Weekly Digest Number 18 - May 2nd, 2023
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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!
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(Editor's Note: Each year for the past decade, the National Council for Occupational Safety & Health (COSH) has solicited nominations for employers deemed by their employees of being worthy of the distinction “Dirty Dozen.” Of the nominations received each year, COSH then selects who it believes are the worst offenders, identifying and publicizing employers with unsafe practices that put workers and communities at risk, and highlighting efforts by workers to win safety and dignity on the job. Well, RWU and rail workers from every craft and every union employed by every carrier believe that the Class One carriers’ exploits should not go unrecognized. Therefore, we nominated the Class Ones as a group for the dubious distinction back in February. Not surprisingly, they WON!!)
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‘Dirty Dozen’ Dangerous Employers Named for Workers Memorial Day
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Here are four of the employers COSH has picked out for the “Dirty Dozen” distinction in 2023 because they run unsafe workplaces, endangering workers and the public: Swissport, Packers Sanitation, the Class I railroads, and FedEx. Some also have attempted to silence workers who speak up about hazards or are trying to organize a union to make the workplace safer ...
Billionaire Bill Ackman, Norfolk Southern and Class One Freight Railroads
When railroad workers threatened to strike for the right take emergency time off for an illness in fall of 2022, they exposed the dangerous business plan of the Class One freight railroads they work for. The federal government blocked the strike. In a compromise brokered by Congress, the railroads were apparently willing to increase pay—but they were not willing to let workers take unplanned time off the job, because they are running the system so lean that it is on the verge of collapse.
Class One railroads (BNSF, CSX, Kansas City Southern, Union Pacific, Canadian Pacific, Canadian National Railway) are the six biggest operating in the U.S., with annual revenue over $500 million.
Under a system known as Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR), the big carriers have increased the length and weight of trains, and cut staff by 30 percent in the last six years, at the behest of activist shareholder Bill Ackman and other railroad company owners who demand maximum returns.
The result has been a tripling of profit margins for the railroad owners over the last two decades, but devastation for communities like East Palestine, Ohio, which experienced a train derailment on February 3, including 11 tank cars carrying toxic materials. Leaking tanks containing vinyl chorine had to be burned off to prevent a toxic explosion. Two thousand residents were evacuated, and many report continuing health problems.
Jason Doering, a locomotive engineer based in Nevada and general secretary of the cross-union rank-and-file group Railroad Workers United (RWU), said there has been a recent increase in derailments due to PSR, which “prioritizes short-term financial gains for Wall Street over the safety of communities and railroad workers.”
In addition to riskier, heavier, miles-long trains, maintenance has gotten less attention, rail workers say. The East Palestine derailment was likely due to an overheated bearing on one of the train’s 149 cars. The overheating was detected by sensors along the route, alerting the train crew, but it was too late. Preventive maintenance could have caught the issue.
That derailment got a lot of press attention, but major train derailments are now common. RWU noted that in just the last week of March there were six significant wrecks: 55 cars and two Union Pacific locomotives were destroyed in a wreck in the Mojave desert, 31 cars of a Canadian Pacific train derailed in North Dakota, a BNSF train derailed in Minnesota with ethanol cars catching fire leading to a local evacuation; 15 cars filled with ore derailed in Pennsylvania; 19 cars of a Norfolk Southern train derailed in Alabama; and 24 cars plunged into the Clark Fork River in Montana.
“These companies siphon billions into share buybacks, dividends, and bonuses,” said RWU Steering Committee member Paul Lindsey, a locomotive engineer based in Idaho, but at the expense of “vital maintenance and infrastructure.”
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(Editor's Note: As we approach the 10th anniversary of the fateful runaway train wreck that destroyed the Quebec community of Lac-Megantic, we find that conditions on the North American freight network have in fact deteriorated. Watch for a series of events in the coming months leading up to July. RWU encourages all railroad workers and members of the public to get involved in the fight for railroad safety.)
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Citizens Group Honors 10th Anniversary of Lac-Megantic Train Wreck in Canada
Two-Hundred Years Proves Railroads Will Never Prioritize Our Safety Over Their Profits
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TORONTO, CANADA – On Saturday, April 29, 2023, prior to the screening of Academy Award-nominated director Philippe Falardeau (“The Good Lie”) and co-producer Nancy Guerin’s four-episode documentary series, Lac-Megantic: This Is Not an Accident, a press conference was held where residents of Lac-Mégantic along with members of Railroad Workers United (RWU) and the Sierra Club were among a lineup of those who are demanding railroad safety.
A tragedy that should have been prevented, Lac-Mégantic’s Citizens Coalition for Railroad Safety member Gilbert Carett recalls, “Years before July 6, 2013, residents reported the industry for rolling poorly maintained, longer and heavier convoys carrying more crude oil, propane, and other chemicals on worn-out rails.” He cites a conflict of interest when, “security inspections are made by the companies themselves and are approved by their own authorities.”
No train derailment in our railroading history showcases the systemic failure of private railroad industry more comprehensively than the tragedy of Lac-Mégantic in Quebec, Canada, when a runaway train disaster sparked a series of events revealing an abyss of corporate greed, regulatory capture, disregard for human life, and scapegoating embedded in daily private corporate operations. “We call out for a public investigation of the July 6, 2013 destruction of our downtown,” insists Carett.
From the decimation of Lac-Mégantic to a recent intentional release and burn in East Palestine, OH that ignited a chemical so deadly its use as a weapon was banned in warfare after WWI, North America can only draw upon a single conclusion: “These events reveal completely that after 200 years of North American railroading, private ownership of this industry can never possibly work. It never has, and it never will,” affirms Karl ‘Fritz’ Edler, Special Representative of Railroad Workers United, Washington D.C.
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(Editor's Note: This 12-minute news clip is worth the time to watch. Mark Burrows - RWU newsletter Editor and 38 year veteran of CNW, Soo Line, and Canadian Pacific - speaks numerous times throughout.)
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Freight Trains Keep Derailing. Why?
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A string of train derailments have captured the attention of lawmakers in Washington. Corporations within the freight industry have redesigned their businesses to maximize efficiency. But a panel of experts gathered by CNBC argue that some of the strategic changes may compromise public safety. Some of these strategic corporate decisions may have been involved in a now infamous February 2023 crash on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, according to regulatory complaints.
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(Editor's Note: Could this signal the end of PSR as we know it? Let's hope it is the beginning of the end. But as every railroader knows - or should remember if working in pre-PSR times - everything was not exactly hunky-dory back then. Draconian attendance policies, harsh discipline, ever longer trains, cuts to staff and maintenance, chronic fatigue, long shifts, overwork and all the rest have been hallmarks of the rail industry forever. PSR just turned the screws to untenable levels. If this is the end, good riddance ... but the struggle continues.)
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Management Incentives at CSX, NS, and UP Shift Toward Service and Growth
Railroads’ annual bonus plans encourage on-time performance and traffic growth
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The publicly traded U.S. Class I railroads are putting more of an emphasis on service and volume growth in the annual incentive plans they offer to their executives.
It’s a clear sign, analysts say, that the railroads are shifting into growth mode after years spent concentrating on reducing their operating ratios in a quest for higher profits.
“People will move toward what they are incented to do … it’s not just a symbolic move,” says independent analyst Anthony B. Hatch. The incentive changes are part of what Hatch calls the “pivot to growth” that follows the implementation of the ultra-lean Precision Scheduled Railroading operating model.
Last year, the annual bonus formula was built 50% on operating ratio improvement, 30% on operating income, and 20% on corporate goals. For 2023 the operating ratio component is gone. The formula is now based 40% on operating income, 30% on revenue growth, 10% on merchandise on-time performance, 10% on intermodal on-time performance, 5% on improving the employee injury rate, and 5% on improving the train accident rate.
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(Editor's Note: This report is long overdue. Long before the big rail carriers started running these monster trains, all of this should have been studied thoroughly.)
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WHITE PAPER: Management of In-Train Forces – Challenges and Directions, First Addendum
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The June 2022 White Paper supplemented here was devoted to “management of in-train forces.” This is an issue for trains of virtually all lengths and tonnages, but longer trains present special challenges. Both train makeup and train handling are critical. These challenges can be mitigated with use of DPUs (distributed power units), properly networked using radio telemetry. However, DPUS are still not being employed consistently some seven years into Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR). Further, as the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee on very long trains (VLTs) was advised in March of 2023, not all railroads are even using the most advanced radio communications features available for distributed power, let alone fully mastering the use of repeaters.
However, what has happened is that, even if DPUs are fully employed (e.g., mid-train and rear) there is still the temptation to build trains with segments that exceed prudent length and are not properly blocked. In grade or undulating territory, this can result in train air brakes showing off their faults—the reason the writer has described them as the “limiting factor” in responsible train marshalling and, particularly, automated train operations. Partial automated operations, using train energy management systems (TEMS), have not yet mastered air brakes, so they are normally cut out in grade territory.
Issues with TEMS and other on-board train technology continue to confound our understanding of accident outcomes. During the period the White Paper has been in revision, TEMS, and positive train control (PTC), have been integrated on some locomotives—but not all. Transitions from TEMS operation to manual operation seem to present challenges. De-skilling of locomotive engineers may be occurring in many circumstances, given reliance on TEMS and dynamic braking (to the exclusion of air brakes) and due to the limited time available for training in an industry barely able to handle the remaining traffic. Major railroads engaged in extensive interchange of full consists and use of various interline arrangements still show no outward sign of cooperating with respect to train marshalling principles.
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(Editor's Note: If the rest of the country follows California's lead, we might just start to see some modern, clean and green locomotives out on the property soon.)
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California Passes Most Stringent Diesel-Engine Emissions Rules: ‘Fighting for Air’
State to implement most ambitious US regulations on railways, including phasing out locomotive engines over 23 years old
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California has passed stringent new rules to limit emissions from diesel-fueled locomotive engines, putting the state on track to implement the most ambitious regulations on high-polluting railways in the country.
The landmark step taken by the California Air Resources Board (Carb), which regulates California’s air quality, requires the phase-out of inefficient locomotive engines more than 23 years old by 2030, increase the use of zero-emissions technology to transport freight from ports and throughout rail yards, and bans diesel-spewing engines from idling for longer than 30 minutes.
In the hours before the unanimous vote, dozens of environmental justice advocates and community members spoke in support of the rules, highlighting the heartbreaking burden placed on frontline communities who have been left to grapple with higher rates of asthma, cancer and other devastating health effects, along with the relentless rumbling that shakes neighborhoods along the tracks.
“We are fighting for air,” Gemma Pena Zeragoza, a resident from San Bernardino, tearfully told the board. Others shared stories of children forced to share inhalers, a kindergartener who couldn’t physically keep up with her love of running and family members lost to respiratory illnesses.
According to California regulators, diesel emissions are responsible for some 70% of Californians’ cancer risk from toxic air pollution. The rule would curb emissions on a class of engines that annually release more than 640 tons of tiny pollutants that can enter deep into a person’s lungs and worsen asthma, along with nearly 30,000 tons of smog-forming emissions known as nitrogen oxides. Carb analysts project a 90% reduction in local cancer risks in the decades following implementation.
The rule would also drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions from locomotives by an amount akin to removing all heavy-duty trucks from the state by 2030.
“It’s going to be groundbreaking and it’s going to address the diesel crisis that’s been poisoning communities near railyards for literal decades,” said Yasmine Agelidis, a lawyer with environmental non-profit Earthjustice.
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(Editor's Note: It is ironic that the railroad that once was the all-time winner of the bogus "Harriman Award" for safety now is chided as the worst of the Class Ones in that regard. Now they will most likely attempt to clean up their act and "talk safety." When they unleash Behavior-Based Safety upon us once again, we hope the unions do not fall for this smokescreen. RWU has waged a campaign against BS for 15 years now. Check it out HERE.)
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Norfolk Southern Earnings Take Hit from East Palestine, Ohio Derailment
Safety takes spotlight on railroad’s earnings call
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ATLANTA — Norfolk Southern’s first quarter earnings tumbled due to expenses related to the disastrous Feb. 3 derailment and subsequent hazardous materials release in East Palestine, Ohio.
The railroad’s operating income declined 34%, to $711 million, due in part to an initial $387 million charge associated with the derailment.
NS CEO Alan Shaw said he was proud of the railroad’s people and the progress it has made since the East Palestine derailment, including the steps it has taken to improve safety and clean up the Ohio town. “Adversity reveals character. That’s true for people and it’s true for organizations,” Shaw says. “I’m inspired by my colleagues at Norfolk Southern who are rising to the challenge of doing the right thing.”
NS made two decisions that hurt operations, service, and capacity in the short term, but are the right things to do for the long term, Shaw says.
The first was removing the contaminated soil underneath the main line in East Palestine. One track was taken out of service beginning March 3. Once it was put back in service, work on the second main began and won’t be complete until early June.
The combination of being reduced to a single main track and running trains through the work zone at restricted speed has put a bottleneck in NS’ key corridor linking Chicago with Harrisburg, Pa., and the New York metro area.
The second was analyzing and tightening the railroad’s train makeup standards for long, heavy trains in order to reduce the in-train forces that can cause derailments. The changes affected 70% of NS merchandise trains and 17% of its intermodal trains. This caused significant increases in terminal dwell, slowed the merchandise and bulk networks, and clobbered on-time performance for merchandise shipments.
The railroad’s key operating metrics deteriorated during the quarter, with average train speed falling from 22 mph in January to 19.5 mph in March. Terminal dwell increased from 23.8 hours in January to 29 hours in March.
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(Editor's Note: Again, the FRA wants to issue an "Advisory" here rather than issue a Proposed Rulemaking. This will have little to no effect on the Class One carriers' behavior. But it is great to see that there are calls coming from all quarters now, finally, to limit train lengths and weights. RWU has been calling for limits for the last decade. See our Resolution from 2014 and our Campaign Page HERE.)
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Federal Railroad Administration Urges Caution on Train Lengths
FRA and National Academies studying impact of longer trains on operations
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The Federal Railroad Administration has issued a safety advisory asking railroad companies to be mindful of the operational complexities involving longer trains.
The safety advisory follows another one issued by FRA earlier this month, in which the agency recommended freight railroads look closely at how they configure freight trains because the way that trains are configured can affect the in-train forces that are put upon the train.
“Freight train length has increased in recent years, and while research is ongoing related to operational aspects of long trains, including brake system performance, it is known that the in-train forces longer trains experience are generally stronger and more complex than those in shorter train consists,” FRA said in its latest advisory.
As freight railroad companies take train length into account in configuring trains, FRA is advising that railroads review operating rules and existing locomotive engineer certification programs, as well as “take appropriate action to prevent the loss of communications between end-of-train devices and mitigate the impacts of long trains on blocked crossings.”
FRA recommends railroads identify changes to crew training; examine train handling procedures and train makeup; look into distributed power unit requirements and limitations to length or tonnage; factor in speed restrictions; take into consideration track, mechanical and brake inspections; and ensure that operations provide the necessary maintenance requirements to promote the safe operation of longer trains.
The agency also asked the railroads to provide complete data after an incident that could inform safety regulators of the factors that led to the incident, as well as to be mindful of how a stopped train or a long train has the potential to impede local first responders’ ability to answer calls.
FRA pointed to three recent derailments in which train length was a contributing factor. In each incident, the trains were hauling more than 200 rail cars, were at least 12,250 feet long and weighed over 17,000 trailing tons.
The incidents were a March 4 derailment of a Norfolk Southern (NYSE: NSC) train in Springfield, Ohio, a Nov. 1, 2022, derailment of an NS train in Ravenna, Ohio, and a March 24, 2022, derailment of a Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP) train in Rockwell, Iowa.
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(Editor's Note: Many railroaders might recognize themselves in this important article. It is not just a question of health, safety, and human decency that workers be provided with adequate rest and time off work, it is a matter of our sanity!)
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Lack of Sick Days, Inflexible Schedule Among Tough Job Conditions That Can Seriously Affect Mental Health, Report Shows
By Deidre McPhillips, CNN Published 12:03 AM EDT, Tue April 25, 2023
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Certain work conditions – including inflexible or late-night schedules and lack of paid sick leave – can have a significant effect on mental health, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 2021, about 1 in every 37 working adults experienced serious psychological distress, or negative feelings that were severe enough to impair social and occupational functioning and to require treatment, the report shows. The findings were based off of a representative sample of adults ages 18 to 64 who responded to the National Center for Health Statistics’ National Health Interview Survey.
The responses, collected during the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic, showed that about 1 in 17 people who had to work when they were physically ill reported serious psychological distress – three times more than those who didn’t have to work when sick.
Rates of serious psychological distress were significantly higher among workers who did not have paid sick leave than among those who did.
Late-night shifts and less-flexible schedules also had a significant effect on workers’ mental health. People working the night shift were twice as likely to report serious psychological distress than people working the day shift.
Inconsistency in schedule and pay also had negative effects, according to the report. People who worked a rotating shift were more likely than average to report serious psychological distress, as were those whose earnings changed month to month and those who anticipated losing their job within a year.
A lack of control is at the heart of many of these work conditions linked to poor mental health, experts say.
“People need to have a sense of agency in order to avoid having a stress response,” said Dennis Stolle, a social and personality psychologist who was not involved in the report. “When people don’t know what’s going to happen and they don’t have any control over what’s going to happen, it can lead to anxiety and to increase levels of stress.”
Striking a balance between consistency and flexibility is key, he said. And it’s critically important with work because of the significant amount of time and energy it takes up in our lives.
“People need to have a schedule that is predictable enough that they don’t feel like their life is out of control and they can be called in to work at any moment. On the flip side, they also have need to have enough flexibility that they feel they have enough control to be able to deal with the emergencies that come up in life,” said Stolle, who is senior director for applied psychology with the American Psychological Association.
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(Editor's Note: This issue is one that has so far received little attention, but happens across the country on a daily basis. How many kids are killed and maimed each year it is hard to say. Whatever the case, this is an insane way for kids to have to get to and from school.)
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As Rail Profits Soar, Blocked Crossings Force Kids to Crawl Under Trains to Get to School
April 26, 12 p.m. EDT
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Jeremiah Johnson couldn’t convince his mother to let him wear a suit, so he insisted on wearing his striped tie and matching pocket square. It was picture day and the third grader wanted to get to school on time. But as he and his mom walked from their Hammond, Indiana, home on a cold, rainy fall morning, they confronted an obstacle they’d come to dread:
A sprawling train, parked in their path.
Lamira Samson, Jeremiah’s mother, faced a choice she said she has to make several times a week. They could walk around the train, perhaps a mile out of the way; she could keep her 8-year-old son home, as she sometimes does; or they could try to climb over the train, risking severe injury or death, to reach Hess Elementary School four blocks away.
She listened for the hum of an engine. Hearing none, she hurried to help Jeremiah climb a ladder onto the flat platform of a train car. Once up herself, she helped him scramble down the other side.
ProPublica and InvestigateTV witnessed dozens of students do the same in Hammond, climbing over, squeezing between and crawling under train cars with “Frozen” and “Space Jam” backpacks. An eighth grade girl waited 10 minutes before she made her move, nervously scrutinizing the gap between two cars. She’d seen plenty of trains start without warning. “I don’t want to get crushed,” she said.
Recent spectacular derailments have focused attention on train safety and whether the nation’s powerful rail companies are doing enough to protect the public — and whether federal regulators are doing enough to make them, especially as the companies build longer and longer trains.
But communities like Hammond routinely face a different set of risks foisted on them by those same train companies, which have long acted with impunity. Every day across America, their trains park in the middle of neighborhoods and major intersections, waiting to enter congested rail yards or for one crew to switch with another. They block crossings, sometimes for hours or days, disrupting life and endangering lives.
In Hammond, the hulking trains of Norfolk Southern regularly force parents, kids and caretakers into an exhausting gamble: How much should they risk to get to school?
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(Editor's Note: In recent months, Railroad Workers United has been partnering with a number of organizations, among them the Southern Workers Assembly. Our Treasurer - locomotive engineer High Sawyer of Atlanta - attended this important conference sponsored by SWA in Charlotte, N.C. in late April.)
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It’s About Power: Southern Worker School Charts Path for Building Workers Movement in the U.S. South
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“We heard from the rail workers. We heard from the truckers. We’ve got the longshoremen in the house, too,” said Leonard Riley, a longshore worker with the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) Local 1422 and member of the SWA Coordinating Committee, addressing a packed house at the Teamsters Local 71 union hall during the opening program of the 2023 Southern Worker School.
“The reason I bring that up is because of the power that’s in this room. We’ve got bus drivers over there, teachers over here. There’s power in this room. It’s going to take strategy, planning, coming together, and finding out where the power connectors are to mobilize and exercise it.”
Strategizing, planning, building networks, and engaging in collective discussion on how to build a stronger and broader workers movement – including local workers assemblies – in the U.S. South is exactly what the more than 120 rank and file workers and other activists who participated in the worker school during the weekend of April 21 – 23 in Charlotte, North Carolina, did.
Workers who participated in the gathering came from nine Southern states – South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky – and numerous sectors, including the service industry, logistics, education, the public sector, construction, and more....
... Even beyond the programming and discussions that took place throughout the weekend, the gathering was significant and reflected both quantitative and qualitative steps forward in the development of a South-wide network of militant, class conscious, rank and file workers engaged in struggle across various strategic sectors of the economy. The gathering had a strong multi-national character, helped to consolidate the work of existing workers assemblies and drew in workers and other forces who are interested in developing one in their city, and was the largest Southern Worker School held to date....
... “We are up against Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR). They’re trying to run the price of the stock up, and then these hedge funds will sell out and leave a skeleton left. It will lead to decimation that we’ll all end up paying for,” Hugh Sawyer told the crowd. “Railroad Workers United today is taking on the monumental task of public ownership of railroads… From an environmental point of view, you want healthy railways, and the only
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(Editor's Note: Having played brinkmanship last Fall, nearly bringing the nation's rail system to a halt while refusing to grant even ONE single day of SICK TIME to their workforce, the carriers now relent. Why the change of heart? Only because of the mass pressure and mass publicity that was brought to bear upon them and the union officials by ranks & file workers. The carriers would rather "bargain" 4 days with strings attached than deal with 7 days or more without strings, foisted on them by the government. It remains to be seen however, just what workers have given up - and what strings will ultimately be attached - to get these sick days.)
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US Rail Companies Grant Paid Sick Days After Public Pressure in Win for Unions
Leading railroads give four paid sick days after years in which workers weren’t allowed to call in sick the morning of their shift
Steven Greenhouse Monday, May 1 at 6:00 AM ET
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US freight rail companies nearly spurred a nationwide railroad strike last fall by refusing to grant paid sick days, but in a surprise move welcomed by workers, those railroads have recently granted paid sick days to almost half their workforce.
After being roundly criticized for not offering paid sick days, the leading rail companies – BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific – have granted many of their 93,000 workers four paid sick days a year through labor negotiations, with an option of taking three more paid sick days from personal days.
“We’re very happy about this. We’ve been trying to get this for decades,” said Artie Maratea, president of the Transportation Communications Union. “It was public pressure and political pressure that got them to come to the table.”
When Joe Biden and Congress enacted legislation in December that blocked a threatened freight rail strike, many workers angrily faulted Biden for not ensuring that the legislation also guaranteed paid sick days. But since then, union officials says, members of the Biden administration, including the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, and labor secretary, Marty Walsh, who stepped down on 11 March, lobbied the railroads, telling them it was wrong not to grant paid sick days.
“We’ve made a lot of progress,” said Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, the main US labor federation. “This is being done the right way. Each railroad is negotiating with each of its individual unions on this.”
“The rail companies,” he added, “miscalculated about how the public would see their huge profits and the stories of how hard rail workers’ lives were and not having sick days and the draconian policies they were operating under.”
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(Editor's Note: At first glance, one might conclude that neither of these wrecks was the rail carrier's fault. But why do we continue to have tens of thousands of barely protected rail crossings in the U.S. when other countries have eliminated most of theirs years ago? And why can't the rail companies properly inspect the tracks along raging rivers at flood when it is a known hazard to the approaching train and its crew? )
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Weekly Derailment Department
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