Public ownership

Campaign For Public Rail: Private Rail Companies Put Profits Over Safety

August 26, 2024 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast - Clearing The FOG climate crisis, Corporatism, Electrification, Public ownership, Railroads, Worker Rights

Private railroad corporations are failing their workers, their clients and the public in general. Their drive for profits means fewer workers, longer hours and neglecting basic safety protocols, unpredictable schedules for freight customers, which is devastating for farmers, and delays for passengers as well as deterioration of railway infrastructure. Clearing the FOG speaks with Maddock Thomas, the author of a new white paper, "Putting America Back on Track: The Case for a 21st Century Public Rail System," who explains the problems with the current system and how a public, electrified rail system would cost less, have a lower carbon footprint, and benefit workers and customers. Thomas is part of a new campaign, Public Rail Now.

Putting America Back On Track: A 21st Century Public Rail System

July 1, 2024 Maddock Thomas and Adam Barrington, Public Rail Now. Create! Public ownership, Railroads, Report, Workplace Safety

As America grapples with the everlasting impacts of the derailment in East Palestine, OH., Public Rail Now and Railroad Workers United released their latest report entitled "Putting America Back on Track: The Case for a 21st Century Public Rail System." Authored by Maddock Thomas, a Stone Fellow from Brown University and recipient of the North American Rail Shippers Association scholarship, this report presents a compelling argument for transitioning the United States' rail system to public ownership. Drawing on historical precedent and rigorous analysis, it makes a compelling case for overseeing our rail infrastructure in the same manner as our interstate highways, inland waterways, and airports.

Public Pharma For Europe, A Game-Changer For Access To Medicines

February 11, 2024 People's Health Dispatch, People's Dispatch. Create! Big Pharma, Europe, Health Care, Patents, Public ownership

“It’s time to step up, promote health justice, and meet the real needs of people,” says Alan Silva from the European chapter of the People’s Health Movement (PHM), addressing the need for revolutionizing pharma policies in Europe. A long-time advocate for access to medicines, Silva understands how important it is for Europe to change the way it thinks about research and development, but also production and distribution of health technologies. If the region were able to de-link itself from the interests of transnational pharmaceutical companies, it would be a true game changer, he says. “We need public pharma in Europe so we can stop relying on health solutions driven by profit,” he says.

Public Ownership Of Rail Is On The Agenda

January 11, 2024 Alex N. Press, Jacobin. Create! East Palestine, Ohio, Public ownership, Railroads

Nearly one year ago, on the night of February 3, 2023, a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. Videos of the smoke and fire released by the nearly two-mile-long train went viral, and residents in the community reported severe health effects. The rail disaster triggered an outcry: Why did this happen, and what can any of us do about it? Soon, there were articles detailing the alarming state into which the country’s railroads have fallen: accidents are up, and oversight is hard to come by. Plus, there is a severe squeeze on rail workers, many of whom lack sick days of any kind and are effectively always on call.

Nationalize Greyhound

January 2, 2024 Ben Burgis, Jacobin. Create! Affordability, Greyhound, Nationalization, Public ownership, Transportation

When I was growing up, I could walk from my parents’ place to the Greyhound station in East Lansing, Michigan. There was another one ten minutes’ drive from there in downtown Lansing. At either station, I could buy an inexpensive ticket on the spot and wait inside until my bus came to take me to, for example, visit my sister in Oberlin, Ohio. Neither East Lansing nor Oberlin are anything you could possibly call a “hub,” but it didn’t matter. The Greyhound went everywhere. That’s becoming less and less true. As of the last time I was in Michigan before my parents moved, the East Lansing station was long gone. The Lansing one was still there — at least for the moment.

Nationalization Is A Great American Tradition

September 6, 2023 Dayton Martindale, In These Times. Create! Nationalization, Public ownership, Socialism

This country has a long history of nationalization. During World War I and II, the federal government took control of radio, railroads, coal mines and more. In 1984, the government took 80% ownership in the failing Continental Illinois bank, which remained nationalized until 1991. The Bush administration took similar action to bail out banks in 2008. Many of these nationalization efforts were temporary, and companies that tolerated government control during crisis eventually wanted the reins back. But there are (inevitably) new crises to come, and some nationalizations — such as the largely voluntary transfer of private passenger rail to Amtrak in the 1970s — have had staying power.

Driving Economic Justice: The Public Option

August 29, 2023 Udayan Tandon, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperatives, History, Public ownership, Transportation, Worker Rights and Jobs

Taxi workers in the late 1960s and through the 1970s struggled against the transformation of their industry from regulated and unionized jobs to deregulated independent contracting work. This meant the loss of collective bargaining rights for taxi workers and a sharp rise in precarious working conditions as employers were able to shift business risk onto workers, cut expenses on benefits, and increase profits in-turn. In a spirited response, taxi workers self-organized and sustained union-like alt labor groups, for example the New York Taxi Workers Alliance in New York and United Taxicab Workers in San Francisco, that fought for better working conditions for taxi workers through municipal and city regulations.

Facing Consolidation, Communities Open Their Own Grocery Stores

August 27, 2023 Kennedy Smith, Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Create! Community Control, Cooperatives, Food and Agriculture, Grocery Stores, Public ownership

When the longtime owner of Hometown Foods in tiny Conrad, Iowa announced in 2019 that he was closing the community’s only grocery store, some residents quickly mobilized to buy the business and keep it open. A few of them pooled their money to buy the building; one bought the fixtures; another bought the store’s inventory. They then approached Andy Havens, who owns two small grocery markets in nearby towns, about managing the store. He agreed to do so – and he is now gradually buying out the initial investors.[1] Like Conrad, a growing number of towns and cities recognize that access to fresh, healthy food is a basic human right – and a civic responsibility.

Public Pharma Is The Best Solution To The Problem Of Drug Shortages

August 13, 2023 Dana Brown and Christopher Morten, STAT. Create! Big Pharma, Health Care, Medications, Public ownership

Drug shortages in the United States are at a record high. At least 14 essential generic cancer drugs are currently in shortage, forcing patients and doctors to make difficult decisions to delay or ration first-line treatments, or accept second-best treatments. ADHD treatments, antibiotics, children’s acetaminophen, and many other critical medicines are also in short supply. But most of the solutions being discussed are just Band-Aids on a broken system. They would do nothing to transform the incentives that routinely produce shortages and other market failures. What we really need — for the health of our economy and society — is a robust public option in pharmaceuticals that produces and distributes essential medicines, such as cancer treatments.

Rail Workers Group Opposes Sale Of Cincinnati Southern Railway

July 18, 2023 Railroad Workers United, Popular Resistance. Resist! Cincinnati, Norfolk Southern, Public ownership, Railroad

Railroad Workers United opposes the sale of the Cincinnati Southern, the only municipally owned - and one of the nation's few publicly held pieces of rail infrastructure - to the Class One rail giant Norfolk Southern. The group is urging all citizens of Cincinnati who are eligible voters to vote NO in the referendum to be held in November. On July 13th, the railway's Board of Directors voted to place the proposed sale on the ballot this Fall. Per the railroad's bylaws, the citizens of the City will get the final say. Should they approve the plan, the nation's only municipally owned interstate rail line - from Cincinnati to Chattanooga - would then be purchased for a paltry $1.62 billion by the private Class One rail carrier.

The Future Is Now: Rethinking Public Ownership

July 15, 2023 Ursula Huws, Resilience. Create! Finance and the Economy, Housing, Human Rights, Public ownership, United Kingdom (UK)

Something momentous has happened, according to recent opinion polls. After 40 years of reluctantly accepting the Thatcherite mantra that there is no alternative to the market, the British public declared that they had had enough. In August 2022, Survation polling for the campaign group We Own It revealed that 69 per cent were in favour of publicly-owned water, 65 per cent for publicly-owned buses, 67 per cent for rail, 66 per cent for energy, 68 per cent for Royal Mail, and a whopping 78 per cent for the NHS. With public sentiment matching the vigour of an emboldened labour movement, there is a feeling that some of the past socialist ambitions are again political possibilities.

Inside The Fight To Kick Out Rochester’s Power Company

July 3, 2023 Colin Kinniburgh, Next City. Resist! New York (NY), Power utility, Public ownership, Rochester

On a Tuesday night in mid-March, the streets of downtown Rochester were empty as the remnants of a nor’easter swirled through. But the fourth floor of the county office building was packed. Residents milled outside the chamber doors for close to an hour, then lined up inside for two more to address their county reps. Most were there to complain about one thing: their utility company. Utilities are rarely popular, but Rochester Gas & Electric has drawn a special furor in the past two years. Speaker after speaker slammed RG&E over astronomical bills that in many cases seemed to come out of nowhere.

The Upstate New York Town That Took Back Its Power

June 27, 2023 Colin Kinniburgh, Next City. Create! Energy, History, New York (NY), Public ownership

It was May 1974 and the Massena Observer’s printing press was running overtime. Splashed across the front page were the results of a groundbreaking referendum. A columnist wrote that “no other news story has stirred the imagination” like this one: public power. Residents had voted two to one to bring their electric utility under public control. That would mean buying out the local grid from Niagara Mohawk, the power company then serving much of upstate. It took another seven years of legal battles and two more referendums before Massena flipped the switch to a new, city-owned utility. When it finally happened, in May 1981, utility bills dropped by a quarter.

Universal Public Services: The Power Of Decommodifying Survival

April 18, 2023 Jason Hickel, Resilience. Create! Capitalism, Class Struggle, Energy, Food and Agriculture, Health Care, Public ownership, Water

One of the central insights emerging from research on degrowth and climate mitigation is that universal public services are crucial to a just and effective transition. Capitalism relies on maintaining an artificial scarcity of essential goods and services (like housing, healthcare, transport, etc), through processes of enclosure and commodification. We know that enclosure enables monopolists to raise prices and maximize their profits (consider the rental market, the US healthcare system, or the British rail system). But it also has another effect. When essential goods are privatized and expensive, people need more income than they would otherwise require to access them.

What If We Owned The Tracks?

April 1, 2023 Jason Clifford, CleanTechnica. Create! Public ownership, Railroads, Transportation, Worker Rights and Jobs

When it comes to energy efficient transportation in America, no transportation option is better than the railroads. They have been the freight transportation backbone of America for nearly 200 years, which is why all the recent news about train derailments and union strikes deserves our attention. While more profitable then they have ever been for investors, the railroads are moving less freight and employing fewer workers now then they did in 2006. After underinvesting in their labor force, rolling stock, and tracks for decades, are America’s railroads entering a state of decline, and if so, should we start discussing the pitfalls and possibilities of public rail ownership?

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