Rail & Labor News from RWU
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Weekly Digest Number 11 - March 12, 2024 | |
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. Got a hot tip? Please forward the article and a link to raillabornews@gmail.com. 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: The winds of change in rail labor are certainly blowing. First, longtime BLET President Pierce is voted out of office in a one-member-one-vote election of top officers of that union in the Fall of 2022. Then in another rail union that likewise has the provision for direct elections - IAM District 19 - the incumbents might just lose in the May 3rd re-run election. And a bold new movement is afoot in yet another rail union - BMWED - to change the bylaws and offer one-member-one-vote at all levels of that union (see the article below this one). The ranks of rail labor are on the move! | |
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A new election for top officers will be held in Machinists District Lodge 19 on May 3, after complaints about bad addresses and campaigning at polling locations during a close vote last year. Dissatisfied with how their leaders handled the last negotiations, a group of members put together a “Challenger” slate headed by Reece Murtagh, local chairman of Lodge 696 in Richmond, Virginia. Its platform emphasized greater transparency and a more militant posture toward the employers.
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Editor's Note: The three pillars upon which RWU stands are "Solidarity - Unity - Democracy". They are all interconnected and together make up the foundation of a strong and healthy labor movement. Great to see another movement in another union push for the right to a one-member-one-vote system of elections. The BLET membership won this right some 16 years ago and with RWU's assistance, kept it when it came under attack by a conservative cabal in the union a few years later. And the BLET membership just made use of this right in 2022 when they deposed its long serving President. | |
BMWED Rank and File United/ March 7
"BMWED members should have the right to vote for our officers. We want to build a union that involves members, stands up to carriers and wins good contracts. Holding direct elections will give rank and file members a voice in the union and allow us to hold our leaders accountable."
"1 Member 1 Vote for a Strong BMWED is a campaign led by rank and file members to change our bylaws to allow for direct election of union officers. Currently all national officers as well as officers in most systems are elected by the delegates who attend union conventions, not by the members at large. That means that BMWED members have no say in who is bargaining our contracts and handling our claims. We want to change that. To win direct elections, delegates will need to vote at their System Convention to change their bylaws to allow for direct election of system officers and at the National Convention to allow for direct election of national officers."
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Editor's Note: No sooner do the Class Ones emerge from the latest self-induced staffing crisis, then they pave the wave for the next one. Gotta tend to that Operating Ratio! | |
Noi Mahony / March 1
BNSF Railway, one of the largest freight railroads in the U.S., has reportedly furloughed hundreds of employees in Kansas, Montana, Nebraska and Texas.
The furloughs were announced Tuesday, with 362 workers reportedly losing their jobs, according to the Transportation Trades Department (TTD) with the AFL-CIO, the transportation labor federation representing U.S. rail unions and workers.
“BNSF Railway callously announced it has furloughed over 362 mechanical department positions at numerous locations across their system,” Greg Regan, president of the TTD AFL-CIO, said in a letter obtained by FreightWaves. “BNSF has said that the slashing of these positions was necessary to realign with their business operations and to respond to business decline.”
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Editor's Note: Railroaders know that it is not "slow" speed that caused the PTC to not be operational, but "Restricted" speed. A fatal flaw of how PTC was implemented did not take into account the need to protect against rear-end collision in a "restricted block." Simple technology with GPS imbedded in each trains' EOT can prevent this. Will NTSB recommend that this feature be added? It will cost something. Will the railroads voluntarily do it? | |
David Lester / March 7
Three Norfolk Southern (NS) trains were involved in a derailment March 2 just east of Steel City, Pa., along the Lehigh River. According to WFMZ televsion news in Allentown, Pa., Ruben Payan, an NTSB member who is leading the investigation of this incident, addressed town officials yesterday evening and provided a few additional details around the accident. One of the key questions that was put to Mr. Payan was how could the accident could have happened with positive train control (PTC) in place. Payan said that the trains were not going fast enough to to meet the threshold for PTC to activate. He said at the speed they were traveling, “the system no longer maintains train separations.”
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Editor's Note: All railroaders should get behind this important corrective legislation. It is unconcionable that these befits to sick and injured workers are currently subject to reductions. | |
Progressive Railroading / March 7
The U.S. Senate Budget Committee yesterday approved the proposed Railroad Employee Equity and Fairness (REEF) Act, which would permanently exempt railroad workers’ unemployment and sickness insurance benefits from mandated sequestration cuts. Nearly 200,000 active railroad workers are eligible for unemployment and sickness benefits from the Railroad Retirement Board's (RRB) Unemployment Insurance Account. The RRB is subject to sequestration, which reduced railroad unemployment and sickness insurance benefits by 5.7% beginning on May 10, 2023.
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Editor's Note: It appears BNSF is following the same road as UP, deferring maintenance and repiar on its locomotive fleet, but saving money by furloughing shop workers. If the FRA launches surprise inspections, will BNSF run the fed off the property like UP did at North Platte? Will the FRA tolerate this BS? | |
Progressive Railroading / March 7
Transportation Trades Department (TTD) AFL-CIO President Greg Regan is asking the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to conduct unannounced inspections of all BNSF Railway Co.'s owned and lease locomotives and rail cars at or in transit to the Class I's locomotive maintenance inspection terminals. In a Feb. 29 letter to FRA Administrator Amit Bose, Regan expressed union concerns that defects on locomotives and rail cars are being ignored due to what the union says is an inadequate number of inspectors following BNSF’s furloughs of mechanical department workers.
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Editor's Note: Now that The Real News has officially released this article and interview and listing of relevant articles, we feel obliged to run it one more time. For those of you who missed the interview with four RWU members, please do not miss it this time! And be sure to check out all of the related materials. | |
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MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ / MARCH 6
Railroad corporations are packing schedules and loosening workplace safety standards. Workers are paying for it with their lives. Why are railroad workers all over the country dying on the job? And what can be done to stop these needless deaths? We talk with four railroad workers and members of Railroad Workers United (RWU).
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Editor's Note: Glad to see the judge had the sense to see through the NS bullshit here. Analogy: A drunk driver crashes and destroys a lot of property , and then claims the car he was driving was not equipped properly to withstand the crash and prevent damages. What a joke! Sorry NS, you and you alone are responsible for the safe movement of this train, its employees, its locomotives, AND rail cars across your railroad. | |
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A federal court has ruled against Norfolk Southern in a suit seeking to share cleanup costs for the February 2023 East Palestine derailment with railcar owners and the maker of the vinyl chloride involved in the incident. In dismissing NS’s complaint, Adams ruled that NS did not show — and in fact did not allege — that the other companies controlled the conditions that led to the derailment, and failed to assert “culpability or lack of due care” by the car owners that would have prevented the chemical release.
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Editor's Note: Whether NS management's position that the "controlled burn" was necessary was influenced by its desire to reopen its key mainline in a hurry might be impossible to discern. However, it would be naive to believe that a powerful, for-profit corporation that is hell-bent to cut costs by skimping on safety, maintenance, inspection, and workers to drive down the Operating Ratio and maximize profits (its clearly stated goal) would not favor detonation of these rail cars, knowing it would expedite the cleanup and get their trains rolling again. | |
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Steve Barrett / March 07
There was no need to burn dangerous chemicals in rail cars in order to prevent an explosion after a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 3, 2023, the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board told a U.S. Senate committee Wednesday. “It seems based on the data that we have that there was not a ton of reason to do the [controlled] burn, and that of course is what spread toxic chemicals all over this community and the surrounding region,” Vance said.
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Editor's Note: Countless underprivileged neighborhoods in towns and cities lie adjacent to the railroad tracks and industrially contaminated area. Perhaps railroad workers and our union need to build bridges and coalitions with them to achieve common goals? | |
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Buried beneath the Fifth Ward and its neighboring community, Kashmere Gardens, is an expansive toxic plume of creosote derived from coal tar. Historically, creosote has been used in the United States to preserve wood such as railroad ties and utility poles; it has also been linked to health issues such as lung irritation, stomach pain, rashes, liver and kidney problems, and even cancer, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and the Environmental Protection Agency. While the actual facility is long gone, shut down in 1984, the creosote plume it created persists. The site is currently owned by Union Pacific Railroad, which acquired it in a merger with the Southern Pacific Railroad in the 1990s.
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Editor's Note: for all those interested in passenger rail expansion, you may want to check out these important webinars coming up! | |
Editor's Note: RWU Member Marilee Taylor retired recently after working for many years for BNSF. She serves on our Media Outreach Committee. | |
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Marilee Taylor of Railroad Workers United, joins host Lee Artz, Ph.D. to discuss the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio and how railroad workers and unions work to protect workers and increase rail safety, often in opposition to railroad companies that seek higher profit at all costs.
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Editor's Note: It is great to see various labor oriented organizations and media outlets picking up on the RWU Campaign for One Big Bargaining Coalition of All Rail Labor. Pass it on!!
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LABOR TODAY INTERNATIONAL / March 7
The North American railroads are in a deep crisis. The general public was introduced to this crisis by the pandemic-era supply chain problems and the high-profile contract battle between the railroad unions and the major carriers which concluded in 2022. For railroaders of all crafts, the roots of the crisis go back decades, and have cost hundreds of thousands of railroader jobs and even lives. The 2022 contract, voted down by the majority of working rails, had to be forced down our throats by the power of the federal government when we attempted to stand up and say “enough is enough!”
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NEWS FROM AROUND THE LABOR MOVEMENT | |
Editor's Note: This is incredibly encouraging to see a major U.S. union undertake such a concerted effort to organize a key industry in any geographic region of the country, let alone the South. Go UAW!! | |
Alex N. Press / March 8
The South has long remained a nearly impenetrable citadel for labor. Fresh off of the success of its Big Three strike last year and looking to organize an Alabama Mercedes plant, the United Auto Workers wants to storm the castle. The union has tried to organize some of these plants before — and failed. The South has proven an almost entirely impenetrable citadel for the entirety of modern US labor history. Yet the UAW is heeding these workers’ calls, directing its focus and $40 million in extra resources to try again, and on a far larger scale.
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Editor's Note: We hope that all railroad workers took the time on International Women's Day (Friday, March 8th) to honor our sister workers. In fact, we would do well to do that every day of the year! | |
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Amid rising global challenges, including the surge in populist right-wing ideologies and authoritarian governments, the global union movement stands firm in its commitment to gender equality and women’s rights. Amid rising global challenges, including the surge in populist right-wing ideologies and authoritarian governments, the global union movement stands firm in its commitment to gender equality and women’s rights.
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