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Rail & Labor News from RWU

Weekly Digest Number 21 - May 21, 2024

Click here to listen to the headlines and features of this week's Rail & Labor News from Railroad Workers United

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!

Editor's Note: Both rail unions that have the one-member-one-vote system of elections - first the BLET in Fall 2022 and now the IAM District #19 rail workers - have made use of that system to sweep away the "old guard" presidents in their respective unions and replaced them with challengers, both of them full-time working railroaders. Reformers have also won similarly in the Auto Workers and Teamsters, making use of the direct elections system. Reform is breaking out in the labor movement. The big test will be whether rank and filers in the other ten or so rail unions can vote in new leadership through the standard delegate system that these other unions use at Convention when electing their top officers. That or perhaps amend the union bylaws to enable such direct elections.

‘No More Closed Doors’: Reformers Win Rerun Election in Rail Machinists

Joe DeManuelle-Hall / May 16


Reformers in the Machinists rail union have ousted incumbents in a Department of Labor-supervised election. According to the results posted on the union’s website, challenger Reece Murtagh won the presidential election in District 19 of the IAM, 820 to 748, while his slate-mate Marty Rosato won 787 to 774 for secretary-treasurer. Both Murtagh and Rosato are full-time railroad workers. Murtagh is a roadway mechanic for CSX and the president of his local lodge in Richmond, Virginia; Rosato works at CSX in Selkirk, New York. They will take office June 3. Murtagh received the news while he was finishing up his shift at work. In his shop, his co-workers celebrated victory by playing the “Rocky” theme from their phones.

Editor's Note: Like in the U.S., rail workers can likewise be hamstrung by a tangled web of laws that are geared to prevent strikes. Nevertheless, the Canadian rail workers have had much more success in the last decade bringing stalled negotiations to a strike at the Class Ones north of the border.

Canadian government invokes 'red tape rule' to prevent rail strike

Charlotte Goldstone / March 13


The TCRC rail workers’ union in Canada has hit back at the “incredibly frustrating” decision taken by the minister of labour to prevent the impending strike on the grounds that disruption to services could “endanger the health or safety of the public”. A strike was set for 22 May, and would have impacted Canada’s entire rail network for both passenger and freight, unless a deal was reached before then. However, minister of labour Seamus O’Regan last week requested clarity from the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) on whether certain rail services could be deemed as essential, and therefore must be maintained during a labour disruption.

Railroad Strike Unlikely in Next 60 Days, According to Canadian Pacific Kansas City
Strike threat to Canada's rail network rises as negotiations stall

Editor's Note: When employers like Class One railroads are hell bent for leather to cut the workforce, FMLA is seen as a hindrance, since a lean workforce has no room for necessary leave for pregnancy, illness, care for children, etc. It is sickening when these powerful corporations violate the law and workers rights wholesale like this.

Federal lawsuit claims CSX violated FMLA anti retaliation provisions

Caleb Revill / May 13


A federal class action lawsuit alleges that Class 1 railroad CSX wrongly discouraged workers from taking leave under the Family Medical Leave Act and retaliated against workers who used the leave. The complaint, filed last Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, alleges that CSX inflated the amount of time employees were charged for FMLA leave, punished them for taking the leave, and terminated or suspended over 100 employees since 2017 on the allegation that they took FMLA leave fraudulently.

Editor's Note: Information is starting to come out concerning the feds' abrogation of responsibility to the townspeople, leaving the post accident decision making and clean up largely to Norfolk Southern.

EPA ‘failed to protect’ East Palestine residents after Ohio train derailment: Whistleblower

Rich McHugh/ May 14


An EPA whistleblower has stepped forward, saying the Environmental Protection Agency deviated from normal procedures when testing for chemical contamination after a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. EPA Chief Michael Reagan, visiting East Palestine, praised the work of the EPA, giving specific credit to the high-tech plane they used to detect chemical compounds in the air, called ASPECT. “We’ve had boots on the ground, leading robust air quality testing, including the advanced technology ASPECT plane,” Reagan said. Scientist Robert Kroutil spent four decades helping to create the ASPECT program, originally for the Department of Defense and later as a contractor with the EPA. Now, he’s blowing the whistle on the EPA and their use of the ASPECT plane in the disaster in East Palestine. “That deployment was the most unusual deployment I’ve ever seen,” Kroutil told NewsNation. “You just wouldn’t do it that way.”

Editor's Note: We hope she will be a strong advocate for rail infrastructure expansion - freight and passenger - and be a strong voice for passengers, shippers and rail workers.

House T&I Rail Subcommittee Welcomes New Senior Democrat

Marybeth Luczak / May 13


U.S. Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.) has joined the House T&I’s Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials as Senior Democrat, succeeding Rep. Donald M. Payne Jr. of New Jersey, who died April 24. As the Senior Democrat on the Education and Workforce Protections Subcommittee Education and Workforce Protections Subcommittee in the 114th Congress, Wilson introduced the American Jobs Act of 2013; Student Loan Borrower Bill of Rights; and Youth Corp Act of 2013. She has also sponsored legislation to reduce homeowners’ insurance premiums, protect foster children, and defend Haitian women against gender-based violence.

Editor's Note: It is great to see a new service proffered by Amtrak. Granted it is over an existing passenger train route with existing stations and infrastructure. But it is happening, and can be emulated in similar corridors across the country.

Introducing Amtrak Borealis trains with Expanded Service between St. Paul and Chicago via Milwaukee

Amtrak


Tickets are now available for a second daily Amtrak service between the Twin Cities and Chicago, via Milwaukee: new state-sponsored Borealis trains originate from St. Paul at midday and from Chicago in the late morning. Travelers seeking a more comfortable, sustainable and productive choice than driving will have double the current rail options, starting May 21, 2024. Amtrak Borealis coach fares start at $41 each way between St. Paul and Chicago for adults, with everyday discounts for children ages 2-12, students, seniors, veterans, military personnel and families, groups, and others. “We are proud to collaborate with neighboring states and our federal partners to offer more Amtrak service in the Midwest,” said Illinois Transportation Secretary Omer Osman. “Ensuring passenger rail that’s safe, reliable and accessible is one of the many reasons Illinois continues to distinguish itself as the transportation hub of North America under Gov. JB Pritzker.”

Editor's Note:

What Would BC Risk Shipping LNG by Rail?

Amanda Follett Hosgood / May 7


An inland gas liquefaction facility proposed for north of Prince George could make Canada the first country in North America to make liquified natural gas a regular commodity on its rail lines and is raising concerns about safety. The prospect of shipping liquefied gas by rail — a method that’s only seen limited use in places like the U.S., Japan and Europe — has environmentalists concerned about increasing hazardous materials on railways through the region. “Nobody’s had a Lac-Mégantic scenario yet with these ISO containers full of LNG, and so there’s really no real-world data on how they behave when they rupture,” said Kai Nagata, communications director with Dogwood BC.

Editor's Note:

Younger-Driver Pilot Program Drops 2 Controversial Requirements

Deborah Lockridge / May 14


A federal program designed to look at the safety of younger commercial truck drivers is getting a Congressionally mandated revision to remove some provisions that were believed to be hindering the program’s progress. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on May 14 published a notice revising its Safe Driver Apprenticeship Pilot Program to remove requirements that participating motor carriers use inward-facing cameras and become DOL-registered apprenticeship programs. The program was intended to study potential paths and safeguards that would allow these younger drivers to safely work in interstate trucking. FMCSA announced the program in 2022, after the 2021 the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act required the DOT to set up such a program. The language of that bill called for:

  • Specific probationary periods.
  • For apprentices to be accompanied in the passenger seat by an experienced driver.
  • That the trucks driven by these apprentices be equipped with an active braking collision mitigation system, automated or automatic transmission, forward-facing video event capture system, and a governed speed of 65 mph.

Editor's Note: A few years ago, a coal transloading facility at the Port of Baltimore exploded, shattering neighborhood windows and damaging buildings, spewing coal dust and toxic fumes throughout the area.

SOUTH BALTIMORE RESIDENTS ON THE TOXIC REALITY OF LIVING IN A ‘SACRIFICE ZONE’

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ / MAY 15


South Baltimore is a sacrifice zone,” Michael Middleton and Dr. Sacoby Wilson wrote in a guest commentary published in Maryland Matters this February. “The six communities that make up South Baltimore—Cherry Hill, Westport, Mt. Winans, Lakeland, Brooklyn, and Curtis Bay—rank in the top 3% of the state for environmental burden using a Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) screening tool. Curtis Bay, the highest in the state, is Maryland’s poster child for environmental injustice.

"... one end of the community is one set of railroad tracks, and the other end of the community is another railway. I know a lot of people in the community has passed from cancer, which we believe is from the debris of the coal trains passing on both railroad tracks untarped."

NEWS FROM AROUND THE LABOR MOVEMENT

Editor's Note: It sounds like the automaker pulled out all the stops to defeat the union organizing drive, and was able to deter hundreds of those who signed union authorization cards from voting YES in the election last week.

Alabama Mercedes Workers Lose First Union Election

Luis Feliz Leon, Jane Slaughter / May 18


A no-holds-barred campaign by Mercedes management convinced a majority of workers at its Alabama factory complex to vote against forming a union. In addition to anti-union videos and mailings, captive-audience meetings, firings, and an onslaught of pressure from state politicians and even a local pastor, the winning move was to fire the company’s U.S. CEO and replace him with a vice president who promised to care about the “team members.”

After Filing with 70%, UAW loses 44%-56% in Alabama
'We'll Be Back,' Says UAW Chief Shawn Fain After 'Tough Loss' in Alabama
UAW Admits Digital Heavy, Organizing Committee Light Approach Failed Them in Alabama at Mercedes

Editor's Note: More workers along the supply chain with the potential to flex their muscle and win a good contract. Rail unions would be wise to build alliance with these fellow workers. Rail master bargaining for 125,000 rail workers in freight starts this fall.

USMX and ILA to start talks on new contract covering Atlantic coast ports

Charlotte Goldstone / May 15


Negotiations on contracts covering some 45,000 dockworkers along the US east and Gulf coast ports are expected to begin soon, just four months before the current agreement expires. The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) yesterday announced they expected master contract negotiations to follow “the likely completion” of talks on local contracts this week.  ILA president Harold Daggett had instructed union branches to resolve local east/Gulf coast work issues by mid-May, aiming to avoid a repeat of the contract negotiations on the west coast that were held up by a local dispute.

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