Rail & Labor News from RWU
| | Weekly Digest Number 26 - June 25th, 2025 | | 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: Caltrain engineers ratified a new five-year deal with strong turnout and clear gains. The agreement brings work rule improvements and wage increases that match industry standards. When members are engaged and informed, real progress is still possible. This contract is a quiet but important win in a sector where labor often gets sidelined. | |
Progressive Railroading / June 16th
BLET members who operate Caltrain trains ratified a new five-year contract with Transit America Services Inc. last week.
The contract will cover 68 locomotive engineers. Eighty-four percent of members cast ballots, with 50 voting in favor and six voting against. The contract includes numerous work rule improvements and a general wage package in line with the pay of other passenger engineers in the United States.
| | Editor's Note: This corporate boot-licker wreaked havoc upon Amtrak from which the company has yet to recover. Let's see what profits he can make - and customers and workers he can alienate - at NS. | |
Progressive Railroading / June 13th
Norfolk Southern Corp.'s board elected Richard Anderson as chair. He succeeds Claude Mongeau, who resigned earlier this month citing personal reasons.
He will also chair the board's Executive Committee and the Strategy and Planning Committee.
Anderson joined the board in May 2024. He is the former CEO and executive chairman of Delta Airlines, president of Optum Health, CEO of Northwest Airlines, and, most recently, president and CEO of Amtrak.
| | Editor's Note: The freight carriers want fewer inspections and slower responses to known track defects. Larsen and Titus are right to sound the alarm. Rail safety is not an area where corners can be cut without consequences. The waiver should be denied and the industry held to a higher standard, not a lower one. | |
Progressive Railroading / June 18th
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Ranking Member Rick Larsen and House Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Ranking Member Dina Titus have asked U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to reject the freight-rail industry's safety waiver request to reduce the number of visual track safety inspections currently required of Class I's.
In a June 17 letter to Duffy, Larsen and Titus shared their concerns about the Association of American Railroads' safety waiver request to reduce the number of visual track safety inspections from twice a week to twice a month.
"The request also proposes to allow railroads to address track defects up to 72 hours after finding any defects rather than immediately addressing them, as current regulation requires. We urge you to deny this waiver request in the interest of rail safety," the lawmakers wrote.
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| Editor's Note: Years of unreliable service and inflated shipping costs have exposed the weakness of the current “reasonable request” standard. The Reliable Rail Service Act would clarify the common carrier obligation and give the STB real criteria to assess whether service is being fairly provided. Railroads may not like the oversight, but shippers have waited long enough for accountability. | |
Progressive Railroading / June 13th
U.S. Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Roger Marshall yesterday reintroduced the proposed Reliable Rail Service Act to address unreliable service and the cost of rail shipping for farmers, manufacturers, and other businesses.
The bill would address high costs and unreliable service by clarifying the “common carrier obligation,” which under current law requires rail carriers to serve the wider shipping public “on reasonable request," the senators said in a press release.
The legislation establishes specific criteria for the Surface Transportation Board to consider when evaluating whether carriers are meeting their common carrier obligation to give shippers much-needed certainty that is currently lacking, they said.
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Trains Magazine / June 20th
VIA Rail Canada and Canadian union Unifor have reached tentative agreement on a new three-year contract, averting a strike that could have begun as soon as this Sunday, June 22.
If ratified, the agreement will be retroactive to Jan. 1 of this year and run through Dec. 31, 2027. VIA said terms would only be disclosed following ratification.
Unifor’s Council 4000 and Local 100 represent approximately 2,400 workers at stations, onboard trains, and at maintenance facilities. Union members voted in favor of a strike last month.
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Socialism Conference / July 3rd-6th
For the last several years RWU has participated in the annual Socialism Conference, organized by Haymarket Books, which is being held over the July 4th weekend in Chicago, IL. It’s an opportunity to meet, interact and connect with hundreds of activists and fighters for social justice from around the country as well as many international participants.
This year RWU is sponsoring a session titled: “Eugene Debs: From Rail Labor Organizer to Socialist Agitator – Lessons for Today.”
After the 1894 Pullman Strike was violently crushed by the federal militia, Debs advocated for socialism to his dying day. Imprisoned for opposing US involvement in WW I, he received almost a million votes for president in 1920. What can we learn from Debs’ evolution and legacy?
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Trains Magazine / June 20th
The National Institutes of Health has launched a five-year, $10 million program to study and address long-term health impacts of the East Palestine, Ohio, derailment in 2023.
The NIH said the study was being undertaken at the urging of Vice President JD Vance, an Ohio senator at the time of the incident.
NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya said the “multi-disciplinary research program will focus on public health tracking and surveillance of the community’s health conditions to support health care decisions and preventive measures,” while Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said, “The people of East Palestine have a right to clear, science-backed answers about the impact on their health.”
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WFMJ / June 12th
A federal judge has removed the company in charge of distributing money to victims of the East Palestine train derailment, saying the company likely miscalculated payments and may have overpaid some people.
U.S. District Judge Benita Y. Pearson on Wednesday ordered Kroll Settlement Administration LLC to immediately stop its work. She named Epiq Class Action & Claims Solutions, Inc., as the new company to handle the payments.
This change happened after the lawyers representing the victims, known as "class counsel," asked for Kroll to be removed. Norfolk Southern, the railroad company being sued, did not object to Kroll's removal.
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High Speed Rail Alliance / June 20th
Just minutes before the Illinois General Assembly’s spring session ended on Saturday, May 31, the Senate passed a sweeping transit reform bill that has quietly set the stage for a potential revolution in U.S. transportation policy.
While its primary focus is restructuring transit governance and stabilizing funding for northeastern Illinois agencies like Metra, this bill includes a historic breakthrough: a dedicated funding stream for intercity passenger rail. For the Midwest—long overdue for serious investment in rail infrastructure—this is a big deal.
As transit advocates now push for House approval—possibly in a special summer session—the stakes are higher than ever.
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Trains Magazine / June 17th
The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the death of a Transtar Rail employee in Fairfield, Ala., the agency said in a social media post on Tuesday, June 17.
WIAT-TV reports that Michael Dewaine Townsend, 39, died from blunt force injuries after being hit by a railcar in an accident that occurred about 11 p.m. on Monday, June 16.
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Progressive Railroading / June 16th
Amtrak last week released its annual "Legislative Report and Fiscal Year 2026 Legislative Grant Request," which includes a detailed plan for becoming “operationally profitable” by FY2028, according to an analysis by the Rail Passengers Association (RPA).
The request echoed the Trump administration's presidential budget request while highlighting record ridership in FY2024, which ended Sept. 30, 2024. Last year, Amtrak carried 32.8 million intercity passengers, surpassing pre-COVID levels, and generated $3.6 billion in revenue, with ticket sales reaching nearly $2.5 billion.
Also last year, Amtrak invested $4.5 billion in infrastructure improvements, most of which was funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021.
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CBS News Texas / June 17th
When a freight train more than two miles long comes to a stop, it can paralyze entire neighborhoods.
Five years ago, the average Union Pacific freight train was 8,000 feet long. Today, it's more than 9,000, with many extending as long as 15,000 feet.
Nicknamed "monster trains," these freight haulers can carry in a single trip what would take two or three shorter trains to move, saving railroad companies millions of dollars. Union Pacific told the CBS News Texas I-Team the adding rail cars to an already scheduled train is both safe and good for the environment.
But longer trains also mean longer waits at crossings. For many Texans, it becomes more than an inconvenience.
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Progressive Railroading / June 17th
Termination of the California High-Speed Rail Authority's (CHSRA) federal funding for the construction of a high-speed rail line in the Central Valley is "unwarranted and unjustified," authority CEO Ian Choudri has told Federal Railroad Administration officials.
In a June 12 letter to FRA Acting Administrator Drew Feeley, Choudri said the recent FRA report on the agency's investigation into the project was “nothing more than rhetoric aimed at justifying a preordained conclusion." Choudri's letter disputes each of the FRA’s core findings and touts the project’s construction progress and funding plan.
"I must also take this opportunity to dispute, in the strongest possible terms, the misleading claim that the authority has made ‘minimal progress to advance construction,’” wrote Choudri. “The authority’s work has already reshaped the Central Valley. We have built many of the viaducts, overpasses, and underpasses on which the first 119 miles of high-speed rail track will run.”
| | 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! | |
Labor Notes / June 16th
Organizing isn’t just a science, it’s also an art. Normally the latter is passed on through phone calls, debriefs, meetings, and late-night shit talk. Below is an attempt to share some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way, some in victory, some in defeat. None of this is new. None of this is mine.
I certainly don’t have the answers, I just know it’s something that I’ve given my life to over the past quarter of a century. The art requires staying close to the ground where people are—and that’s messy. It requires us to relate to others, take chances, innovate—all while asking hard questions of others and ourselves.
All of it is simple. None of it is easy.
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NPR / June 13th
As immigration enforcement ramps up, the head of the United Farm Workers (UFW) union says agriculture workers across the country are afraid to show up for work – and warned that fear could impact households across the country.
This week, federal agents reportedly swept through farms in California. Last month, immigration agents stopped a bus in upstate New York and detained more than a dozen farm workers. The union, which represents thousands of workers across the country, says such incidents are becoming more common.
"Even though they're terrified, they're scared, they're showing up to work," Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers union, told Morning Edition. "They need to pay the rent, they need to pay the utilities, they need to feed their family."
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Labor & Community for an Independent Party / June 28th
Registration is now open for our upcoming June 28th free virtual conference Break the Two-Party System: Build Working Class Independent Parties.
Tired of the same old two-party system? Let’s come together and create new independent parties that truly represent the working class!
Speakers will include Jill Stein (Green Party Presidential Candidate), Khalid Raheem (Founder and Chairman, New Afrikan Independence Party Pennsylvania), Desiree Rojas (Labor Conference for Latin American Advancement Sacramento Chapter), speakers from the Ujima People’s Progress Party, and many other world shakers.
| | 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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