Rail & Labor News from RWU
| | Weekly Digest Number 4 - January 27, 2026 | | 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! | | THIS WEEK'S RAIL AND LABOR NEWS | | Editor's Note: In recent years, transportation workers in the U.S. who interface with the general public have been subject to harassment, intimidation, threats, violence and murder. If adopted, the hope is that this legislation will reduce the danger that railroad workers fave on a daily basis. | | |
Progressive Railroading / January 19
U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.) last week introduced the Passenger Rail Crew Protection Act (S.3665), which would make it a federal crime to assault or intimidate passenger train employees.
The bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. If approved, the legislation would make it illegal to intimidate engineers, conductors, onboard personnel, any personnel performing safety functions and train station employees, officials from Duckworth's office said in a press release.
| | Editor's Note: Momentum is in our favor now as the Surface Transportation Board (STB) ruled that the UP-NS Merger application was "incomplete." It is a small victory for the myriad forces arrayed against the proposed merger, but it buys the opposition time, it represents a set-back for UP and NS, and encourages all of us that YES, we can stop this mega-merger! | | |
Progressive Railroading / January 19
BNSF Railway and CN praised the Surface Transportation Board's (STB) Jan. 16 unanimous decision that found the merger application filed by Union Pacific Railway and Norfolk Southern Railway to be incomplete.
The board determined that the UP-NS application, submitted Dec. 19, lacks certain information required by the board’s regulations. The decision was based solely on the incompleteness of the application and is not an indication of how the board might ultimately assess any future revised application, STB members said in a press release.
| | Editor's Note: Great to see members of the anti-monopoly caucus and the labor caucus finding their voice and demand answers to the effects of the merger upon the workforce. And they are not just asking about silly "job guarantees", they are asking about the long-term effect on the workforce as a whole now, and in the future. | | |
Progressive Railroading / January 20
Seven U.S. House members have asked the Surface Transportation Board to require Union Pacific Railroad and Norfolk Southern Railway to explain in detail how the railroads' potential merger would impact labor.
In a Jan. 15 letter addressed to STB Chairman Patrick Fuchs, the Congress members said they want the railroads to answer a set of questions as part of the board's public-interest review of the merger proposal. The lawmakers want the board to provide those answers to Congress at least 60 days before any decision on the merger and "consider those responses and potential harms to workers as part of its decision."
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| Editor's Note: Eris Basir, the referenced "annoying transit union leader," serves as an Alternate to the RWU Steering Committee. | | |
Streets Blog Chicago / January 22
"Brother" Eric Basir has been working for the CTA since February 2018. He started as a customer service assistant, became a flagman, then a train operator, and for almost five years, he's been a rail car repairer, currently working out of the Midway terminal.
He's also on the grievance committee for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308, which represents train workers. And he's the elected Executive Board member for employees who clean and fix 'L' cars.
| | Editor's Note: The momentum against the proposed merger continues to build on many fronts - from rail workers, passenger train advocates, shippers, politicians of both parties, regulators and analysts. To learn more about the RWU Campaign to stop the Merger, see the Campaign Page on our website. | | |
Trains / January 21
WASHINGTON — The Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger application omits $2.69 billion in additional costs that intermodal marketers will incur if the railroads’ deal diverts the promised 2 million loads off the highway, according to an analysis submitted to federal regulators.
The railroads’ traffic diversion projection is a key part of their case that the merger would enhance competition, as required under the Surface Transportation Board’s merger review rules. The railroads’ 6,692-page application filed on Dec. 19 projected that within three years the expanded UP would move 1.4 million additional intermodal loads and 425,000 carloads.
| | Editor's Note: Both of these major shipping groups are dead-set opposed to the proposed merger. To see their official statements along with other groups in opposition, see the Listing on the RWU website. | | |
Trains / January 17
WASHINGTON — Other railroads were not the only parties welcoming the Surface Transportation Board’s decision to reject the initial application for the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger. Shipper groups also voiced their approval.
The board, citing three areas in which it said the almost 7,000-page application was incomplete, rejected the UP-NS application on Friday, Jan. 16 [see “Regulators reject UP-NS merger application,” Trains.com, Jan. 16, 2026]. UP and NS will have until June to file an updated application.
| | Editor's Note: New Jersey is the latest state to adopt rail safety legislation. It joins more than ten other states around the U.S. that have adopted some form of 2-person minimum crew size. While not perfect, and like the other state laws, always subject to federal pre-emption by courts and regulatory bodies such as FRA, these laws display the depth of interest out there in making for a safe railroad in the face of federal government inaction. | | |
SMART Union Press Release / January 20
Newark, NJ — As crowds gathered in Newark today to witness the swearing-in of Governor-Elect Mikie Sherrill, Governor Phil Murphy delivered one final, meaningful act of leadership for New Jersey’s working families by signing into law a landmark railroad safety bill that will bring significant new protections to railroaders, passengers, and communities across the state.
The legislation, A-4460/S-3389, was championed by members of the SMART Transportation Division (SMART-TD) and advanced with overwhelming bipartisan support in the State Legislature. It enacts enhanced safety reporting, strengthens oversight of railroad infrastructure, mandates modern detection technologies, and expands the role of labor representation in derailment and accident investigations. Its strict two-person crew (2-PC) requirements reflect real-world operating conditions and directly address long-standing safety concerns raised by rail workers.
| | Editor's Note: Strange to be on the same side of the fence as Class One railroad CEOs, but politics makes strange bedfellows. Of the six Class One railroads in North America, four have now issued formal statements of opposition to the proposed merger. (Hey maybe together these CEOs could pool their resources and offer the President a bigger bribe than the Union Pacific' Jim Vena did for his White House ballroom rebuild.) View the Class One official statements at the RWU website HERE. | | |
Trains / January 19
SCHAUMBURG, Ill. — While the CEOs of BNSF, CPKC, and Union Pacific squared off on the pros and cons of the UP-Norfolk Southern merger at the Midwest Association of Rail Shippers winter meeting, the fourth Class I representative on the agenda — Janet Drysdale, Canadian National chief commercial officer, took another path. Mostly.
“I will not find myself falling into the trap of being between Jim (Vena of UP) and Keith (Creel of CPKC),” she said during her talk on Thursday (Jan. 15). “… I’m going to go my own way and talk about what I want to talk about.”
| | Editor's Note: It is great to see a rail union acting like a rail union should act. When we suffer tragic train wrecks in North America - with workers and others killed and maimed due to the failures of the rail carriers - the unions say nothing. Our unions have traditionally been hamstrung by "legal and binding" contracts for the life of the agreement which prevents us from taking industrial action. In addition, rail unions have a "seat at the investigation table", and remain mute on questions until the official investigation findings are revealed, often years in the future, making ANY kind of official rail union response impossible. We have neutered ourselves. | | |
The Guardian / January 22
Spain’s largest train drivers’ union has called a three-day nationwide strike to demand measures to guarantee the safety of railworkers and passengers after two deadly crashes this week killed at least 46 people, including two drivers.
The death toll from Sunday’s collision between two trains near the Andalucían town of Adamuz rose from 43 to 45 on Thursday afternoon after two more bodies were recovered from the crash site. On Tuesday, a driver was killed and 37 people injured when a train was derailed by the collapse of a retaining wall near Gelida in Catalonia.
| | Editor's Note: Chicago has long been the epicenter for rail freight congestion in North America. With the potential for a UP-NS merger resulting in control of the two major "belt lines" in the greater Chicagoland area, who knows what snafus this might bring to Windy City railroading. Again, the momentum opposed to the merger is building, growing and diversifying. | | |
Chicago Tribune / January 20
If regulators approve its merger with Norfolk Southern, competitors warn that Union Pacific could turn the city of Chicago into a hammer for seizing even more control of the industry.
Their concern centers on two tiny Chicago railroads that have hauled freight across town for all comers since the 1890s.
The Belt Railway Co. of Chicago and the Indiana Harbor Railroad are owned separately by groups of big railroads. Their tracks run in parallel arcs roughly from O’Hare International Airport in the north to Gary in the south.
| | NEWS FROM AROUND THE LABOR MOVEMENT | | Each week, RWU includes a few articles about advances and developments in the larger labor movement that are of interest to railroad workers. Got an artcile to submit for possible inclusion next week? Email it along to raillabornews@gmail.com. Thank you! | | Editor's Note: In 1934, the Teamsters Union (IBT) led a successful General Strike in Minneapolis that ushered in a new era for not just organized labor in that city, but represented a "turning point" for organized labor as a whole nationwide. What we might be witnessing is history repeating itself, with Minneapolis and Minnesot again leading the way to a re-birth of the labor movement today. | | |
In These Times / January 23
Tens of thousands of Minnesotans chanting “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here,” marched through downtown Minneapolis Friday afternoon to demand ICE leave the state.
The massive demonstration in subzero temperatures was a central part of an economic shutdown that included strikes, arrests and civil disobedience, hundreds of businesses closing their doors, and rallies. The call for “no work, no school, no shopping” was put out publicly roughly 10 days ago by a coalition of unions, faith groups and community organizations.
| | Editor's Note: And people wonder why working people are so angry. The working class emerged from WW2 with power, pride, dignity and a better standard of living than their forefathers. By 1955, the labor movement controlled many major industries. With more than 35% of the workforce unionized, labor was able to set the wage rates of many sectors. But the last half century has emboldened the corporations and the billionaires, and they have hacked away at our power and livelihoods. The answer to working peoples' anger, frustrations, low wages and crappy working conditions is to UNIONIZE! | | |
Fortune / January 13
As corporate earnings soar and the U.S. GDP balloons, the American workforce isn’t feeling the same boom. American workers are taking home less of the country’s overall wealth, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show, and employment in the U.S. is set to continue to slow.
(Note: Fortune allows limited free views of this article before you hit a paywall.)
| | WEEKLY DERAILMENT DEPARTMENT | | Each Tuesday in this news bulletin, RWU does our best to present a picture of what has been happening over the course of the previous week in terms of derailments in North America, and investigation determinations of previous accidents. NOTE: This list is by no means comprehensive. Smaller and less consequential mishaps are generally not reported here. If the wreck results in injury or fatality, or is especially damaging/extreme, a full article will appear as a feature in the dozen or so rail articles above. Know of a train wreck? Please feel free to forward a link to raillabornews@gmail.com for possible inclusion next week. Thanks! |
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