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nationalization

Relentless Profit Drive Behind Ohio Rail Disaster

By Geoff Mirelowitz and Marilee Taylor - World Outlook, February 20, 2023

The February 3 derailment of a Norfolk Southern (NS) train carrying hazardous chemicals caused an inferno and the release of enormous plumes of toxic black smoke over East Palestine, Ohio. It has brought into sharp focus the danger the railroads’ relentless drive for profit poses to public safety.

This is the same motive that led the rail barons to refuse paid days off to railroad workers who are sick or too exhausted from long and unpredictable hours of work to operate trains safely. In December, President Joe Biden and the U.S. Congress backed the railroad owners, imposing the new national rail contract they insisted on. (See “Rail Contract Shows Unions Need New Leadership; Workers Need Our Own Party.”)

News coverage of the derailment shined a spotlight on the enormous profits the railroad owners are raking in. A front-page article in the February 18 New York Times reported, “Norfolk Southern, which earned more than $3 billion last year… over the past five years… paid shareholders nearly $18 billion through stock buybacks and dividends — twice as much as the amount it invested in its railways and operations. Other large railways have paid out billions to their shareholders, too, and their shares have done better than the wider stock market over the last decade.”

Health dangers threaten community

Residents of East Palestine were ordered to evacuate while photos and videos of the frightening flames from the derailment quickly made national news.

On February 6, a “controlled release” of toxic fumes from the derailed and hazardous cars was conducted, leading to more gruesome images. Two days later residents were assured it was safe to return to their homes. Norfolk Southern rushed to run trains through the town again. But the danger was far from over.

The Rail Unions Warned Us: Greed Is Dangerous

By Rebekah Entralgo - Inequality.org, February 17, 2023

Following multiple, dangerous derailments across the country, those working the railroad have a solution to the nation's rail crisis: public ownership.

The toxic clouds that billowed up from a derailed freight train in Ohio earlier this month are a chilling metaphor for the toxic greed that has infected so many of our big corporations.

After having to evacuate, residents of the town near the derailment are cautiously going back home, but they still don’t know the full extent of the damage to the area’s environment and public health.

The Norfolk Southern train was carrying dangerous chemicals, including vinyl chloride, a highly flammable carcinogen that is more harmful than even ammonia and natural gas, according to federal regulations.

Following the derailment, locals have reported evidence of the sudden death of fish and wildlife, in addition to people having difficulty breathing, numb limbs, and rashes, among other possible physical symptoms from the chemical exposure.

Unions representing rail workers had warned of the possibility of just such a catastrophe.

In contract negotiations last year, they denounced a business model known as “precision scheduled railroading,” which aims to boost profits by running bigger and faster trains with smaller crews. The practice has even earned a nickname among rail workers: “positive shareholder reaction.” Combined with a lack of guaranteed sick pay, this created dangerous conditions for overworked rail employees.

Where have all the profits gone?

Amid Ohio Nightmare, Rail Worker Alliance Urges All of Labor to Back Railroad Nationalization

By Jake Johnson - Common Dreams, February 17, 2023

"The railroads, their CEOs, and the hedge fund robber barons will not listen, but railroad workers have the solution to managing and operating critical railroad infrastructure."

An alliance representing rail workers across the United States published an open letter late Thursday urging all of organized labor to support the nationalization of the country's railroad system, arguing that the private and inadequately regulated industry has "shown itself incapable of doing the job."

"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 the United States," reads the letter, which was published as the small town of East Palestine, Ohio is attempting to recover from the toxic derailment of a Norfolk Southern train two weeks ago.

"We ask you to consider doing the same, and announce your organization's support for rail public ownership," continues the letter, which was addressed to unions as well as environmental, transportation justice, and workers' rights organizations. "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."

The Case for Nationalizing the Railroads: Workers say now is the time to do the impossible

By Kari Lydersen - In These Times, February 16, 2023

Railroad workers packed themselves into hotel conference rooms near Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport in June 2022 to talk fervently about a momentous event potentially on the horizon: the first industry-wide rail strike in three decades. 

“All 12 railroad unions have proclaimed themselves united,” said Ron Kaminkow, Railroad Workers United (RWU) general secretary, during a conference session about chokepoints in the supply chain. ​“There could actually be a national railroad strike for the first time in almost 30 years.” 

Contract negotiations between those 12 unions and the country’s major freight railroad companies had ground to a halt by the conference, which was organized by RWU and the pro-union group Labor Notes. 

In July, 99.5% of the membership of the union representing railroad engineers — the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen — voted to authorize a strike if legal hurdles were cleared.

The possibility presented a challenge for the Biden administration. President Joe Biden had become known as the most labor-friendly president in recent history, while a walkout threatened to paralyze the economy with a potential cost of $2 billion per day. The administration eventually negotiated a deal with union leaders and company leaders, announced Sept. 15, 2022, requiring a significant pay raise for workers without meaningfully addressing their primary concerns: short-staffing and a lack of paid sick days.

Many elected officials and pundits lauded the deal, but it still needed to be ratified by each union’s rank and file.

Three unions representing railroad workers voted down the proposed contract, while others voted for it. Then, in November, the country’s largest rail union — the SMART Transportation Division, which represents conductors and brakemen — rejected the deal, and a national rail strike was firmly on the table. Even unions that approved of the deal pledged to honor any picket lines.

On December 1, 2022, at Biden’s urging, Congress intervened, passing a law to force the unions to agree to the deal. Many railroad workers were furious — and felt betrayed.

“It was very frustrating, from the ​‘most pro-labor president America’s ever had,’” says Matt Weaver, legislative director for the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, the nation’s third-largest railroad union. ​“When [railroads] have record profits and profit margins, and yet this deal is imposed, we’ve seen that our labor is expendable.”

The ordeal has also led many railroad workers and industry watchers to consider a vastly increased role for government in freight railroads: nationalization.

The Ohio Derailment Catastrophe Is a Case Study in Disaster Capitalism

By Mel Bauer - The Nation, February 15, 2023

As public outrage has grown over the toxic fallout from last month’s fiery derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train in East Palestine, Ohio, the urgent questions behind this disaster echo the past year’s confrontations over working conditions in the lightly regulated rail industry.

Indeed, the catastrophe in Ohio—together with another hazardous derailment in Houston, Tex., just a week later—drives home the steep costs in health and well-being that we all incur when we fail to heed rail workers’ calls for more regulation and adequate staffing mandates. 

As rail workers sought to win basic guarantees of staffing support and sick leave from rail carriers long accustomed to selling labor short and winning major regulatory concessions from federal agencies, they stressed how the unsustainable demands placed on their working lives would result in disasters just like the one in East Palestine. The northeast Ohio village of about 5,000 people is 40 miles northwest of Pittsburgh and 20 miles south of Youngstown; already those metropolitan areas are under alert for the air and water contamination originating from the Palestine derailment. And in Palestine proper, many residents are already reporting troubling health symptoms and dying area wildlife as they weigh the risks of remaining exposed to the toxic fumes and chemical leaks from the derailed tanker cars carrying hazardous materials.

In the immediate aftermath of the derailment, rail officials ordered that the vinyl chloride hauled by five of the Norfolk Southern cars in the 150-car train be burned off to prevent a still greater explosion—but that action sent hydrogen chloride and phosgene, two dangerous gasses, spuming into the air. EPA investigators have since identified other hazardous chemicals the train had been hauling, including ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, ethylhexyl acrylate, isobutylene, and butyl acrylate. And the EPA has released a report saying that chemicals from the derailment have leached into the soil and water in the aftermath of the accident.

“Bomb Train”: Where Tory Rail “Modernisation” Ends Up

By Paul Atkin - Greener Jobs Alliance, February 15, 2023

This report from “Democracy Now” on the rail disaster in Ohio last week, in which a 150 car freight train carrying toxic chemicals derailed and a “controlled burn” by the company released “a fireball and mushroom cloud of smoke” into the environment, shows where the Tory “modernisation agenda” for the Railways ends up. 

All their key themes

  • cuts to staffing 
  • cuts to safety procedures
  • restrictions on the right to strike

are all in place in the USA; which is a model for the government’s attempts to deregulate employers while tying up workers’ capacity to resist.

The interviews with Emily Wright, community organizer based near the site of the derailment; Ross Grooters, a locomotive engineer and co-chair of Railroad Workers United; and Julia Rock, an investigative reporter with The Lever tell a cautionary tale everyone in the UK should know about.

 Please think of this next time you hear a government minister chuntering on about “modernisation” and “outdated practices” and pass this on.

“Bomb Train” in Ohio Sickens Residents After Railroad Cutbacks, Corporate Greed Led to Toxic Disaster | Democracy Now!

“Bomb Train” in Ohio Sickens Residents After Railroad Cutbacks, Corporate Greed Led to Toxic Disaster

By Emily Wright, Julia Rock, Ross Grooters, Amy Goodman, and Juan Gonzáles - Democracy Now!, February 13, 2023

Fears of a wider health and environmental disaster are growing, after a 150-car freight train operated by Norfolk Southern derailed and a so-called controlled burn released toxic chemicals last week in East Palestine, Ohio. Residents reported seeing a fireball and mushroom cloud of smoke fill the skyline. Data released by the Environmental Protection Agency shows the train contained more toxic and carcinogenic chemicals than initially reported, including phosgene, a poisonous gas that has been used as a chemical weapon in war. Officials lifted an evacuation order for residents last Wednesday, saying the air and water were safe, but residents have reported sore throats, burning eyes and respiratory problems, and wildlife has been found dead. Meanwhile, scrutiny has turned onto Norfolk Southern, which in recent years has challenged regulatory laws aimed at making the rail industry safer and made mass cuts to railroad staffing while spending billions on stock buybacks and executive compensation. We get an update from Emily Wright, community organizer based near the site of the derailment; Ross Grooters, a locomotive engineer and co-chair of Railroad Workers United; and Julia Rock, an investigative reporter with The Lever.

E. Palestine Ohio Train Wreck, Greed & Systemic Crisis In US Rail System With RWU Gabe Christenson

Railroad Nationalization Must Be Part of the Green New Deal

By Mayor Seidel - Sewer Socialists, February 5, 2023

In December, Congress and the Biden Administration forced a deal on railroad workers and stripped them of their right to strike. This made two things clear: how draconian the private freight railroads are to their workers, and yet how essential they are to the functioning of the country. Equally, private railroads are not only essential to the economy, but to the climate. Transportation is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than any other sector, including electricity generation. Within transportation, among the modes primarily used for freight (trucks, rail, and boats), railroads were responsible for only 7% of emissions despite carrying 27% of cargo (in ton-miles). Despite being a net reducer of emissions by taking trucks off the roads, the private railroads are avowed enemies of climate action. Afraid of losing their lucrative coal-hauling traffic, the same four railroads who Congress acted on behalf of have spent millions to lobby against climate action and deny climate change. Capitalists who bankroll climate deniers own the most important system of low-carbon infrastructure on the continent.

The effects of the existing freight railroads on climate change, both good and ill, are minuscule compared to the unrealized potential that they hold. The railroads would have a higher share of freight traffic if not for the shortsighted management of their private ownership. Additionally, 57% of transportation emissions come from “light duty vehicles,” i.e. passenger cars. The strongest opportunities to eliminate car trips are in urban centers, by building inviting pedestrian spaces, safe bicycle infrastructure and robust public transit networks. At the same time, to build a credible alternative to automobile travel, these green transportation systems must be connected to one another into metropolitan and intercity rail networks. This cannot be done without the infrastructure that, outside the Northeast, is controlled by the private freight railroads.

The private railroads are hostile to passenger service, which they see as a threat to their freight operations. Amtrak publishes a “report card” each year, ranking the private freight railroads by how much they delayed passenger trains. In 2021, at least 20% of riders were delayed on more than half of state-supported routes and 14 of 15 long-distance routes. The private railroads even hold back some commuter railroad services. Several Metra lines serving suburban Chicagoland are operated under “purchase-of-service” agreements with freight railroads, leaving commuters at the mercy of their private owners. Newer systems like Virginia’s VRE that use private freight corridors must negotiate complicated and expensive agreements with host railroads to expand service. Confronting climate change must include rationalizing the relationship between freight and passenger rail service, both of which are essential to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Railroads Must Be Brought Under Public Ownership

By General Executive Board - United Electrical Workers, January 30, 2023

Statement of the UE General Executive Board

Railroads are a crucial part of our nation’s infrastructure. Nearly every sector of our economy depends on goods shipped by the railroads, which haul forty percent of all long-distance freight in the U.S., measured by ton-miles. A third of all exports travel by rail. Furthermore, the greater fuel efficiency of using rail to move both people and freight means that moving more of our transportation onto the railroads will be necessary to address the existential threat of climate change.

Yet the private owners of our nation’s Class 1 railroads have shown themselves utterly incapable of facing the challenge of the climate crisis, dealing fairly with their own workers, or even meeting the most basic needs of their customers. The railroad companies cannot even be said to be in the business of moving freight; they are merely in the business of using their monopoly control over the nation’s rail infrastructure to squeeze as much profit as possible from customers and workers at the behest of their Wall Street shareholders.

Therefore, we demand that Congress immediately begin a process of bringing our nation’s railroads under public ownership. Public ownership of part or all of their rail systems has allowed many other countries to create rail systems that can move people and goods quickly, affordably, and in an environmentally sound way. With public ownership, governments can take the long view and make crucial infrastructure investments — and prevent price-gouging.

Railroads are, like utilities, “natural monopolies.” The consolidation of the Class 1 railroads in the U.S. into five massive companies over the past several decades has made it clear that there is no “free market” in rail transportation. With most customers having no other choice, and no central authority mandating long-term planning, each individual railroad company has little incentive to make investments in infrastructure and every temptation to take as much of their income as possible as profits. Even Martin Oberman, chair of the Surface Transportation Board, the federal agency that regulates rail, has called the railroads “monopolists” who are cutting services and raising prices because “that’s the easiest way for them to get rich.”

In their endless thirst for profit, the railroads have implemented a system called “precision scheduled railroading,” which simply means operating with as few staff as possible — speed-up by another name. Shippers have been complaining about the resulting poor service for years, and during the pandemic our entire economy paid the price with snarled supply lines leading to shortages and price hikes. The railroads do not even seem interested in expanding their share of the freight market, instead seeking to extract more and more short-term profit out of customers for whom rail is the only feasible way to ship their products.

The effect on railroad workers has been even more severe. In order to implement precision scheduled railroading, the companies have imposed draconian attendance policies which make it virtually impossible for railroad workers to take any time off, even for medical reasons. This intolerable state of affairs almost led to a railroad strike at the end of last year, until President Biden and Congress — clearly willing to intervene in the “market” when workers threaten to withdraw their labor — imposed a contract on the workers that did not even contain the workers’ bottom-line demand of adequate sick leave.

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