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Bulletin 133: Chilean Labour Voices on the National Lithium Strategy

By Staff - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, May 9, 2023

Last week, we looked at the Boric administration’s launch of the National Lithium Strategy, the creation of a National Lithium Company, and some initial responses by trade unions. In this bulletin, we’ll highlight clips of interviews from diverse trade union perspectives on the role of the labour movement in the lithium sector. 

Work Won’t Love You Back: We Were Warned

By Sarah Jaffe - The Progressive, May 5 2023

It was the workers’ nightmare come true.

The Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, on February 3 sent a toxic barrage of hazardous chemicals into the air, soil, and water and caused untold damage to waterways, wildlife, air quality, and people’s health. It was a grim confirmation of what rail workers have been saying would happen for years. And it could have been worse.

No one was killed or badly injured in the derailment itself, and most of the 149-car train’s cargo was nontoxic. Fears of a massive explosion, which led to the evacuation of nearby residents, did not happen. But it’s hard to say there’s a silver lining to a disaster that prompted a “controlled burn” of toxic chemicals producing a cloud visible from passing airplanes, says Ross Grooters, a longtime railroad worker and co-chair of Railroad Workers United, a caucus of rail workers that spans multiple unions. Still, they add, after an attempt by rail workers to strike over working conditions—including ongoing safety concerns—was squelched by members of Congress and President Joe Biden late last year, at least there is renewed attention on the rails.

But if the politicians and the rail companies had listened to the workers, this accident, and others, might have been prevented. In the weeks following the disaster, three more Norfolk Southern trains derailed—in OhioMichigan, and Alabama—the latter occurring just before the company’s CEO, Alan Shaw, appeared before Congress to answer questions about the Ohio disaster.

I first spoke to Grooters in late January for a story about the rail workers’ fight for paid sick leave. At the time, they described a constant pressure to do more with less, exemplified by a system known as precision scheduled railroading, or PSR.

“The ‘precision’ part of ‘precision scheduled railroading’ is how precisely can we cut the operation to the bone and still have it walk around as a full skeleton,” Grooters told me. “They’ve cut so deep that it just doesn’t function and they don’t have people to fill the jobs.”

There had been cutbacks to track and equipment maintenance, and more equipment fatigue and derailments. “It just feels really unsafe when you’re in the workplace. It’s like we’re rolling the dice with all these things.”

In 2020, for example, The Washington Post reported that more than 20,000 rail workers had lost their jobs in the previous year, of which more than 3,500 had been at Norfolk Southern. Simultaneously, train lengths were increasing, adding more cars to the workload of the same tiny train crew. A rail engineer told the Post at the time, “They found they can hook two trains together and cut a crew.”

Rail workers were stressed, but railroad stock prices jumped. The following year, two rail workers’ unions filed suit, alleging that Norfolk Southern had sliced rail crews so deeply because of PSR that engineers were having to do the work of conductors and brakemen. “[Norfolk Southern] cannot lawfully lay off roughly 4,000 conductors and brakemen, and then give their work to another craft,” the two union presidents said in a statement at the time.

REPORT: Freight Rails Named One of DIRTY DOZEN Employers Endangering Workers

East Palestine Derailment Disaster Continues to Unfold with Amanda Kiger

LNS Transit Organizer Bakari Height in Panel on Public Ownership of the Railroads

By Staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, April 30, 2023

The Labor Network for Sustainability recently endorsed the call of Railroad Workers United for public ownership of American railroads. A video panel on railroad nationalization sponsored by Solutionary Rail included LNS Transit Organizer Bakari Height.

To view the panel:

XRTU HUB at The Big One: Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Group

US freight workers say it’s time to nationalize the railroads

A Public, Renewable Power Future: Moving Beyond Monopoly, Fossil-Fueled Utilities

An Open Letter to All Unions, Locals, Lodges, Divisions, Worker Organizations, Environmental Groups, Rail Advocates, Transportation Justice Folks & Others

By staff - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, April 18, 2023

Download this letter as a pdf on RWU Letterhead

Dear Friends and Fellow Workers:

In face of the degeneration of the rail system in the last decade, and after more than a decade of discussion and debate on the question, Railroad Workers United (RWU) has taken a position in support of public ownership of the rail system in North America. We ask you to consider doing the same, and announce your organization’s support for rail public ownership.

While the rail industry has been incapable of expansion in the last generation and has become more and more fixated on the Operating Ratio to the detriment of all other metrics of success, Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) has escalated this irresponsible trajectory to the detriment of shippers, passengers, commuters, trackside communities, and workers. On-time performance is suffering, and shipper complaints are at all-time highs. Passenger trains are chronically late, commuter services are threatened, and the rail industry is hostile to practically any passenger train expansion. The workforce has been decimated, as jobs have been eliminated, consolidated, and contracted out, ushering in a new previously unheard-of era where workers can neither be recruited nor retained. Locomotive, rail car, and infrastructure maintenance has been cut back. Health and safety has been put at risk. Morale is at an all-time low. The debacle in national contract bargaining last Fall saw the carriers – after decades of record profits and record low Operating Ratios – refusing to make even the slightest concessions to the workers who have made them their riches.

Since the North American private rail industry has shown itself incapable of doing the job, it is time for this invaluable transportation infrastructure – like the other transport modes – to be brought under public ownership. During WWI, the railroads in the U.S. were in fact temporarily placed under public ownership and control. All rail workers of all crafts and unions supported (unsuccessfully) keeping them in public hands once the war ended, and voted overwhelmingly to keep them in public hands. Perhaps it is time once again to put an end to the profiteering, pillaging, and irresponsibility of the Class One carriers. Railroad workers are in a historic position to take the lead and push for a new fresh beginning for a vibrant and expanding, innovative and creative national rail industry to safely, efficiently, and properly handle the nation’s freight and passengers.

Please join us in this historic endeavor. See the adjoining RWU Resolution in Support of Public Ownership of the Railroads, along with a sample Statements from the United Electrical (UE) and the Northern Nevada Central Labor Council. If your organization would like to take a stand for public ownership of the nation’s rail system, please click on the link below, fill out the form and email it in to RWU. We will add your organization to the list! Finally, please forward to others who may be interested in doing the same. Thank you!

Working People: Bryan Mack

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