Rail & Labor News from RWU
| |
Weekly Digest Number 30 - July 23, 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: Pro-corporate pundits like Wilner have the cheek to call anyone or anything that might support of working people, bias, lacking in objectivity, unfounded, unscientific, etc. The new STB Chair has legitimate concerns that the Class Ones are moving far fewer carloads than in the past. And for this he is being labeled derogatorily "pro-labor"? He might want to add pro-environment, pro-shipper, pro-passenger, pro-highway safety, pro-rail expansion, and pro-American economy as well! Three cheers for Bob Primus!! | |
Editor's Note: While NS CEO Shaw and Company may say "Since day one we said we're going to make it right..." this is not exactly the case. Once the citizens, RWU, unions and other started to protest and raise hell, that is when NS determined that they needed to "make it right." A few lawsuits and public inquiries and hearings assisted in this effort to hold the Class One accountable. | |
|
Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw was back in East Palestine to break ground on a $25 million park renovation project.
| |
Corey Vallas / July 13
The company and city officials broke ground on phase one of six of the park renovation project. When completed the park will be home to new pickleball, tennis and basketball courts, a new pool and amphitheater and upgrades to the community center. About a dozen locals came out to protest the renovations at the park. They said that a park is not going to fix the damage done. "For those of us that are affected by this, we need to relocate," East Palestine residents Crissy Ferguson and Christa Graves said. Shaw said they are committed to making progress in the community. "Since day one we said we're going to make it right and we're going to see this thing through," Shaw said.
| |
Editor's Note: Watch till the end. This is what solidarity looks like! | |
Editor's Note: Trains are a key transport means to reduce greenhouse gasses and assist in ameliorating climate change. But they themselves are vulnerable to a changing climate. We must make the necessary investments to harden the infrastructure to make it less vulnerable to climate effects. | |
|
The dated U.S. rail infrastructure is struggling to stay operational as climate change accelerates and intense heat waves, downpours and high winds become more frequent.
| |
|
On June 20, after millions of Americans had suffered through a sweltering heat wave for three days, Amtrak sent an ominous warning over social media: Trains connecting the largest cities in Northeast could face up to an hour of delay from high temperatures. Later that afternoon, after the temperature peaked at 96 degrees in Newark, Amtrak lost electricity near the New Jersey side of the Hudson River tunnels. The power failure soon shuttered a 150-mile stretch of the busiest rail corridor in the United States for more than three hours. The impact reverberated until the next day, when trains chugged through with hours of residual delays. As the planet rapidly warms, train delays and breakdowns are becoming more frequent as America’s antiquated rail infrastructure struggles to remain functional during prolonged extreme weather events that were not typical when the system was constructed.
| |
Editor's Note: NS is under the gun once again for not property sharing information and putting public safety at risk. | |
Kim Riley / July 18
Pennsylvania lawmakers want to ensure communication and safety problems that arose after a Norfolk Southern Corp. train derailed last year in Logan Township, Pa., do not happen again. The two United States senators say the railroad company failed to share critical safety information with local officials following the train derailment on Dec. 20, 2023, in the central Pennsylvania township, which is located just outside the City of Altoona, Pa. “Fortunately, no one was injured and no hazardous materials spilled as a result of the derailment,” U.S. Sens. Bob Casey (D-PA) and John Fetterman (D-PA) wrote in a July 15 letter sent to Norfolk Southern President and CEO Alan Shaw. “However, we have heard from local leadership, including the Mayor of Altoona and the Altoona Fire Chief, that Norfolk Southern’s information sharing was insufficient, raising concerns about what might happen in the event of a more serious derailment,” wrote the lawmakers.
| |
Editor's Note: This amounts to just a drop in the bucket of course for what is needed to rebuild our nation's passenger train infrastructure. But still, great to see a number of important projects funded and underway. | |
|
Restoration and Enhancement Program funding sees significant increase
| |
|
The Federal Railroad Administration on Friday announced the availability of more than $153 million in grant funding to initiate, restore, or improve intercity passenger service. The funds under the FRA’s Restoration and Enhancement Grant program are to assist with operating costs on projects that establish new routes, restore service on routes that previously had passenger service, or add to service on existing routes. For up to the first six years of a new, restored, or improved service, they cover expenses such as crew costs; station costs such as ticket sales, customer information, and train dispatching; routine maintenance costs; marketing; and administrative costs.
| |
Editor's Note: The Feds need to grab the bull by the horns on this and ensure public highway safety with safer trucking operations. And of course as we all know, the safest way to ship is to remove trucks from the highways, period, and move the freight by rail. But unfortunately, the Class Ones have been driving millions pf carloads off the rails to the highways in recent years (see lead article above.) | |
|
John Gallagher / July 17
The latest rulemaking agenda published by the Department of Transportation further reveals the Biden administration’s inability to succeed at its mission to reduce crashes, according to truck safety advocates. In a letter sent this week to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the Truck Safety Coalition (TSC), which also represents Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways and Parents Against Tired Truckers, said the groups are “dismayed, disappointed, and deeply disturbed” by high-priority rulemakings that continue to be pushed back on the DOT calendar, in particular the Heavy Vehicle Speed Limiter proposed rule and the Heavy Vehicle Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) final rule. Combined, the technology that would be deployed in the rulemaking could drastically reduce truck crash fatalities and serious injuries, according to TSC.
| |
Editor's Note: The four weeks of paid pregnancy/parental leave is a step in the right direction, but needs to go much further. The compression of the wage ladder is great as well, and as the old-timers will tell you, it should be eliminated altogether! Equal pay for equal work! Low senior workers have the same bills to pay as their higher senior brethren. | |
Progressive Railroading / July 19
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) members have ratified a new three-year contract with the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA). Eighty-seven percent of eligible voters cast ballots and 94% of them voted in favor of the pact, which governs locomotive engineers who operate regional trains for SEPTA. The contract includes a compression of the wage ladder from 15 to 7 years. Prior to the agreement, it would have taken a SEPTA engineer 15 years — or three to five times longer than any other railroad in the nation — to achieve their full rate of pay. The contract also provides a COVID bonus up to $2,200 for eligible members and an additional four weeks of pregnancy/parental leave. The pact does not change work rules or members’ health and welfare plan, BLET officials said.
| |
NEWS FROM AROUND THE LABOR MOVEMENT | |
Editor's Note: Exciting news from the East Coast longshore union. Rail workers are advised to keep their collective ear to the rail on this one, and be prepared to undertake solidarity actions and honor picket lines. | |
|
The union halted talks over unresolved issues, including the use of autonomous systems and jurisdictional disputes
| |
Logistics Management / July 17
The looming threat of a strike at all Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports is becoming more imminent, according to Harold J. Daggett, President of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA). With the current contract set to expire in just 80 days on September 30, 2024, the pressure is mounting on employers represented by the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) to negotiate a new contract and avoid a coastwide strike on October 1. “Only 80 days remain before the end of our current contract and we are waiting on USMX,” said Daggett. “The actions of violating our current Master Contract by some of their members caused us to cancel scheduled negotiations with USMX in early June.” The ILA halted contract talks with USMX after discovering that Maersk Line and APM Terminals were employing an Auto Gate system, which processes trucks autonomously without ILA labor. Initially identified at the Port of Mobile, Alabama, this system is reportedly in use at other ports as well. On June 10, the ILA announced it would not meet with USMX until the Auto Gate issue is resolved.
| |
Editor's Note: Historically, unions all across the globe have been in the forefront of the fight to confront fascism. This is a worthwhile webinar for all workers interested in confronting this scourge to solidarity and progress. | |
|
Join the Southern Workers Assembly and Bill Fletcher, Jr., for a discussion on the role of building rank and file worker power in the South to fight the rise of fascism
| |
Editor's Note: While the speech itself may have hit on a number of pro-labor, pro-worker, and anti-corporate themes, IBT President Obrien's speech in front of the Republican Convention suggests that the party has legitimate claim to represent the interests of working people. It does not, as its record shows. | |
|
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien spoke at Trump’s Republican National Convention on Monday. This was a bad move. Much of the speech would have been fine if he had delivered it somewhere else. O’Brien railed against corporate greed, singling out Amazon and the private equity vultures that killed Yellow Freight. He called for stronger labor laws. Nobody says that stuff at the Republican convention, so some unionists were pleased to hear righteous themes reach a new audience. But it almost didn’t matter what he said—the far louder message was where he said it. The convention is not a forum where policy is debated. It’s a coronation pageant.
| |
Editor's Note: From the Heritage Foundation report: "FRA’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on crew size is not based on safety considerations; it is designed to reduce flexibility by making it impossible for railroads to operate with crews of fewer than two in circumstances where there is no operational need for the second crew member." All railroad workers should forcefully oppose this so-called pro-corporate/pro-rich "Project 2025." | |
|
Jenny Brown / July 16
Corporate backers of the Trump campaign have tipped their hand. In “Project 2025: Presidential Transition Project,” the Heritage Foundation unveiled its 900-page wish list for a new Trump presidency and a compliant Supreme Court. Trump’s victory last time was a surprise, and many corporate types view his chaotic term as a missed opportunity. Project 2025 foresees reclassifying thousands of civil service employees by executive order so they can be fired and replaced with the corporations’ loyal troops. From there, the plan is to bulldoze the protections U.S. workers have built up over 100 years of determination, sacrifice, and unity. It’s ugly: abolish overtime pay laws, outlaw public sector unions entirely, get rid of health and safety protections, eliminate the federal minimum wage by letting states set their own, make it harder to receive unemployment, put children back to work like in the 1920s.
| |
WEEKLY DERAILMENT DEPARTMENT | | | | |
