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Railroad Workers United (RWU)

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:

Two-Hundred Years Proves Railroads Will Never Prioritize Our Safety Over Their Profits

By Robert Bellefluer - La Coalition of Citizens and Organizations Committed to Rail Safety, April 29, 2023

On Saturday, April 29, 2023, prior to the screening of Academy Award-nominated director Philippe Falardeau (“The Good Lie”) and co-producer Nancy Guerin’s four-episode documentary series, Lac-Megantic:  This Is Not an Accident, a press conference is scheduled at 2:00 P.M. Eastern in the Alterna Savings Room on the ground floor of the Centre for Social Innovation,192 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, ON M5T 2C2, Canada. Residents of Lac-Mégantic along with members of Railroad Workers United and the Sierra Club are among a lineup of those who are demanding railroad safety now. 

A tragedy that should have been prevented, Lac-Mégantic’s Citizens Coalition for Railroad Safety member Gilbert Carett recalls, “Years before July 6, 2013, residents reported the industry for rolling poorly maintained, longer and heavier convoys carrying more crude oil, propane, and other chemicals on worn-out rails.” He cites a conflict of interest when, “security inspections are made by the companies themselves and are approved by their own authorities.”

No train derailment in our railroading history showcases the systemic failure of private railroad industry more comprehensively than the tragedy of Lac-Mégantic in Quebec, Canada, when a runaway train disaster sparked a series of events revealing an abyss of corporate greed, regulatory capture, disregard for human life, and scapegoating embedded in daily private corporate operations. “We call out for a public investigation of the July 6, 2013 destruction of our downtown,” insists Carett.

From the decimation of Lac-Mégantic to a recent intentional release and burn in East Palestine, OH that ignited a chemical so deadly its use as a weapon was banned in warfare after WWI, North America can only draw upon a single conclusion: “These events reveal completely that after 200 years of North American railroading, private ownership of this industry can never possibly work. It never has, and it never will,” affirms Karl ‘Fritz’ Edler, Special Representative of Railroad Workers United, Washington D.C.

Rail Workers Group Heartened by Inclusion of Class One Railroads on 2023’s “Dirty Dozen” List of Employers Putting Workers and Communities at Risk

By Ron Kaminkow, Ross Grooters, and Jason Doering - Railroad Workers United, April 26, 2023

Today, the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) announced the Council’s annual list of twelve employers whose unsafe practices put the health and lives of workers as well as the safety of communities at risk, known as the “Dirty Dozen” employers. The nation’s big Class One Railroads - including BNSF, CSX, Kansas City Southern, Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific, Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railway – were among them, after being nominated for the distinction in February by the group Railroad Workers United (RWU).

“Rail workers have, for years, been blowing the whistle on unsafe practices of Class One Railroads,” said RWU General Secretary Jason Doering. “These employers have pushed for single-person crews; implemented Precision Scheduled Railroading where cost-cutting measures have resulted in longer, heavier trains operated with fewer workers, while cutting back on both inspections and maintenance; put in place disciplinary policies forcing sick workers into work; failed to offer paid sick time; and continued their long-standing practice of retaliating against rail workers who report safety hazards and job-related injuries.”

“The tragedy in East Palestine, Ohio in February, 2023 brought the nation’s attention to what Railroad Workers United (RWU) has been warning against for 15 years,” added RWU Co-Chair Ross Grooters. “We hope this disgraceful distinction for the Class One Railroads as a 2023 ‘Dirty Dozen’ employer gains the attention of government agencies, unions, environmental and community organizations, and others. It is past time to force Class One Railroads to make the changes needed to protect the health and lives of rail workers and the safety of communities from coast to coast.”

“We thank National COSH for accepting our nomination of Class One Rail Carriers as a 2023 ‘Dirty Dozen’ employer,” said RWU Organizer Ron Kaminkow. “This is a ‘distinction’ these rail employers have worked hard for, and they deserve to take their rightful place on this year’s ‘Dirty Dozen’ list.”

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

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

Railroad Workers United: “We Would Never Concede Our Right to Strike”

By Ron Kaminkow - Jacobin, April 15, 2023

Congressional progressives, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have defended their railroad strike vote by pointing to rank-and-file support. Here, Railroad Workers United clarifies the group has always unequivocally opposed denying railworkers their right to strike.

On April 11, 2023, Jacobin published a transcript of an interview by editor at large David Sirota with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In the context of a general discussion about differences between the “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party and the Biden administration, the subject of the vote to break the strike of the railroad workers came up.

In defending her votes — one to approve seven days of sick leave for railworkers and one to support the president’s bill to block the strike — Ocasio-Cortez states that she was acting on the wishes of Railroad Workers United (RWU) and other groups of railroad workers. She states in the interview, “When you look after the vote, folks like RWU were saying, ‘This is what we asked them to do.” Later she says, “Because, for example, with the rail vote, the only partners that I had leading up to that were railworkers. And if that’s what they asked us to do, then that’s what we did.”

But Ocasio-Cortez is clouding the reality of the situation by referring to “the vote,” when in fact there were two separate and distinctive votes. One bill proposed seven days of paid sick time, while the other bill blocked railworkers from striking; these bills were completely independent of one another.

What Union Pacific and the media aren’t telling you about the Baker, CA, train derailment

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