By Ron Kaminkow - Railroad Workers United, July 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.

At first glance, the casual observer from outside of the rail industry is prone to say that single employee train operation sounds dangerous. “What if the engineer has a heart attack?” is an often heard question. And while this question has merit, there are many other and far more complex and unanswered questions about just how single employee train operations could be accomplished safely and efficiently for the train crew, the railroad and the general public. How will the train make a back-up move? What happens when the train hits a vehicle or pedestrian? How will the train crew member deal with “bad-order” equipment in his/her train, or make pick-ups and set-outs en route? What about job briefings and calling signals, copying mandatory directives and reminders of slow orders? These are just some questions that we take up in this article.

Remote Control and “Utility Conductors”

In recent years, the Class I rail carriers have been biding their time, slowly but surely inserting language into recent contracts with both unions of the operating crafts that will facilitate their schemes to run over the road trains with a lone employee. They have made arrangements with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Trainmen (BLET) to allow the BLET represented crew member to make use remote controlled locomotives. With this scenario, the lone operator would strap on a belt pack, dismount from the locomotive, and run the locomotive by remote control operation (RCO) using radio control from the ground. And the carriers have also made deals with the United Transportation Union (UTU) to allow for “utility conductors”; i.e. a conductor who can “attach” to one or more over-the-road trains during the course of a single tour of duty. Between the two arrangements, the rail carriers apparently believe they can safely and efficiently operate road trains with just one employee aboard as opposed to the current standard of two. We disagree.

By x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus July 21, 2014

Those familiar with the IWW EUC will recall that we pull no punches in attacking the shortcomings of the business unions (the building trades in particular) on matters of both class and ecology, particularly the Keystone XL pipeline.

In late April of this year, Sean McGarvey, president of the North American Building Trades' Unions issued this statement calling for the expediting of the Keystone XL Pipeline and defending Alberta tar sands mining (which Keystone XL would facilitate, and a key--no pun intended--reason for widespread opposition to it by environmentalists).

In it, he declared:

"I've just spent several days with other building trades union leaders visiting the oil sands region and meeting with officials from the Canadian government as well as industry representatives and contractors...and what we heard, and more importantly what we saw with our own eyes, is nowhere near what the American public is being told by the radical environmental movement."

The assorted labor fakirs referenced by McGarvey included:

• Terry O'Sullivan, General President; LiUNA
• Ed Hill -International President; IBEW
• Bill Hite - General President; United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters
• Joe Nigro - General President; SMART (International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers)
• Eric Dean - General Secretary; International Association of Ironworkers
• Mike Pleasant - Administrative Assistant to the General President; United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters
• Terry Healy- Vice President and Special Assistant to the President; LiUNA

There's little doubt that McGarvey is openly hostile to the environmental movement, evidenced by his attempts to marginalize the vast and growing popular opposition to Keystone XL (as well as many other) pipeline(s), tar sands mining, fracking, mountaintop removal coal mining, offshore drilling, and crude-by-rail (all of which are inevitably interconnected due to the current capitalist push to extract every known source of carbon before the impending carbon bubble bursts and strands $trillions in assets) as "radical" (read: fringe) environmentalists.

He claims (without any peer reviewed studies, corroborating evidence from independent sources, or even so much as a single citation) that Canadian government officials, industry representatives and contractors, and his own eyes tell him:

The development of the oil sands accounts for only 7.8% of Canada's annual overall GHG emissions; and only 1/640th of global GHG emissions.

The government of Alberta implemented stringent GHG regulations in 2007, becoming the first jurisdiction in North America to do so. Since 2007, these regulations have resulted in GHG reductions of 23 million tons, the equivalent of taking 4.8 million cars off the road for one year.

Since 1990 GHG emissions from oil sands development have been reduced by 26%.

The Royal Society in Canada has studied water quality impacts and its conclusions suggest that oil sands development are not a current threat to aquatic ecosystem viability.

Alberta law requires all lands disturbed by oil sands operations be reclaimed. All companies are required to develop a reclamation plan that spans the life of the project.

McGarvey wants us to believe that if the capitalists say something is "green" and "safe" that we should trust that information, especially if it's backed up by the (arch conservative, pro-fossil fuel extraction) Canadian government. There couldn't any conflict of interest there right? And of course, we can trust McGarvey's own eyes, because...well...he sees with them, and seeing is believing! (or so McGarvey wants us to think).

If I were him, I'd get my eyes checked, because there's a whole bunch right in front of his eyes that he's not seeing. Either that, or he chooses not to see it.

By Paul Thacker - Oil Change International, July 28, 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.

A wife and mother of two from Venice, Louisiana, Kindra Arnesen says her life can be divided into two chapters: before April 20, 2010, and after. On that evening, an oil well located several miles off the coast of Louisiana discharged large bubbles of gas which traveled a mile to the surface before igniting, destroying the oil rig and killing eleven men. Thus began the worst marine oil spill in history and America’s largest environmental disaster, with hundreds of millions of gallons of oil eventually spilling into the Gulf of Mexico.

Four years later, residents from surrounding communities claim they still struggle with the health problems caused by the BP oil spill. “You just learn to live sick,” says Arnesen, who complains of headaches and unexplained rashes that won’t go away.

Her husband, who was hired by BP to help clean up the spill, has it much worse.

A fisherman in his mid-forties, his life has not been the same. He struggles to go to work and every month he is laid low by headaches, respiratory problems, and general weakness. “I roll over at night sometimes to see if he is still breathing,” Kindra says. “It’s really scary.”

The impact of exposure to oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill on people’s wellbeing has been documented by numerous government-sponsored studies. After seven fishermen hired for oil spill cleanup were hospitalized, the National Institutes of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) examined possible health effects of the spill. Because of the wide variety of working conditions, differing levels of exposures, and confounding problems from heat, the agency’s conclusions, released in August 2011, remain rather vague. During the summer of 2010, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) held a workshop to assess the effects on people and attempted to identify high risk populations for future health concerns.

But science places a high value on controlling for variables when drawing conclusions. It has been difficult if not impossible to place direct blame on the oil spill for each individual’s health problems. Exposures to oil were not carefully measured. For all intents, people who were exposed have become involved in an uncontrolled medical experiment.

However, what is certainly well documented, yet much less publicized, is that the likelihood of this disaster was certainly encouraged by tax policies created in Washington. According to Oil Change International’s latest report, federal and state subsidies to the oil, gas, and coal industries result in a $21 billion windfall for carbon polluting companies every year. This occurs at a time when the biggest five oil companies are earning record profits, close to $93 billion last year, or $177,000 per minute. And according to corporate documents, risky drilling projects like those undertaken by BP would most likely never occur without this type of corporate welfare.

By Rob Ray - Anarchist News, July 20, 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.

The anarchist movement, particularly its class struggle element, tends to hold up strike action as a symbol of the working classes’ potential collective strength – and not without reason.

Work is where we’ve historically had the most leverage, the greatest ability to increase our freedoms and power as a class. The ruling class says it owns our homes, our factories, our utilities and offices, but we are needed to make these things work and when we refuse to, mortar crumbles out of capitalist palaces.

The London matchgirls in 1888, the general strike of 1926, Saltley Gate in 1972, Grunwick in 1976, the miners’ strike of 1984 – there’s endless romance and grandeur to be found in these stories of working people who gave everything for their class in the face of greedy tormentors. Elation in victory. Heroism in defeat.

And for many there’s a sense of living solidarity in striking which is absent from direct actions such as sabotage, boycott calls, or events which revolve around what is sometimes termed “professional activism” – relying on small groups of dedicated long-term activists rather than the mass of people acting collectively in their own interests.

The picket line is one of the few places where solidarity can be offered practically and publicly, both by people within the workplace, and by groups and individuals outside who normally wouldn’t get the chance.

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.

In the aftermath of the January, 2014 chemical spill in southern West Virginia, hundreds of inmates at the South Central Regional Jail in Charleston, WV, were deprived of access to enough safe water. Many suffered from illness and injury from dehydration or chemical exposure. Some inmates even faced violence and legal repercussions for seeking medical help and for asking for clean water to drink.
>

The jail's response to the chemical spill was inadequate and inhumane. We've met and corresponded with more than 50 inmates, and based on their stories, it's clear that this failed crisis response is just the latest example in a larger pattern of abuse, violence, and negligence by the jail's staff and administration. 

STAND WITH THE INMATES AT SOUTH CENTRAL in calling for basic human rights and access to safe drinking water. Join us in demanding that the jail authorities acknowledge their failure to protect inmates' health and safety during the water crisis -- and that they acknowledge and correct their lies to the public about that response.

Read the entire appeal here.

Video by the Labor Video Project - Transport Workers Solidarity Committee, July 19, 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.

Jen Wallis is a railroad worker and health and safety advocate who was injured and blew the whistle on the Warren Buffet owned railroad BNSF. She is a member of IBT BLET Division 238 and Railroad Workers United RWU who works in the Seattle area.

She discusses her injury and the systemic attack on workers health and safety by the railroad and how this threatens the community and public due to dangerous oil cars and lack of proper manning. This includes systemic retaliation, workplace bullying and intimidation for workers who fight for health and safety on the railroads She also discusses the role of some union officials in pushing 1 man crews even though these labor reductions are serious threats to the safety of the railroad workers and the communities that railroads travel through. This presentation was made in San Francisco on July 19, 2014 at a conference of the Injured Workers National Network.

Additional video:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9fEqFEGGG8&feature=

For more information go to:

• www.railroadworkersunite.org
• www.iwnn.org
• https://www.facebook.com/pages/Injured-Workers-National-Network-IWNN/108...

Production of Labor Video Project www.laborvideo.org

Brett VandenHeuvel, Columbia Riverkeeper - EcoWatch, July 18, 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.

In remembrance of the one-year anniversary of the Lac-Mégantic oil train tragedy that killed 47 people, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) raised a banner from cranes today calling out unfair labor practices and protesting unsafe oil at the Port of Vancouver in Washington.

The Port of Vancouver is under intense scrutiny because it has not supported the locked-out ILWU Local 4 who have worked the docks in Vancouver since 1937. The port refuses to assist the ILWU during a labor dispute with the multinational United Grain Corporation. 

At the same time, the port is trying to ram through a dangerous and dirty crude-by-rail terminal proposed by Tesoro. This terminal would send 42 percent of the capacity of the Keystone XL pipeline—360,000 barrels per day—by train to Vancouver, where the oil would be loaded onto oceangoing vessels to sail down the Columbia River. The ILWU has taken a stand against the massive crude-by-rail project.

“Longshoreman would be the guys tying up and letting the ships go, but our local said, ‘no, the risk isn’t worth the reward,’” said Cager Clabaugh, president of the Local 4, ILWU. “We don’t believe in jobs at any cost.” 

The 1,500 square foot banner read:

Unfair grain
Unsafe oil
Community
Under Attack

The ILWU Local 4 is requesting people call Washington Gov. Jay Inslee to ask him to end the labor lockout and reject the Tesoro oil terminal. Now is the time for labor and enviros to stand together for clean water and safe working conditions.

By J.P. Wright and Ed Michael - Labor Notes, December 11, 2012

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.

Back in the old days, in order to operate safely, a freight train used a five-person crew—an engineer, a fireman, two brakemen, and a conductor.

After two-way radios and electronic air brake monitoring allowed the railroads to eliminate the caboose in the 1980s, crew size went down to three.

Tough contract negotiations eliminated another crew member, so now almost every freight train rolling across the U.S. is operated by just an engineer and a conductor.

Railroaders fear the conductor will be next to go. The railroads say they want single-employee trains, and leaders have allowed language to seep into contracts that says if crew size is reduced to one, that last remaining crew member will be an engineer or a conductor—depending which union is negotiating the language.

With union officials asleep at the wheel on this dangerous prospect, Railroad Workers United, a cross-union coalition of rank-and-file railroaders, is taking up the challenge to stop the runaway train.

Some trains are over 10,000 feet long and weigh more than 15,000 tons. Engineers drive the train and take care of the engines, but the freight conductor does the rest. If anything goes wrong with the equipment, the conductor walks the train to find blown air hoses, broken couplers, or trespasser accidents. If the train stops in a busy town, the conductor can quickly separate the train to allow emergency equipment to reach blocked rail crossings.

Both engineer and conductor are licensed by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), with constant retraining and on-the-job testing to ensure compliance with the many operating rules and regulations that govern trains.

We are drilled in the railroad’s Homeland Security awareness plan and told that the security of the nation’s railways depends on our two sets of eyes observing every inch of our unsecured railroad infrastructure.

By Anne Petermann - Global Justice Ecology Project, July 17, 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.

The September climate march was called for by Big Green NGOs 350.org and Avaaz, who have thrown copious quantities of cash at it. But many environmental and climate justice organizations and alliances based in the New York/New Jersey region and across the US have demanded a seat at the organizing table to ensure that the voices of front line and impacted communities are heard, despite their small budgets.

The demands of the march: there will be none. That’s right. The march will simply bring together an estimated 200,000 people to march through the streets of New York and then…  There will be no rally, no speakers, no strong political demands.  Just people showing up with the overarching message that the world’s leaders should take action on climate change.

Please.

What kind of climate action should be taken is a question that has long been debated by climate justice activists, organizations, social movements and Indigenous Peoples all over the world for decades.   “Climate action” can include things like geoengineering schemes–manmade manipulations of nature on such a massive scale that the impacts can’t possibly be known, but could definitely be catastrophic.  They can also include actions already taking place, such as the building of vast hydroelectric dams that flood vast expanses of land and displace thousands of Indigenous Peoples or land-based communities. Climate action can also include ongoing grabbing of land for the development of vast plantations of oil palm, GMO soy or non-native trees for so-called bioenergy.

So no, not all “climate action” is created equal.  A lack of clear justice-based and ecologically sound demands in this “historic” march will leave a vacuum.  And no vacuum remains empty for long.  It’s simple physics.  The media will not cover a march with no demands. They will find a message.  And likely, as so often happens, those with the connections and the money will win the messaging game.

By Don Fitz - Climate and Capitalism, July 15, 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.

The world has over half a century of experience with programs that claim to help nature or feed the planet while they do the opposite.  The twin crises of the early 21st century are economic and ecological collapse.  Should we increase production to create more jobs and accept horrible environmental damage?  Or, should we protect a livable world at the cost of causing more unemployment?

An increasingly popular answer is the “Green New Deal” (GND): create “green jobs” in order to jump start the economy.   But the GND might not provide long term employment and could cause major environmental harm.  Digging beneath the surface appearance of the GND requires exploring its family tree: the Green Revolution, Green Capitalism and the Green Economy.

The Green Revolution

As capitalism spread across the globe, hunger and starvation spread with it.  Hoarding food and selling it to those who have plenty has always been more profitable than sharing food with those who need it.

By the middle of the 20th century, agribusiness decided that new plant varieties could be the focal point of a “Green Revolution” that would “feed the world.”  According to Stan Cox, dwarfing genes “allowed the plant to divert less energy to making stems and leaves and allowed the farmer to apply much more nitrogen fertilizer without making the plants get too tall and fall over.”  But these new varieties required pesticides and were more vulnerable to diseases. [1]

For at least 10,000 years, humans have been using “open pollination” seeds which could be gathered and planted the next year.  The Green Revolution also promoted hybrid seeds, especially for corn.  But hybrid seeds did not reproduce traits sought by farmers.  Those who use them must return to the seed company each year.  Hybrids fostered agricultural dependency.

One of the best summaries of the effects of hybrid corn is in Carmelo Ruiz’ story of Henry Wallace, the agrarian progressive who was Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of Agriculture.  According to Ruiz, “Among the most celebrated attributes of hybrid corn is the ease with which it can be harvested by machine.”  Huge fields with “genetic uniformity created a dream situation for pests.” [2, p 10]  As with dwarf varieties, this generated a need for pesticides.  Rapid growth as well as pesticide destruction of the soil’s natural fertility created a need for fertilizers.

A huge increase in output resulted: “between 1950 and 1980, US corn exports were multiplied times 20.” [2]   Results also appeared in increased farming costs, impoverishment of family farmers, and further concentration of wealth in agriculture.

Was this truly the price that had to be paid in order to “feed the world?”  Is it possible that the same yield increases could have occurred if research had gone in another direction?  Ruiz quotes geneticist Richard Lewontin as concluding, “Virtually no one has tried to improve the open-pollinated varieties, although scientific evidence shows that if the same effort had been put into such varieties, they would be as good or better than hybrids.” [2]

Research focused on developing hybrids because they were part of an overall agenda to concentrate capital.  Proponents of the Green Revolution identified a real problem (hunger), but they trumpeted a solution friendly to big business which created as many problems as it solved.  Meanwhile, a low-tech solution was ignored.