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Rail & Labor News from RWU
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Weekly Digest Number 50 - December 12th, 2023 | |
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. 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!
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Editor's Note: If/when these potential new passenger rail corridors are developed, it will mean a whole new ballgame for passenger rail in the U.S. As more and more Americans experience the convenience, comfort and safety of the rails, demand will grow exponentially, and we can return to the days when tens of millions of Americans rode the train on a daily basis. Can you say "good union rail jobs"?! If all of these route and frequency additions come to fruition, the U.S. will be well on its way to catching up with the rest of the world in terms of re-creating a national network of passenger train corridors. This is a fine FIRST STEP. Now let's get the job done! | |
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David Lassen / Dec 6
Seven routes in North Carolina and four serving Ohio are among those to receive funding to study possible future Amtrak service under the Federal Railroad Administration's Corridor Identification and Development Program. At least 14 corridors have been selected by the FRA.
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Editor's Note: Nightmarish train wrecks continue to occur. The looming question is of course, where and when will the next one take place? Will it be in a crowded downtown residential/commercial neighborhood. Will it be alongside a pristine waterway whose water is relied on for drinking and irrigation by millions of people? The cost-cutting and irresponsible reductions in staffing have to stop NOW! No more East Palestines! No more extra long trains! No more PSR! Public Rail NOW! | |
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Ogden Newspapers editorial / Dec 02
Another fiery train derailment, another Appalachian community disrupted — and once again the culprit appears to be insufficient trackside detectors. One has to wonder what it will take to implement real improvement in required trackside detectors.
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Editor's Note: Great to see Pete talk tough. But words are cheap Mr. Transportation Secretary. The time is now to actually DO SOMETHING! | |
Fox2 News / Dec 5
Since 2015, there have been more than 170 hazardous material train derailments in the country -- totaling more than $2 million carloads of dangerous materials. Pete Buttigieg is working to do something about it.
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Editor's Note: The Surface Transportation Board needs to act on this. The Board has been quite vocal in its criticism of the Class One carriers' short-staffing. Here is a chance for the Board to actually do something to achieve better service standards on U.S. railroads. | |
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Trains Magazine / Dec 4
A coalition of rail labor unions has criticized the U.S. Class I railroads’ hiring efforts, their pace of service improvements, and the industry’s safety record in a filing with the Surface Transportation Board. “With respect to employment and service, the Big 4 are like a high jumper who sets the bar a foot off the ground, steps over it and awards himself/herself a medal.
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Editor's Note: The rail carriers' duplicity knows no bounds. After three horrible years of short-staffing, disrupted service, overwork and crappy safety, UP and the other Class Ones are crowing about a return to better days and better service. Then they revert back to the same old cost cutting that got them in the mess to begin with. | |
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Joanna Marsh / December 04
Debate about furloughs at Union Pacific and how many employees could be affected continue to play out in the public arena following a recent industry conference where Surface Transportation Board Chairman Marty Oberman called out Union Pacific leadership. STB Chairman Marty Oberman sharply criticized UP’s decision to use furloughs... Industry historically furloughed on a roughly seasonal basis until the railroads came under fire from federal regulators because of possible links between diminishing head count levels and deteriorating rail service.
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Editor's Note: The attack on crew size has now extended to the airline industry. Many safety issues are similar in both the airplane cockpit and the locomotive cab. Airline pilots and their unions need to join forces with railroad trainmen and engineers to fight this scourge of single person operations. | |
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By Capt. Jason Ambrosi, President, Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l; Capt. Otjan de Bruijn, President, European Cockpit Association; and Capt. Amornvaj “Ben” Mansumitchai, President, International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations
Airline pilots have spent decades making airline operations the safest form of transportation in the world. Pilots have always worked with stakeholders to make flying safer through improved training, better technology, the introduction of crew resource management, and the creation of a positive safety culture. Today, aircraft manufacturers, regulators, and some airlines are pushing for a reduction in the number of pilots at the controls of an airliner. This push—done for economics, not safety—is deeply concerning and will introduce unacceptable and needless risk.
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Editor's Note: Flying to Dubai to talk about climate is an absurd act. Worse if it's mostly to shill for hydrogen. Railroads gravitate toward homogenous technology for the same reason Southwest only flys 737s. Simplicity is cheaper and safer. Hydrogen is not dense enough to be a good transportation fuel and tender cars for each locomotive could waste thousands of dollars per train in what would have been revenue positions. The sooner we call the game for electrification the sooner we can start stringing catenary and rebuilding locomotives. Spend the research money on next generation catenary poles and trackside battery strategies. | |
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Joanna Marsh / December 06
The U.S. and Canadian governments plan to work together to reduce the railway sector’s greenhouse gas emissions via a task force that will explore accelerating the use of zero-emissions locomotive technologies, leaders from both countries announced at the COP28 United Nations climate change conference in Dubai. The Rail Decarbonization Task Force will have three goals, according to a Wednesday joint statement from U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Canadian Minister of Transport Pablo Rodriguez:
- Establish a joint research agenda looking at integrating technologies such as battery-electric locomotives and hydrogen-powered locomotives.
- Determine strategies to accelerate the use of zero-emission technologies so that the rail sector can achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
- Collaborate on developing a U.S.-Canada rail sector net-zero climate model by 2025.
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Editor's Note: One of these candidates is a union activist out of the Grain Millers union where he helped lead a successful strike at Kellogs a few years back. Interestingly, the independent calls to reform railroad safety, with measures like requiring two-person crews and increasing fines for violating rail safety laws. With popular disgust with career politicians at an all time high, and with support for unions growing by leaps and bounds, these trends would appear to present a huge opportunity to change the complexion of Congress towards working people. | |
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Steve Early / December 6
Fewer than 2 percent of Congress members had working-class jobs at the time they were elected.
Two working-class candidates hope to improve those numbers next year, by winning U.S. Senate seats in Nebraska and West Virginia, states currently represented by anti-labor politicians, but which were once bastions of a more populist, pro-worker politics.
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Editor's Note: While it was in the spotlight and on the hot seat, NS was making nice with the people of East Palestine. Now that the disaster has been out of the public eye for a year, it looks like NS might be copping a different attitude towards its mess. | |
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BY ASSOCIATED PRESS AND SPECTRUM NEWS STAFF OHIO / DEC. 06
Norfolk Southern railroad plans to stop paying relocation aid to people displaced by last February's fiery derailment in eastern Ohio right after the one-year anniversary of the crash. The move to end relocation aid, which will take effect Feb. 9, had been rumored for months. But the decision still angered some residents like Jami Wallace, who posted online “Thank you NS for flipping another bird at residents."
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Editor's Note: Nearly a year after the tragic and disastrous train derailment, fire and explosion in East Palestine, Ohio, countless families' lives remain shattered. Here is the story of one of them. | |
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The Albrights were a normal East Palestine family before the Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern train derailment upended their lives. Suffering dire health effects after the derailment, abandoned by Norfolk Southern and the government, what are they supposed to do?
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NEWS FROM AROUND THE LABOR MOVEMENT | |
Editor's Note: This report puts workers and the labor movement front and center in the fight for climate justice. Railroad workers are in a key position to push for a transition away from fossil fuels, electrification of the rail network, and a true rail renaissance with tens of thousands of good railroad union jobs needed to staff a robust rail network across North America. | |
Editor's Note: Most rail unions - like most unions in the US - elect top officers through Delegates at Convention. A few rail unions - the BLET and IAM District 19 - employ a one-member-one-vote system. RWU supports the one-member-one-vote system for ALL rail unions, and not just at the local and national division levels, but at ALL levels of the union including at the General Committee level! | |
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CHRIS BOHNER / Dec 5
From the UAW to the Writers Guild, this year’s biggest contract victories have been won by unions in which members directly elect their leaders. That’s a right denied to most US union members — but it may be the key to unleashing broader labor militancy.
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Weekly Derailment Department | | | | |
