Rail & Labor News from RWU
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Weekly Digest Number 41 - October 10th, 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!
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Editor's Note: More and more organizations are coming to understand that RAIL is the solution to so many issues. As this movement grows with each passing month, it will become more and more obvious that the major obstacle to achieving an expanded rail system is the Wall Street dominated Class One carriers themsleves. | |
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ZOOM and in person in Seattle
350 Seattle Aviation Team Presents A Community Education and Discussion about: A mode shift to passenger and freight rail as a Climate Solution - and the barriers rail advocates are facing. The meeting runs from 7:00 to 8:30 Pacific.
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Editor's Note: Progress on quality of work life continues to be made by most all crafts on the big carriers. However, rail workers must remain vigilant and on their guard against loopholes, restrictions, and the :fine print" that can in some cases give with one hand and take away with the other. | |
BLET / OCTOBER 4, 2023
The four BLET General Chairmen reported on October 3 that a majority of BLET Divisions representing locomotive engineers on BNSF Railway ratified a system-wide agreement that improves the quality of work-life balance for approximately 8,000 locomotive engineers.
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Editor's Note: With three employees killed in three different yards in the space of just over three months, CSX - like the other eastern rail giant NS - is under the microscope. | |
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BY JOSH FUNK October 5
Most of the reaction to the predawn death of a rail worker who mistakenly stepped in front of two CSX locomotives last month has focused on whether the 19-year veteran should have seen the train coming and not on the actions of a worker who could hardly see the front of the locomotives he or she was operating using a remote control.
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Editor's Note: Railroad Workers United of course has been preaching this for years. Federal agencies have very little power to regulate and enforce and have largely been "captured" by the rail industry itself. Perhaps it is time for Public Ownership of the Rail Industry. | |
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BY KAY NEUFELD PRESS HERALD
A five-month Press Herald investigation reveals poorly maintained lines, unreported accidents and secrecy around the hazardous materials transported through Maine. The newspaper requested and examined years of government records; pored over thousands of pages of safety studies and reports on federal inspections, accidents and state rail infrastructure; examined regulations and chemical classifications; and spoke with more than 20 freight experts, federal safety regulators, union leaders, safety advisers and state officials.
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Editor's Note: The irony here will not escape every railroad worker out there. This is a total admittance by the host railroad CPKC that excessive train length - even when only just a single train a day - can bugger up a single track railroad. | |
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The railroads' eastbound interline stack train runs afoul of CPKC’s mandate that trains be able to fit in passing sidings. The single-track, 302-mile Speedway route between Shreveport and the connection with NS at Meridian has 21 passing sidings, most of which are around 8,500 feet long. Only three of the Speedway’s passing sidings can handle an 11,000-foot train.
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Editor's Note: This is a Report on the condition of railroad bridges in just ONE city. It begs the question: What are the state of the bridges in the thousands of other cities where NS - and the other railroads - operate? | |
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By Matthew Benninger / Oct. 3, 2023
The railroad company moved to repair the bridges after Binghamton officials released a 900-page report from HUNT-EAS that determined 15 bridges owned by Norfolk Southern were in severe or poor condition.
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Editor's Note: Just about everyone who works for Union Pacific has a friend and former co-worker who was illegally fired by the railroad. The color-blind scam is just the tip of the iceberg of all of the discriminatory actions that UP has taken against employees who have been hurt or have experienced non-debilitating injuries/conditions and then been fired illegally by the carrier. | |
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BY JOSH FUNK / October 2, 2023
The federal government has joined more than a dozen former workers in suing Union Pacific over the way it used a vision test to disqualify workers the railroad believed were color blind and might have trouble reading signals telling them to stop a train. These cases were once going to be part of a class-action lawsuit that the railroad estimated might include as many as 7,700 people who had to undergo what is called a “fitness-for-duty” review between 2014 and 2018.
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Editor's Note: Countless locomotive engineers have been traumatized by pedestrian/suicide strikes. The problem is especially acute on Metra commuter rail routes in the Chicago area. More needs to be done by the rail companies to keep pedestrians off the tracks and to aid and assist rail employees in the aftermath of such tragic altercations. | |
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METRA - Wednesday, October 18, 2023 / 8:00am – 3:30pm / Kent College of Law – Illinois Tech / 565 West Adams St. Chicago, IL 60661
In 2017, Metra hosted its first bi-annual symposium "Breaking the Silence" focusing on suicide prevention and promoting mental health within the rail industry. In 2019, the symposium, Breaking the Silence - "Restoring Hope, Saving Lives" brought together our international partners, the British Transport Police, Toronto Transit as well as U.S. freight and passenger railroads, the FRA, Volpe, APTA and mental health experts to discuss industry challenges, mitigation strategies and sharing in best practices. Register here
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Editor's Note: In this series of podcast, RWU Organizer Ron Kaminkow joins historian Peter Rachleff (Part 1) and locomotive engineer Marilee Taylor (Part 2) to discuss the history, labor struggles, and current conditions on the railroad with these famous and well-known reporters. | |
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Podcast; Part 1 of 2
The freight railroad industry is crucial, but companies have slashed tens of thousands of workers in recent years while trains have become less reliable and derailments have threatened entire towns. Meanwhile, railroad companies have reported record and near-record profits. Historian Peter Rachleff and train engineer (RWU's own] Ron Kaminkow, who’s also a labor leader, guide us through the colorful, brutal history of America’s railroads.
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NEWS FROM AROUND THE LABOR MOVEMENT | |
Editor's Note: The struggle for good pay and working conditions is spreading throughout the vehicle construction industry, from locomotive builders in Erie to Auto Workers at the big three, to truck builders at Mack. | |
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Alan Adler / Sunday, October 08, 2023
United Auto Workers-represented employees at Mack Trucks overwhelmingly voted down a tentative agreement Sunday. They plan to strike operations in three states Monday. UAW International President Shawn Fain said 73% of workers rejected the proposed contract.
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Greg Miller ·Sunday, October 01, 2023
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), which represents dockworkers at ports along the Pacific coast of the United States and Canada, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection just before midnight on Saturday [Sep 30th]. The bankruptcy filing was precipitated by a massive damage award and ongoing litigation in a long-running dispute between ILWU Local 8, the union chapter in Portland, Oregon, and terminal operator ICTSI Oregon
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Editor's Note: RWU continues to support our fellow workers of the UAW. See the RWU Resolution HERE. | |
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LUIS FELIZ LEON OCTOBER 6, 2023
While the UAW’s strike against the Big Three is ongoing and bargaining continues, union president Shawn Fain announced an important victory on Friday. He said that General Motors had agreed, in writing, to include its EV battery manufacturing facilities in the UAW’s national union contract.
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Editor's Note: The strike wave rolls on! We just might be witnessing a complete revival of the labor movement in the U.S. | |
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Jake Johnson
Tens of thousands of healthcare workers across the United States began a three-day strike against Kaiser Permanente on Wednesday to protest the nonprofit hospital giant's alleged unfair labor practices, bad-faith bargaining, inadequate wages, and chronic staff shortages that employees say are harming them and patients.
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Editor's Note: What a different culture we might live in had students been taught labor history and about workers rights in school all these years. Perhaps a new day is coming when working class kids can learn their history at school! | |
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Julia Conley Oct 03, 2023
Under A.B. 800, all public high schools in California will hold "Workplace Readiness Week" as part of their curriculum. Students will gain a "strong understanding of their rights as workers, as well as their explicit rights as employed minors" and learn about their right to join or organize a union in their workplace.
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