transportation workers

By Julia Rock and Rebecca Burns - The Lever, February 10, 2023

Pete Buttigieg’s Transportation Department has not moved to revive an Obama-era safety rule that could help prevent future train accidents and derailments.

In the aftermath of a fiery Ohio train derailment, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s department has not moved to reinstate an Obama-era rail safety rule aimed at expanding the use of better braking technology, even though a former federal safety official recently warned Congress that without the better brakes, “there will be more derailments [and] more releases of hazardous materials.”

Instead, transportation regulators have been considering a rail-industry-backed proposal that could weaken existing brake safety rules.

Most of the nation’s freight trains — including the Norfolk Southern train that derailed in Ohio — continue to rely on a Civil War-era braking system. Norfolk Southern belongs to a lobby group that successfully pressed President Donald Trump to repeal a 2015 rule requiring newer, safer electronic braking systems in some trains transporting hazardous materials, The Lever reported Wednesday.

The Department of Transportation's most recent regulatory agenda — which lists all planned, proposed, and final rules — does not include an ECP brake rule.

When asked if the better braking technology would have reduced the severity of the Ohio accident, Steven Ditmeyer, a former senior official at the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), said, “Yes.”

By David Sirota, Julia Rock, Rebecca Burns, and Matthew Cunningham-Cook - The Lever, February 8, 2023

Norfolk Southern helped convince government officials to repeal brake rules — and corporate lobbyists watered down hazmat safety regs.

Before this weekend’s fiery Norfolk Southern train derailment prompted emergency evacuations in Ohio, the company helped kill a federal safety rule aimed at upgrading the rail industry’s Civil War-era braking systems, according to documents reviewed by The Lever.

Though the company’s 150-car train in Ohio reportedly burst into 100-foot flames upon derailing — and was transporting materials that triggered a fireball when they were released and incinerated — it was not being regulated as a “high-hazard flammable train,” federal officials told The Lever.

Documents show that when current transportation safety rules were first created, a federal agency sided with industry lobbyists and limited regulations governing the transport of hazardous compounds. The decision effectively exempted many trains hauling dangerous materials — including the one in Ohio — from the “high-hazard” classification and its more stringent safety requirements.

Amid the lobbying blitz against stronger transportation safety regulations, Norfolk Southern paid executives millions and spent billions on stock buybacks — all while the company shed thousands of employees despite warnings that understaffing is intensifying safety risks. Norfolk Southern officials also fought off a shareholder initiative that could have required company executives to “assess, review, and mitigate risks of hazardous material transportation.”

By Chris Saltmarsh - The Ecologist, February 6, 2023

A review of Derailed: How to Fix Britain’s Railways, by Tom Haines-Doran, published by Manchester University Press.

As climate change intensifies, the imperative to shift our transport system away from polluting private cars to public transport – rail in particular – becomes increasingly urgent.

At the same time, amid an inflationary crisis, rail workers are at the forefront of a nationwide wave of strike action defending pay and conditions.

In Derailed: How to Fix Britain’s Broken Railways, Tom Haines-Doran puts the UK’s rail system in these political-economic contexts with a compelling account of its history, present conditions and future possibilities.

By Jarlath Molloy and Finlay Asher - Green Air News, January 27, 2023

This year begins with a reflective assessment of the aviation sector’s climate credentials and the challenges it faces, write Jarlath Molloy and Finlay Asher, who point out this may not be an easy read for some, as there are many barriers to overcome. The strategy so far has been to stick our heads in the sand and ignore these, they say. Yet there are pathways to a safe landing and the costs of doing something are less than the costs of doing nothing. In this article the authors look to shine a spotlight on aviation’s full climate impact and how the sector alone could put us over the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement. They highlight the common failings of the sector’s hypothetical decarbonisation pathways and propose an alternative to the sectors’ net zero aspirational goals – which will feel radical to industry leaders but are consistent with how other sectors are setting science-based targets.

As a group of scientists, engineers, air traffic controllers, pilots and airline workers, climate change keeps Safe Landing members up at night. We worry about the future and our legacy to our children. Meaningful action and change is frustratingly slow, despite all the warnings about planetary boundaries^[i], tipping points^[ii] and the costs of inaction in response to climate and biodiversity crises. We should have the confidence to critically ask ourselves whether the sector’s environmental practitioners can have any hope in terms of impact, relevance or effectiveness^[iii].

Aviation greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reached one billion tonnes of CO₂ emissions pre-Covid^[iv] and are expected to pass this again in the near future^[v]. This threshold is also known as a ‘carbon bomb’. But of course the bomb is even bigger because most of the sector has historically refused to recognise its non-CO₂ emissions impact. While it is true this is more complex to measure^[vi], the data and tools exist to assess the full climate impact the aviation sector is responsible for^[vii] and to confidently reduce non-CO₂ emissions.

How did we get here? This problem has been 30 years in the making. Heads of states from around the world agreed the formation of the UNFCCC in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit and to stabilise GHG emissions in the atmosphere to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. Action on aviation GHG emissions was deferred by giving the problem to ICAO. In 2015 the Paris Agreement refined our collective ambition to limit climate change to 1.5°C this century, with GHG emissions to peak “as soon as possible” and reach net zero by 2050.

It took exactly 30 years from the Earth Summit at Rio for governments (and industry) to set GHG emission targets for the aviation sector, in 2022, but which are still only aspirational^[viii] and fall short of what is required to achieve the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C temperature goal^[ix]. This was in spite of ICAO commissioning a special report from the UNFCCC on aviation’s climate change impact in 1997^[x] and a slew of scientific studies and research since then on the same topic. Despite its name, ICAO’s flagship initiative known as CORSIA (Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation)^[xi] won’t reduce^[xii] aviation GHG emissions. Instead, it relies on offsets from other sectors to keep carbon emissions from international flights below a 2019 baseline.

By Union Jake and Adam - Valley Labor Report, January 16, 2023

By Union Jake and Adam - Valley Labor Report, January 13, 2023

By Laurel Paget-Seekins - Transit Center, January 4, 2023

There are not enough people working at transit agencies to provide the service our communities need. This problem existed before the pandemic, but it has evolved into a crisis. 

A 2015 Federal Government report on future transportation workforce needs identified a looming shortage. In 2014, over 65% of transit workers were 45 or older. The report projected annual job openings in transportation to be 68% higher than the number of students completing related education programs. 

On top of this, pandemic-related job churn hit the public sector particularly hard. The public sector quit rate reached a 20-year high in October of 2021. The American Public Transportation Association surveyed transit agencies in 2022; 92% reported difficulty with hiring, and 64% reported difficulty with retention.

Much of the reporting has highlighted vacancies in critical frontline roles, like bus and rail operators, dispatchers, and mechanics and maintenance workers. In July 2022, TransitCenter released a report that outlined causes behind and solutions to the national bus operator shortfall. However, transit agencies are also struggling to maintain fully staffed administrative, planning, engineering, and capital planning departments. In a November 2022 report, the Maryland Transit Administration reported vacancy rates over 10% in support departments like accounting, HR, engineering, IT, procurement and training.

Shortages in these roles can have a direct impact on customer experience, and can slow-down improvement projects like new customer information or capital improvements. For example, New York City DOT is behind on bus lane mileage mandated by the City’s Streets Master Plan, and a primary reason is staff shortages of planners and construction crews. 

By Shuvu Bhattarai - The Progressive, December 15, 2022

Biden forced railway workers to accept an agreement that lacked paid sick days; now rallies against the deal have spread across the country.

On December 7, outside of New York City’s Grand Central Terminal, a crowd of more than 100 Metro-North Railroad workers, airline pilots, construction workers, teachers, and activists held a solidarity rally in support of railway unions. 

The rally is the latest in a string of protests that have taken place across the country after President Joe Biden and the U.S. Congress imposed a tentative agreement on Class I freight rail workers, an agreement that had been voted down the membership of four rail unions representing a total of around 60,000 workers. The agreement grants only one additional day of paid sick leave, which was a major concern for the rail workers, many of whom are on call virtually 24/7. 

Five days before the Grand Central rally, on December 2, about 200 protesters held a demonstration outside of Boston’s JFK Museum, while Biden was visiting. They called the President a “scab” and a “strikebreaker,” chanting “striking is a human right,” and demanding sick leave for all. On December 5, around 30 people demonstrated outside of the Brooklyn home of Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer. Schumer had voted for the tentative agreement. 

On December 6, a small protest was held at the University of California, Berkeley, where striking UC Grad Workers spoke about how their struggle was connected to that of the rail workers. The next day, a group of twenty-five union members and activists in Baltimore, Maryland, gathered with similar demands.

At the Grand Central rally, which was partly coordinated by the December 12th Movement, a Black human rights organization based in New York City, organizer Omowale Clay echoed the feeling of betrayal by the Democratic establishment that’s been driving these outpourings of solidarity: “To take away the right of our brothers and sisters to strike is a violation of their human rights. To take away their right to be sick so that they can speed up and exploit us more is a violation of their human rights.” 

Justine Medina, a worker organizing with the Amazon Labor Union added, “We won our election on April 1, eight months ago, and the bosses refused to recognize Amazon Labor Union, refused to come to the table to negotiate a contract, just like the railroad workers.” 

Similar messages of support were echoed by teachers, construction workers, and others during the protest. A member of Railroad Workers United, a cross-union solidarity caucus of railroad workers, spoke of how the conditions in the job deteriorated especially over the past few years. 

By Andrew Perez - Jacobin, December 5, 2022

We spoke with a longtime BNSF conductor about the labor agreement recently imposed on railroad workers by President Biden. He says he feels betrayed by a president he thought was pro-labor and explains how his job has gotten worse over time.

Rob Kufalk is “always at the mercy of the railroad,” as his wife Mona puts it. “Our life only functions around the railroad.”

A longtime conductor for BNSF Railway, Kufalk is virtually always on call. He must be ready to get to work within ninety minutes from when the company says they need him — which can happen any time, day or night. The family lives forty-five minutes away from the terminal in La Crosse, Wisconsin, that serves as his home base. He spends a lot of time away in hotels in Chicago and Galesburg, Illinois.

Kufalk said the demands on his time have gotten worse over the years, with the industry shedding jobs to cut costs as part of its so-called “precision scheduled railroading” strategy. The situation, he said, has become unbearable since BNSF implemented a new points-based attendance policy, under which employees can be disciplined or fired for missing a call to come into work or taking an unplanned day off.

“They want us available for duty 95 percent of the time now — 24/7/365,” said Kufalk. “I try to plan for doctor’s appointments and other things and it’s almost impossible. Sometimes you just have to lay off and take the hit on the points.”

The lack of paid sick time afforded to workers was at the center of the high-stakes labor dispute between unions and giant railroad companies that came to a head last week. Through more than three years of contract negotiations, the railroads flatly refused to budge and give workers any paid sick days. The companies knew they didn’t really have to negotiate, because politicians in Washington wouldn’t risk allowing rail workers to strike and slow shipments — especially now during the holiday season — at an estimated cost to the economy of $2 billion per day.

By Union Jake, Adam, and Paul Lindsey - Valley Labor Report, December 2, 2022