Lac-Mégantic

By Maggie Trowe - The Militant, September 14, 2015; image by Jon Flanders

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.

Railroad Workers United will sponsor a one-day conference titled “Railroad Safety: Workers, Community and the Environment” Sept. 19 in Chicago. The RWU is organizing the event with labor and environmental groups, including United Steelworkers Local 1527, Frack Free Illinois and the Southeast Environmental Task Force. It is a follow-up to earlier conferences in Richmond, California, and Olympia, Washington.

“The 2013 Lac-Mégantic disaster put a spotlight on how rail bosses put profits ahead of safety and made these conferences necessary and possible,” Mark Burrows, a steering committee member of Railroad Workers United and delegate in SMART TD Local 1433 union, told the Militant in a phone interview Sept. 1.

On July 6, 2013, an unmanned runaway 72-car Montreal, Main and Atlantic train carrying volatile crude oil derailed and exploded in downtown Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killing 47 people, destroying the downtown area and dumping millions of gallons of oil into the soil and lake there. The catastrophe commanded worldwide attention and spurred concern about the dangers posed by the massive increase of North American oil production and its transport by train through the centers of cities and towns across the continent.

By Mark Gruenberg - People's World, August 26, 2015

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.

Rail workers scored a big safety win in California on August 21 as state lawmakers gave final approval to a bill mandating two-person crews on all freight trains.

The measure, pushed by the Teamsters and their California affiliates, the Rail Division of SMART - the former United Transportation Union - and the state labor federation, now goes to Gov. Jerry Brown, D-Calif., who is expected to sign it.

Rail unions nationwide have been pushing for the two-person crews while the rail carriers have been pushing for just one, an engineer. Several months ago, the head of one carrier, the Burlington Northern, advocated crewless freights.

The unionists told lawmakers presence of a second crew member would cut down on horrific crashes such as the one that obliterated downtown Lac-Megantic, Quebec, two years ago. Then, a runaway oil train crashed and exploded, killing 47 people. That train had only an engineer. There has been a string of similar U.S. accidents since, especially of oil-carrying trains. Recent oil train accidents were near Galena, Ill., Lynchburg, Va., and in West Virginia.

The proposed California statute requires trains and light engines carrying freight within the nation's largest state - home to one of every eight Americans - to be operated with "an adequate crew size," reported Railroad Workers United, a coalition of rank-and-file rail workers from SMART, the Teamsters and other unions.

The minimum adequate crew size, the bill says, is two. Railroads that break the law would face fines and other penalties from the state Public Utilities Commission. The commission supported the bill, SB730.

By Dancing Crow Media - Dancing Crow Media, June 23rd, 2015

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.

COIL (coal & oil) Forum held @ Gonzaga Law Library, June 23rd, 2015 - Full version from Dancing Crow Media on Vimeo.

Featuring Eric DePlace from the Sightline Institute, Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart, Twa-le Abrahamson-Swan from the Spokane Tribe, Jen Wallis from Railroad Workers United and Jace Bylenga from the Sierra Club.

By Steve Zeltser - The Daily Censored, February 16, 2015

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 epidemic of refinery explosions and derailments  leading to massive explosions seem to increase by the week. Behind this collapse of health and safety protection according to advocates is the failure to protect health and safety whistleblowers. The fear of workers to complain about serious health and safety problems is a key part of this failure. Now a Federal lawyer at OSHA Darrell Whitman has charged along with health and safety whistleblowers that the agency management and the DOL have not been enforcing the law to protect not only the whistleblowers but the health and safety of all Americans.

In an explosive document sent to Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez in May 2014, Federal OSHA attorney Darrell Whitman, charged that there is systemic corruption in the agency that is preventing the protection of health and safety whistleblowers. As a result of making these charges with extensive documentation, Whitman has himself become a target of workplace bullying and moves to terminate him from the agency. In fact according to Whipple his supervisor Joshua Paul who is also an attorney at the agency ordered him to falsify federal documents  which is a criminal felony. On February 21, 2015 the agency sent a mover to his house and took his documents and badge preventing him from doing his work.
Whitman has a lot of years under his belt. He has been working over 10 years for state and Federal agencies so he knows a bit about how the Federal government operates.

His latest job was as an investigator in the OSHA program that investigates health and safety complaints by workers in industries from oil, rail, trucking and other companies in OSHA region 9 which covers nearly 40 million workers in the West.
As one of the 6 OSHA staff in this unit, there have been only three that actually doing investigations. Whitman investigates whether OSHA complaints by workers are valid and then makes a determination of whether or not their complaints are serious enough to gain a merit status. Under Federal law this merit status provides full back pay and can provide punitive damages to workers who are terminated for making their health and safety complaints.

By John Paul Wright - YouTube and Soundcloud, January 26, 2015

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.

Register now for the Future of Railroads: Safety, Workers, Community & the Environment Conferences: Richmond, California (March 14, 2015) and Olympia, Washington (March 22, 2015) - railroadconference.org

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, January 26, 2015

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 following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Stories:

• The Agents of Unregulated Globalization vs. the Agents of the Fight against Climate Change - By Jeanette Bonifaz, Center for Economic and Policy Research, January 9, 2015

Crude by Rail:

• CSX reports record fourth quarter results - Trains [paywall alert], January 21, 2015
• Federal Court Order: Explosive DOT-111 "Bomb Train" Oil Tank Cars Can Continue to Roll - By Steve Horn, DeSmog Blog, January 23, 2015
• Interim Settlement Reached in Lac Megantic Oil Train Disaster, but Culprits Say "It Wasn't Us" - By Roger Annis, Truthout, January 22, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Alberta One Of Hardest Hit By Lower Oil Prices - By Andy Tully, OilPrice.Com, January 20, 2015
• Baker Hughes to lay off 7,000 - By Jennifer Hiller, FuelFix, January 20, 2015
• BHP to cut 40 percent of its U.S. shale drilling - By Jennifer Hiller, FuelFix, January 21, 2015
• Halliburton suggests North American layoffs could come - By Jennifer Hiller, FuelFix, January 20, 2015

Green Jobs and Just Transition:

• A Boom in Solar Jobs - By Rick Cohen, Nonprofit Quarterly, January 22, 2015
• In US, There Are Twice as Many Solar Workers as Coal Miners - By Kirsten Korosec, Fortune, January 17, 2015

Other News of Interest:

• Brazilian Workers, Students Battle Fare Hikes Pushed By Workers Party - By Steve Payne, In These Times, January 22, 2015
• Building Bridges with MST - By La Via Campesina South Asia, La Via Campesina, January 20, 2015
• Elizabeth Mpofu speaks before 50,000 people at the “we are fed up” demonstration - La Via Campesina, January 21, 2015
• Kosovo miners return from underground, ending 3-day strike - By Andrew Topf, Mining.Com, January 26, 2015
• 150-foot span of Willits Bypass collapses into Haehl Creek; Several workers injured - By Adrian Baumann and Michael Mott, Willits News, January 22, 2015
• Oil And Gas Production Is Exposing Californians To At Least 15 Different Kinds Of Pollutants - By Katie Valentine, Think Progress, January 22, 2015
• Outside Senators’ Clean Water Act proposal threatens Bristol Bay salmon, culture, jobs - By Tim Bristol, Save Bristol Bay, January 22, 2015
• Report faults Chevron - By D Ross Cameron, Contra Costa Times, January 24, 2015
• Scientists and Doctors Sound Alarm Over Health Dangers of Oil Spill Dispersants - By Dahr Jamail, Truthout, January 20, 2015
• Stop the Free Trade Agreements [brochure] - La Via Campesina, January 20, 2015
• U.S. refinery workers, oil firms start talks for new contract - By Erwin Seba, Reuters, January 21, 2015
• Via Campesina solidarity visit to Douro small wine growers - By La Via Campesina News Team, La Via Campesina, January 20, 2015

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC

By Jenny Brown - Labor Notes, December 3, 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.

Paul Proudlock went to bed at midnight to calibrate his sleep for a freight train he was to drive at 2 p.m. the next day. At 2:15 a.m., a Canadian Pacific dispatcher called him and asked him to take a passenger train in three hours.

“I’m not rested,” Proudlock is heard explaining in a company recording. The dispatcher threatened to discipline him and cancel his 2 p.m. train. “You’re obligated to go. If you answer the phone, you have to go.”

“No, I’m not,” said Proudlock. “I’m obligated to do the safe thing first… I drive a train.”

This kind of pressure is commonplace, according to railroad and airline workers. They say managers push workers to pilot planes, trains, and buses when they are too tired to safely do so. The stakes are high for the workers—and for the general public.

3/4 FELL ASLEEP

In a survey of freight train operators conducted by the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, 96 percent said they had gone to work tired. More alarmingly, three-quarters said they fell asleep while working—in the previous month. Among those who, like Proudlock, turned down jobs because of fatigue, 43 percent said they faced investigation or discipline.

“They’ll pressure people… and people don’t know what leg to stand on,” said CSX locomotive engineer J.P. Wright, who is based in Kentucky. “There are so many gray areas in the contract, if you could see a flow chart, it’s like a Merrie Melodies crazy cartoon.”

The railroads claim they don’t push people to work tired. Regulators scolded Canadian Pacific in the Proudlock case.

The main problem with freight railroads, said Wright, is that “they’ve short-staffed everything to the bone.” So when somebody takes time off, others have to unexpectedly fill in, creating cascades of scheduling complexity.

While rest times were increased in a 2008 rewrite of railroad scheduling rules, fatigue problems persist.

And regulations don’t help if the penalties are low, along with the chances of being fined. “I was just told, on a recorded CSX line, that they knew specifically they were violating the rest law but they would just go ahead and pay the fine,” said Wright, who is co-chair of the cross-union caucus Railroad Workers United.

By Justin Mikulka - DeSmog Blog, October 23, 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.

Earlier this month Hunter Harrison, the CEO of Canadian Pacific told the Globe and Mail that he thought regulators have “overreacted” to the oil-by-rail disaster in Lac-Megantic that killed 47 people.

“Lac-Mégantic happened, in my view, because of one person’s behaviour, if I read the file right,” Harrison said.

As detailed by DeSmogBlog, he didn’t read the file right. The accident was directly related to lack of regulation and the railroads putting profits before safety.

Harrison’s choice of words echoed those of American Petroleum Institute CEO Jack Gerard commenting on the new proposed oil-by-rail regulations when he stated: “Overreacting creates more challenges than safety.”

Yea, that’s right, according to Big Oil and Big Rail, the biggest threat to the 25 million people living in the bomb train blast zones is the overreaction of regulators.

The rail industry is now spending a lot of time pushing back on the new regulations on train speed. As anyone with a basic understanding of physics knows, the speed of the train is a critical factor in the severity of any accident.

Gregory Saxton, chief engineer for rail tank manufacturer Greenbriar, made that clear at a National Transportation Safety Board conference on oil-by-rail safety in April.

“Kinetic energy is related to the square of velocity. So if you double the speed, you have four times as much energy to deal with,” argued Saxton. “Speed is a big deal.”

Speed is also a big deal when it comes to profits. Canadian Pacific’s Harrison recently explained to the Wall Street Journal that his main focus on improving profits was on increasing train speeds, “This next stage of growth is driven by a lot of things, a little bit here, a little bit there, but it’s effectively all the things that impact train speed and train velocity.”

And just as Harrison has arrived at his own incorrect conclusion about Lac-Megantic, he has once again ignored the facts when it comes to the relationship of speed to rail safety. DeSmogBlog reported Harrison’s comments earlier this year on a conference call talking to investors about rail safety.

“I don’t know of any incidents with crude that’s being caused by speed. We keep slowing down in this North American network over the years. We don’t get better with speed. We get worse.”