Green Unionism Strategy and Tactics - Railroad Workers and Crude by Rail Trains

By x344543, x356039, and x363464 - April 29, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s. This is not an official statement of either Forest Ethics or Railroad Workers United, and neither organization has vetted this article.

As many of you may be aware, there has been a growing uproar against crude-by-rail, which is one of the major components of the current fossil fuel capitalist driven extreme energy boom. This is due in large part to the fact that there were more derailments involving crude-by-rail trains in 2013 alone than the previous four decades combined. In some cases, like Lac Megantic, whole towns have been nearly wiped off of the map.

This is particularly true in the San Francisco Bay Area where residents in five different communities dominated by oil refineries are organizing to prevent increased transportation of crude-by-rail into their homes. The organizers have built coalitions with local environmental and social justice groups as well as called upon the support of environmental NGOs. Their efforts have included speaking out at public forums, attending public hearings, watch-dogging the regulatory process (such as it is), participation in in electoral campaigns, producing alternative media, rallies, marches, and even nonviolent civil disobedience.

These community activists have even cultivated relationships with rank and file workers employed by the refineries--at least those not buying the company line. Still, there's another group of workers that these coalitions could approach, and that is the railroad workers themselves, but how to do it?

Many of our fellow workers who are union railroad workers are quick to point out that in spite of all of the recent derailments, rail is nevertheless the safest mode of transportation of crude, even the heavy and dirty crude resulting from the extreme energy extraction of tar sands and shale, relative to all of the others. This, of course, is a matter of degrees.

Transportation of heavy crude by any means is a risky business. In addition to derailments, there have been oil spills by ship and pipeline breakages. As the folks at Forest Ethics have pointed out, there is really no completely safe way to transport this stuff.

And the railroad workers to which we have spoken have hinted that they're entirely supportive of the efforts to transition away from fossil fuels to greener, non-polluting alternatives. It's just that of all of the cargoes they transport, crude-by-rail is but one of many dangerous examples.

So, can there be any common ground between the community organizers and railroad workers? The answer is, "yes" (according to those very same railroad workers).

For example, the rank and file coalition, Railroad Workers United, have several campaigns which--though they would certainly be opposed by the capitalist rail carriers--would, if implemented, make railroads safer and less prone to derailments. These demands include:

• (1) A minimum of two-person railroad crews (the train that destroyed Lac Magentic was a single-employee train);
• (2) A ban on exceedingly long and heavy trains.
• (3) Implementation of PTC (Positive Train Control); and
• (4) An end to "Blame the Worker" safety culture.
• (5) Implementation of Existing Technologies to Ensure Safe Operations.

In the case of heavy crude, particularly "Bakken Shale",the RWU hasn't taken a specific position, but some anonymous rank and file railroad workers we've talked with suggest that the following demands should at least be considered:

• (1) All such trains must be doubly inspected (i.e. at half the distance--hence twice as often--normally stipulated under currently existing regulations);
• (2) All such trains must be classified as "key trains" under the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR);
• (3) All such trains must be crewed by a bare minimum of two railroad workers, (and quite possibly three or four workers);
• (4) All heavy and dirty crude must be transported in T-112 or better cars with shelf couplers;
• (5) Cities fighting the increased transport of crude-by-rail should pressure the federal government to implement such regulations; and
• (6) All regulations governing the signage, markings, numbering, etc, on rolling stock identifying the transportation of hazardous cargo by rail must be strictly and rigorously enforced.

Apparently, there's a good deal of common ground that can be reached between railroad workers transporting the heavy and dirty crude by rail and those who oppose the transportation of heavy crude through their communities. A lot of organizing work and dialog needs to take place, of course, but the opportunities are there, and the two movements would be stronger together than apart.