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Railroads

Poisoning America For Profit: A Brief History Of Norfolk Southern’s Greed

February 27, 2023 Amanda Yee, Orinoco Tribune. , , , ,
On Feb. 3, a Norfolk Southern train carrying vinyl chloride and other hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. To prevent a potential deadly explosion, officials conducted a “slow burn” of the vinyl chloride, which produced a cloud of thick black smoke lingering over the town for days. The fallout from this spill and the chemicals released has resulted in thousands of dead aquatic life, contamination of residential water wells, a noxious chemical smell in the air, and mysterious symptoms afflicting residents such as rashes, headaches, sore throat, and nausea. What happened in East Palestine is just the latest in an upsurge in train derailments in recent years.

‘There Should Have Been A Playbook On This’: Expert On Ohio Train Disaster

February 24, 2023 Bob Hennelly, Work-Bites. , , ,
While the abused residents of East Palestine, Ohio packed their local high school gym on Wednesday night to sort through the contradictory messaging from officials, freight trains with vast quantities of toxic chemicals rumbled through equally vulnerable and unprepared corridor communities across America. Invariably, these are communities that have some history of betrayal and abandonment by predatory capitalism and rely on selfless community volunteers to staff their fire apparatus and ambulances. They were the frontline infantry for COVID. They are the arms and legs of mutual aid 24-7 responding to any and all natural and man-made disasters in America’s heartland.

Railroad Workers Call For Immediate Action To Prevent Train Wrecks

February 24, 2023 Railroad Workers United, Popular Resistance. , , ,
East Palestine, OH - It has been three weeks since the tragic train wreck that devastated this small town. Despite the initial lack of attention it received, politicians and bureaucrats have finally become aware of the tragedy. Railroad Workers United (RWU) urges everyone concerned not to be distracted by rhetoric, hyperbole, promises, and lies but instead to focus on the primary reasons for the derailment and take immediate action to prevent future disasters. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Preliminary Report released on February 23rd clearly stated that "This was 100% preventable..

Low Prices, Modern Railroading And The Toxic Ohio Derailment

February 21, 2023 Kurt Cobb, Resilience. , , ,
Complex, tightly networked systems run very efficiently and can work with precision for long periods, until they don’t. Money saved on the front end can be lost in one catastrophic accident. There is no better recent example than the derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying copious amounts of toxic vinyl chloride and other toxic chemicals. By now nearly everyone knows the tale of toxic fires and fears of explosion which led officials to drain undamaged tank cars carrying the same toxic chemicals which escaped the initial fires and then burn those chemicals as a precaution.

Water Testing After Ohio Derailment Led By Rail Company Itself

February 20, 2023 Chris D'Angelo, HuffPost. , , ,
East Palestine, Ohio - The testing that Ohio authorities relied on to declare the municipal water in East Palestine safe to drink after a disastrous train derailment was funded by the railroad operator itself and did not initially comply with federal standards, HuffPost has learned. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) on Wednesday afternoon announced that new testing from five wells that supply the town’s municipal drinking water “showed no evidence of contamination” after a Norfolk Southern freight train loaded with tons of hazardous materials derailed in the area on Feb. 3. “With these tests results, Ohio EPA is confident that the municipal water is safe to drink,” DeWine’s office wrote in a news release.

Organizations Provide Mutual Aid To Residents Of East Palestine, Ohio

February 18, 2023 It's Going Down. , , , , ,
Organizations and affinity groups across Ohio are uniting to offer support and mutual aid to those most affected by last week’s train derailment and subsequent release of toxic chemicals. We are accepting donations of both funds and supplies for communities in and around East Palestine, Ohio. This disaster is a policy decision. The Biden administration and Congress refused to support rail workers in their demands to improve safety in December 2022 and January 2023. Ohio Governor DeWine mandated the conditions to allow the toxic burn off in lieu of alternative remediations. The purpose for escalating the release of volatile chemicals was to speed up the process for trains to resume to generate profit for the companies who perpetuated this catastrophe.

Biden DOJ Backing Norfolk Southern’s Bid To Block Lawsuits

February 17, 2023 Rebecca Burns, Julia Rock and David Sirota, The Lever. , , ,
A looming Supreme Court decision could end up making it easier for the railroad giant whose train derailed in Ohio this month to block lawsuits, including from victims of the disaster. In the case against Norfolk Southern, the Biden administration is siding with the railroad in its conflict with a cancer-stricken former rail worker. A high court ruling for Norfolk Southern could create a national precedent limiting where workers and consumers can bring cases against corporations. The lawsuit in question, filed initially in a Pennsylvania county court in 2017, deals with a state law that permits plaintiffs to file suit against any corporation registered to do business there, even if the actions that gave rise to the case occurred elsewhere.

The Case For Nationalizing The Railroads

February 17, 2023 Kari Lydersen, In These Times. , ,
Railroad workers packed themselves into hotel conference rooms near Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport in June 2022 to talk fervently about a momentous event potentially on the horizon: the first industry-wide rail strike in three decades. “All 12 railroad unions have proclaimed themselves united,” said Ron Kaminkow, Railroad Workers United (RWU) general secretary, during a conference session about chokepoints in the supply chain. ​“There could actually be a national railroad strike for the first time in almost 30 years.” Contract negotiations between those 12 unions and the country’s major freight railroad companies had ground to a halt by the conference, which was organized by RWU and the pro-union group Labor Notes.

Chemical Desolation In Appalachia

February 15, 2023 Jarod Facundo, The American Prospect. , , ,
East Palestine, Ohio - In the village of East Palestine, on a late Friday evening, a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed on the Ohio side of the Pennsylvania border, causing tanker cars to rupture and catch fire, releasing thousands of tons of hazardous chemical compounds into the surrounding land and atmosphere. At the time of the crash, the known chemicals aboard included the highly toxic vinyl chloride and hydrogen chloride. An EPA document dump on February 12 revealed additional carcinogenic chemicals were aboard too, as well as some highly flammable solvents and gases.

Rail Companies Blocked Safety Rules Before Ohio Derailment

February 10, 2023 David Sirota , Julia Rock , Rebecca Burns and Matthew Cunningham-Cook, The Lever. , , ,
Ohio - Before this weekend’s fiery Norfolk Southern train derailment prompted emergency evacuations in Ohio, the company helped kill a federal safety rule aimed at upgrading the rail industry’s Civil War-era braking systems, according to documents reviewed by The Lever. Though the company’s 150-car train in Ohio reportedly burst into 100-foot flames upon derailing — and was transporting materials that triggered a fireball when they were released and incinerated — it was not being regulated as a “high-hazard flammable train,” federal officials told The Lever. Documents show that when current transportation safety rules were first created, a federal agency sided with industry lobbyists and limited regulations governing the transport of hazardous compounds.

Fiery Ohio Train Wreck The Result Of ‘Precision Scheduling Railroading’

February 8, 2023 Railroad Workers United. , , ,
Railroad Workers United (RWU) condemns the dangerous and historically unsafe practices by Class 1 rail carriers that resulted in this catastrophe that will impact the community of East Palestine Ohio for many years, if not forever. The root causes of this wreck are the same ones that have been singled out repeatedly, associated with the hedge fund initiated operating model known as “Precision Scheduled Railroading” (PSR).  But risky practices, such as ever longer and heavier trains even precede PSR.  The train that wrecked is a case in point, 9300 feet long, 18,000 tons. Other hallmarks of modern day railroading include deep cuts both maintenance and operating employees, poor customer service, deferred maintenance to rolling stock and infrastructure, long working hours and chronic fatigue, limited on-the-job training and high employee turnover.

Railroads Offer Paid Sick Days, Schedule Changes To Retain Employees

February 7, 2023 Thomas Black, Boston Globe. , , ,
When railroad employees get sick, they’re usually faced with a tough choice: use one of their limited personal days, head into work anyway or, if neither of those is an option, risk their job by staying home. That may soon change. Railroads including Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, and CSX are weighing offering paid sick days — or are already doing so — along with schedule changes and other steps to improve employees’ work-life balance. The sweeping efforts, coming alongside a revised union contract that raised pay, aim to improve worker relations in an industry that has struggled to hire and retain employees. ‘’We don’t consider our front-line workers as simply costs to the company’s bottom line,’’ Joe Hinrichs, chief executive of CSX, said via e-mail. ‘’Instead, they are the primary driver of our profitability.’’ Costs will still be a key consideration for the railroads — and their investors.

Union Pacific Spent More On Stock Buybacks Than Workers

February 4, 2023 Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. , , ,
Union Pacific, one of the largest rail corporations in the United States, said Tuesday that it brought in record revenue and profits last year as it successfully fought off workers' push for paid sick leave. The company reported $7 billion in net income for 2022 as a whole and said it spent a whopping $6.3 billion repurchasing its own shares—significantly more than the $4.6 billion it spent on employee pay and benefits last year. “Instead of buying back their own stock, UP should be investing in their employees by offering paid sick leave, reasonable schedules, and a better quality of life for railroaders," Ed Hall, the newly elected president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, told CNN on Tuesday. "This is the only way the railroad will be able to solve their recruitment and retention problems and keep the trains running."

Rail Workers Are Fighting On After Biden Blocked A National Strike

January 19, 2023 Jeff Schuhrke, In These Times. , , , , ,
While the high-stakes labor dispute on U.S. freight railroads has receded from headlines since President Joe Biden and Congress imposed a new contract last month, rail workers are continuing their fight for dignity and better conditions — albeit without the threat of a national strike on the table. “The American people should know that while this round of collective bargaining is over, the underlying issues facing the workforce and rail customers remain,” the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department said in a statement. The major underlying issue remains precision scheduled railroading (PSR), the business model adopted in recent years by Class I rail carriers like Union Pacific, BNSF, Norfolk Southern and CSX. Designed to maximize shareholder profits by cutting costs to the bone, PSR has been blamed for a dramatic reduction in the freight rail workforce, increased supply-chain congestion and deteriorating safety — all while investors rake in record profits.

New Anti-Union Law In UK Takes Aim At Strike Wave

January 13, 2023 Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network. , , ,
The Tory government in the UK under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is mulling new anti-strike legislation that aims to crack down on the growing worker unrest spreading throughout the country. Faced with a historic cost-of-living crisis, workers across the UK made 2022 the busiest year for strikes and worker actions since the 1980s. The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) have been at the forefront of Britain’s strike wave, as TRNN previously reported. They have been joined by countless workers across multiple industries, from university lecturers to mail carriers. The new anti-strike law in Parliament would force workers to cross their own picket lines to uphold a standard of “minimum service” while striking, effectively squashing the ability of workers to withhold their labor.
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