s why people in East Palestine are so upset.
“They know that corporate lobbyists have had far too much influence in our government and they see this as the result … These things are happening because these railroads are simply not investing the way they should in car safety and in the rail lines themselves.”
Brown said Norfolk Southern and corporate lobbyists were wholly responsible for the accident, which has caused breathing difficulties, rashes, nausea, headaches and swollen eyes, as well as killing pets and wildlife.
“There’s no question they caused it with this derailment because … they underinvested in their employees. They never look out for their workers. They never look out for their communities. They look out for stock buybacks and dividends. Something’s wrong with corporate America and something’s wrong with Congress and administrations listening too much to corporate lobbyists. And that’s got to change.”
On Tuesday, Norfolk Southern pledged to distribute more than $1.2m to nearly 900 families and a number of businesses affected by the crash, spill and burn. A company spokesman said the financial assistance included direct payments of $1,000.
Earlier this year, the company announced $10bn in stock buybacks. Last year, it reported $3.2bn in profits.
Brown warned residents along the Ohio and Pennsylvania border to be cautious.
According to Brown, the company “made promises” to him and the community. But he said: “If they write a check to an East Palestine or Unity Township resident or people even a little farther away, never sign away your legal rights. You can accept the check, but don’t sign anything that would sign away your legal rights. That’s what companies like this do.”
|
|
(Editor's Note: The Class One's lack of concern about safety goes hand in hand with their ant-labor practices. Companies that treat their workforce like shit are prone to not give a damn about the environment, customers, or the public either.) |
|
We Need to Talk About Norfolk Southern’s Anti-Labor Policies |
|
Earlier this month, a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, triggering a massive fire and forcing everyone within a 1-mile radius of the crash to evacuate. To avoid a potential explosion, officials conducted a controlled detonation of five tankers three days later, sending carcinogenic vinyl chloride into the air. Two days later, residents of the 4,500-person village were told they could safely return home. Many questioned the safety of the air and water supply.
Since then, reporting has made clear that this environmental disaster was less a freak accident than a predictable outcome of lax safety measures and capitalist greed. Here’s what you need to know about the Norfolk Southern rail company.
A report in The Lever notes that the train that crashed in East Palestine was not equipped with Electronically Controlled Pneumatic brakes—fully electric brakes that experts say could have reduced the severity of the crash. Although Norfolk Southern once touted its use of ECP brakes, it lobbied against requiring them on trains carrying hazardous materials. An Obama-era rule required that HHFTs have ECP brakes, but the Trump administration overturned this rule.
Norfolk Southern workers don’t get paid sick time.
Remember when the Senate voted to avert a rail strike and deny workers sick leave? Norfolk Southern workers were among those affected. When investors encouraged Norfolk Southern to offer paid sick leave, the company said, OK, we won’t furlough people as often. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT.) has since demanded that rail companies offer workers at least seven days of paid sick leave.
Rail companies refuse to hire enough workers.
Unions says that rail industry’s use of furloughs to reduce the workforce stretches staff too thin. As Timothy Noah wrote in the New Republic, the 141-car train that crashed in East Palestine carried just two crew members and one trainee:
On February 10, Anya Litvak of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that security camera footage 20 miles short of where the derailment occurred showed a rail car axle that appeared to be on fire. Why this information was not transmitted quickly to the train crew remains unknown, but it seems likely that the answer has something to do with the number of people who were in a position to sound the alarm.
Norfolk Southern has spent billions on stock buybacks.
Norfolk Southern made $4.8 billion in operating profit in 2022, More Perfect Union reported, and paid shareholders $4.7 billion in stock buybacks and dividends.
|
|
(Editor's Note: It is nauseating to watch as politicians and bureaucrats grandstand and curry favor with distressed townspeople, when the members of both political parties have a long and irresponsible tradition of simply letting the railroads do what they please. The chickens are coming home to roost, and now they trip over each other to pledge themselves to "rail safety." Ironically in this cesspool of lies, hypocricy, and deceit, we might just get some bi-partisan legislation that does something to reign in the Class One carriers.) |
|
As Trump Visits East Palestine, Critics Say 'He Should Be Apologizing' for Safety Rollbacks
"If residents of East Palestine... truly knew the reality, a delegation of townsfolk would likely greet Trump with tiki torches and pitchforks," wrote one commentator.
|
|
Ahead of former President Donald Trump's Wednesday visit to East Palestine, Ohio—where a Norfolk Southern-owned train transporting carcinogenic chemicals derailed on February 3, prompting a mass evacuation and release of pollutants—progressive critics highlighted the key role his administration played in making the fiery crash and its toxic aftermath more likely.
During his speech, Trump—considered a leading GOP presidential candidate for 2024 despite spearheading a deadly coup attempt following his 2020 loss—criticized how President Joe Biden's administration has responded to the environmental and public health disaster unfolding in East Palestine, a poor rural town of about 4,700 people located a few miles west of the Pennsylvania border.
But as critics noted beforehand, the Trump administration's gutting of train safety rules at the behest of railroad industry lobbyists was instrumental in creating the conditions for the derailment and ensuing chemical spill and burnoff, which has provoked fears of groundwater contamination and air pollution.
"He should be apologizing to that community for his administration rolling back rail regulations," progressive stalwart Nina Turner, a former Ohio state senator, tweeted prior to Trump's address.
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch made a similar point in an opinion piece published earlier this week.
"If residents of East Palestine—a modern news desert of downsized or disappeared news sources, which allows misinformation to fester—truly knew the reality, a delegation of townsfolk would likely greet Trump with tiki torches and pitchforks," Bunch wrote, comparing the former president's visit to "the tendency of a criminal to return to the scene of his crime."
Bunch noted that "Trump acted specifically to sabotage a nascent government effort to protect citizens from the growing threat posed by derailments of outdated, poorly equipped, and undermanned freight trains that were increasingly shipping both highly flammable crude oil from the U.S. fracking boom as well as toxic chemicals like the ones that would derail in East Palestine."
"Trump had been in office for less than a year when he moved to kill the 2015 rule change initiated by the Obama administration that would have required freight trains to upgrade the current braking technology that was developed in the 19th century for state-of-the-art electronic systems," wrote Bunch, who pointed out that this came after Norfolk Southern and other rail carriers donated more than $6 million to Republican candidates in 2016 and spent millions more on lobbying.
"With the investigation into the East Palestine wreck still in its early phases, it's not clear if the modern brakes—originally required for installation by 2021—could have prevented the toxic derailment or whether the specific Obama rule would have applied," Bunch continued. "But experts do believe the new brakes could have mitigated the wreckage—and thus the release of so many hazardous chemicals."
"The rule reversal wasn't the only time that Team Trump sided with Big Rail over the forgotten Americans who live on the wrong side of their tracks," he added. "In 2019, for example, the Trump administration moved to not strengthen but relax regulations on shipping fracked natural gas through communities like East Palestine. The same year, Trump's White House also killed an Obama-era proposal that would have required two crew members in freight-train locomotives."
|
|
(Editor's Note: Once again, the internal caucus in the RMWED hits the nail on the head with their statement on the East Palestine wreck.) |
|
(Editor's Note: This article postulates that a cause-and-effect can be drawn between the obscene wealth generated by the railroads and the increase in derailments.) |
|
As Rail Executives Grow Richer, Train Derailments Have Become More Commonplace |
|
The East Palestine disaster is a horrifying, spectacular version of what has become the normal occurrence of train derailments in America. Joe Biden could use this as an opportunity to overhaul a crooked and dangerous industry. So far, he appears uninterested.
All of a sudden, train derailments are everywhere. The East Palestine, Ohio, train disaster has been the most horrifyingly spectacular thus far, but more than a dozen train derailments had already taken place in the United States this year alone.
The weeks that followed added several more: a train carrying coal derailing near Gothenburg, Nebraska; another chemical-bearing train going off the trails near Detroit, this one also operated by the same Norfolk Southern company behind the East Palestine crash; a pickup truck smashing into a train in New Caney, Texas, sending sixteen train cars off the rails. Maybe that last one doesn’t count, since a truck was the instigating factor. Then again, given how often trucks crash in the United States, especially those carrying the same kinds of dangerous chemicals that were spewed in Ohio, and how much deadlier those crashes are when you stack them up, that’s hardly a cause for relief.
A shocking number of train derailments take place in the United States every year: an average of 1,705, or 54,570 over the span of 1990 to 2021, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. While falling after 2008, the next thirteen years still saw over a thousand derailments a year, killing a total of thirty-one people and injuring 1,759. And East Palestine is far from the first time we’ve seen a derailment this destructive. In the winter of 2002, a Canadian Pacific train carrying anhydrous ammonia, a chemical that aggressively sucks all the moisture out from the human body, crashed outside Minot, North Dakota, injuring more than 1,400 people and trapping residents in their homes, stuck there in below-freezing weather while unable to turn on their furnaces.
Derailments in the United States are a particularly bad problem compared to other countries. While recording 777 million train-kilometers in 2019 (train-kilometers are the measure of a train traveling the distance of one kilometer), 1,338 derailments took place in the country. The EU, by contrast, only saw seventy-three derailments that year despite, by one count, recording 4.5 billion train-kilometers. For Japan, the same year saw more than 2 billion train-kilometers, according to Knoema, and only nine derailments. (In fact, the number of derailments in Japan over the past twenty-one years alone is roughly one-eighth of the amount the United States sees on average in a single year).
|
|
(Editor's Note: The author of the article below, Bruce Campbell is Senior Fellow at Toronto Metropolitan University's Centre for Free Expression. He authored the book "The Lac-Mégantic Rail Disaster: Public Betrayal Justice Denied,” which is available in the RWU online Store. RWU ran a Campaign to exonerate the workers and hold the company accountable after the 2013 wreck that killed 47 people which included numerous public appearances by Bruce Campbell across the U.S.)
|
|
Rail Accidents: Public Safety and Accountability Suffer Because of Deregulation |
|
The ongoing environmental tragedy in Ohio caused by the derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials — which sent toxic chemicals into the air and local waterways — will take a long time to clean up. And if a similar rail tragedy in Canada is an example, it could take even longer for residents to get answers about the cause and true damage of the accident.
Almost a decade has passed since a runaway train hauling 72 tank cars laden with highly volatile Bakken shale oil derailed and exploded in Lac-Mégantic — a small Québec town near the border with Maine — killing 47 people, orphaning 26 children, spilling six million litres of toxic material and destroying the town centre.
The accident on July 6, 2013, was the worst industrial disaster on Canadian soil in over a century. A decade later, it has left the community with a legacy of economic, health and environmental effects.
A rail bypass project, originally conceived as means of healing, has prolonged the trauma that has plagued the Lac-Mégantic community since that catastrophic night.
Construction of the bypass still has not begun. The route preferred by Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd., which will own the bypass upon completion, and supported by the federal government, has created deep divisions within the surrounding towns.
The dispute over the bypass is just one of the ongoing issues for the citizens of Lac-Mégantic. Their latest quest for justice through the courts came to a disheartening end on Dec. 14, 2022.
|
|
(Editor's Note: If as a nation we can proceed forward with passenger train development like much of the world, we stand to see tens of thousands of good railroad union jobs created, reduce fossil fuel emissions, and save countless lives now lost on the nations highways.) |
|
Brightline West Inks Commitment With High-Speed Rail Labor Coalition |
|
The Agreement Demonstrates Support of Union Labor to Operate and Maintain Brightline West’s Future System (PDF)
LAS VEGAS (Feb 21, 2023) -- Brightline West, America’s first true high-speed rail system connecting Las Vegas and Southern California, today, announced a landmark agreement, establishing a commitment with several craft rail unions for the use of highly skilled union labor in critical jobs required to operate and maintain this historic project. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the High-Speed Rail Labor Coalition (Coalition) is comprised of 13 rail unions representing more than 160,000 freight, regional, commuter, and passenger railroad workers in the United States.
The MOU demonstrates the support of union labor in the development of the Brightline West system, and Brightline West’s commitment to providing the safest possible rail operations and high-quality working conditions for its employees.
“The High-Speed Rail Labor Coalition is proud to be in partnership with Brightline West in this historic project. Americans want high-speed rail, and Brightline West and the High-Speed Rail Labor Coalition will deliver. Brightline West will be the most elegant travel by rail experience you can have in America, and it will be the catalyst for America’s renaissance of travel by high-speed rail. The High-Speed Rail Labor Coalition is ready to bring this transformative transportation project to Americans. Let’s get to work.” shared the High-Speed Rail Labor Coalition in a statement.
Brightline West is a 218-mile system connecting Las Vegas and Southern California within the Interstate 15 right-of-way with train capable of speeds of 200 miles per hour. The $10 billion investment has widespread economic benefits, including the creation of nearly 35,000 jobs during construction and more than $10 billion in economic impact. The fully electric, emission- free system will be one of the greenest forms of transportation in the U.S., removing 3 million cars and 400,000 tons of CO2 each year.
|
|
(Editor's Note: It is great for once to see the dominoes fall in our direction! Now, all 4 major Class One U.S. based railroads have negotiated paid sick time to employees of a handful of unions. One can suspect the others are soon to follow. This ONLY is happening because the working railroaders - including RWU members - raised such hell and gave the carriers such a black eye in national handling a few months ago. Which raises the question: Why didn't the bastards bargain in good faith last fall when they could have and should have?) |
|
BNSF, TCU and NCFO Agreed to Paid Sick Leave |
|
BNSF on Feb. 23 reported reaching agreements with the Transportation Communications Union (TCU) and the National Conference of Firemen and Oilers (NCFO) for paid sick leave. It is the fourth Class I to offer the benefit to craft railroaders.
Now, BNSF will grant individual paid sick days to its railroaders who are members of the TCU and NCFO. It noted that the TCU agreement applies to insourced intermodal equipment operators, “which represent a majority” of TCU members at BNSF; other TCU members already have paid sick days as part of their existing agreement.
|
|
(Editor's Note: Alan Fisher - proponent of rail nationalization - does a good job of explaining detectors, roller bearings, and hotboxes to the lay audience in his concise video about the NS derailment.) |
|
A Train Derailed East Palestine, Ohio; Why Did That Happen? |
|
(Editor's Note: Rail labor supporter and head of the Real New Network Max Alvarez hosts a couple of RWU members to jointly explain the connection between train wrecks, derailments, anti-worker behavior, and the Wall Street ownership of the Class One railroads.) |
|
East Palestine, Ohio Train Wreck: Railroad Workers Explain Why Wall St is to Blame
What caused the Norfolk Southern train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio, and who should be held accountable? Is the issue at hand just a problem of brakes, or is there a more systemic cause behind the 1000+ train derailments each year in the US? Retired railway workers Jeff Kurtz and Mark Burrows join TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez to explain how railroad workers' long fight for better conditions against Wall St profiteers is at the heart of this tragic story.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
