RWU Out West: Our Conferences are Starting to Make People Think!

By J.P. Wright - Railroad Workers United Blog, March 22, 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.

We RWU folks wanted to address the issues.. So we invited all people to our conventions out in the Pacific NW and the bay area of California.. for some, the issues center around keeping the planet safe from fossil fuels.. some folks have issue with corporations profiting billions and then leaving communities with the mess to clean up..

Railroaders know that there is no other way to safely transport the millions of tons of hazardous materials that we move.. Railroaders also know that coal and oil are not the only things that needs to be transported safe... finding common ground is a hard thing to do. I am proud that my organization has the courage to discuss these sets of issues with environmentalists..

Moving forward RWU has made alliance with several groups.. some national in scope and some local. There is already one thing that all these groups have in common.. They are all worried.

Some are worried that an oil train might blow up their town, some are worried that fossil fuels are not sustainable and causing serious damage to the planet. Some are worried that they might get a call in the wee early morn from a brother or sister that a train has derailed with their co-worker dead at the throttle. Some are worried about their jobs...

Everyone should be worried that the Railroads are hell bent on running One Person Trains!!!

Years ago RWU in our fight against One Person Trains made a resolution calling for a broad public campaign against One Person Trains. We called upon the leadership of our respective unions to move. To broadcast railroader safety.. we called upon them to "cut in the public" to this fight... personally I feel we are still waiting for the national leadership of our unions to move...

While railroaders might not agree on the politics or agenda of some of the groups that we invited to our conferences, there is common ground to be found. We railroaders move almost everything that is consumed in this economy. Our railroader issues are the issue of every person that lives in the communities that we service and travel through.

In this dysfunctional political environment where corporations and the powerful have preferential access to our Democracy, many of us at Railroad Workers United understand that it is "We the People" that the railroads should be asking if it is OK for them to Run One Person Trains.

Most everyone in North America knows that it is not safe to Run One Person Trains!

The people who live in this country love their trains, and clearly recognize corporate greed when they see it.

Workers and Communities need solutions. We all need good paying jobs. We all need access to other communities. We the People should be the ones setting policy. If safety is truly Job number one.. then RWU is on the right path. We must rally around safety. We must ask more questions, we must continue to bring railroader issues to the public. Politicians make policy in fear of the powerful... so Railroad Workers United will continue to work with WE THE PEOPLE and empower them with an educated voice!

Solidarity!

J.P Wright
Railroad Workers United
Co-Chair

For more information or to make contact with us..
www.railroadworkersunited.org