Ohio

By Robert Bartlett - Solidarity, February 22, 2023

In the wake of the bipartisan congressional imposition of a rail contract in December, there has been a focus on the inability to at least provide some sick days for rail workers, a “privilege” they have never had. What is lost in centering the dispute on that admittedly absurd denial is the overall deterioration of work conditions in an industry which has always been known for its focus on profits over safety for both workers and the communities through which trains pass.

The train derailment in eastern Ohio has brought the consequences of putting profit over safety into sharp focus for those willing to look beyond the catastrophic predictions of doom should rail workers be allowed to strike. Before going into the detailed analysis of the Ohio disaster provided by the cross-craft group Railroad Workers United (RWU) https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Special-Report–Monster-Train-Wreck-in-Ohio.html?soid=1116509035139&aid=fzMOujXbqBo let me describe some of the trends in how the railroads have traditionally operated from when I first hired out as a brakeman on the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad (now consolidated into the Union Pacific) in 1974. I speak with the most familiarity of what train crews coped with every day.

In 1974 when decent paying industrial jobs were relatively easy to find, the turnover on my railroad was constant. My first week on the job consisted of being in a training class with about 15 other new hires. We spent a week learning some rudiments of the job and the “Rule Book” which detailed all the safety rules that we were supposed to follow. People used to joke that every rule was based upon some accident that either caused an injury or death to a rail worker and there was certainly truth to that. The skill that they focused on was on how to get on and off moving equipment, i.e. engines and rail cars. This is an inherently dangerous thing to do under any circumstance, since if you miss getting your foot into the “stirrup” at the bottom of the ladder on the side of a boxcar you at best might be dragged alongside the car until you extracted yourself or in the worst case you might be run over by the wheels and either dismembered or killed. You were expected to do this at all times of the day or night, in conditions of rain, sleet, or snow.

Once you got on, you were expected to climb to the top of boxcars to tighten or loosen manual brakes -all while the train was moving. Newer boxcars were safer in that the brakes were only about 5 feet off the ground, while older rolling stock had brakes at the top of the car. These antiquated cars should have either been retired or retrofitted with lower brakes, but the practice of railroads was to use the equipment until it wore out. Eventually in the 1990s the rules changed and to get on and off the car or engine, it needed to be standing.

In a class of 15, like the one I was in, more than half of the people quit the job within months. It wasn’t the dangerous conditions so much that forced people to look for another job, it was the irregular schedule of never knowing when you were going to be called into work. When a recession hit the economy around 1980, and with the decline of industries like steel and auto, those other high paying semi-skilled union jobs largely disappeared and then the turnover slowed down. Recently, with the worsening of conditions in all the rail crafts, turnover has increased even in rural areas where a rail job used to be highly coveted and clung to in the midst of the depopulation of small towns. 

By Kenny Stancil - Common Dreams, February 21, 2023

"Rank-and-file railroad workers can diagnose and fix the problems. We will believe Pete Buttigieg is serious when he starts talking about public ownership of critical railroad infrastructure and enacting some of our solutions."

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg's newly unveiled plan to improve railroad safety is inadequate, an inter-union alliance of rail workers declared Tuesday.

The U.S. Department of Transportation's (USDOT) blueprint for holding rail corporations accountable and protecting the well-being of workers and affected communities comes after a Norfolk Southern-owned train overloaded with vinyl chloride and other carcinogenic chemicals crashed in East Palestine, Ohio on February 3, precipitating a toxic spill and fire that has sparked fears of air pollution and groundwater contamination.

In contrast to the hundreds of U.S. derailments that go largely unnoticed each year, the unfolding environmental and public health disaster on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border has helped expose the dangerous consequences of the Wall Street-driven transformation and deregulation of the freight rail industry—a long-standing process intensified by the Trump administration and so far unchallenged by the Biden administration.

"Profit and expediency must never outweigh the safety of the American people," Buttigieg—who has yet to exercise his authority to restore previously gutted rules and was mulling an industry-backed proposal to further weaken federal oversight of train braking systems as recently as February 10, according toThe Lever—said Tuesday in a statement.

"We at USDOT are doing everything in our power to improve rail safety," said Buttigieg, "and we insist that the rail industry do the same—while inviting Congress to work with us to raise the bar."

USDOT called on Norfolk Southern and other rail carriers to "provide proactive advance notification to state emergency response teams when they are transporting hazardous gas tank cars through their states instead of expecting first responders to look up this information after an incident occurs" and to "provide paid sick leave," among other things.

The department also urged Congress to increase how much it can penalize companies for safety violations, noting that "the current maximum fine, even for an egregious violation involving hazardous materials and resulting in fatalities, is $225,455." As Buttigieg tweeted, "This is not enough to drive changes at a multibillion-dollar company like Norfolk Southern."

Finally, USDOT committed to strengthening its regulation of the rail industry by "advancing the train crew staffing rule, which will require a minimum of two crew members for most railroad operations," and by "initiating a focused safety inspection program on routes over which high-hazard flammable trains (HHFTs) and other trains carrying large volumes of hazardous material travel," among other proposals.

"Each of these steps," the agency said, "will enhance rail safety in the United States."

But according to Railroad Workers United (RWU), which focused in particular on the issue of train crew staffing, "there are too many holes" in Buttigieg's plan to ensure the safety of the nation's rail system.

"As currently written, the proposed rule could allow for numerous instances of single-crew operations in the coming years," RWU tweeted. The alliance also shared a letter it sent to USDOT last September accusing the Federal Railroad Administration of "attempting to placate unions, community groups, and the general public on the one hand with a 'two-person train crew rule' while, on the other hand, signaling a green light to the industry to run trains with a single crew member."

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.

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?

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.

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!

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.

By Kenny Stancil - Common Dreams, February 14, 2023

The transportation secretary's refusal to fortify freight train regulations and crack down on Norfolk Southern "only signals to the railroads that this type of incident will be tolerated," said one watchdog.

Progressives are demanding that U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg improve rail safety regulations in response to the unfolding public health disaster in East Palestine, Ohio—the site of a recent fiery train crash and subsequent "controlled release" of toxic fumes that critics say was entirely avoidable.

"The Obama administration attempted to prevent dangerous derailments like the one in East Palestine by mandating better brake systems on freight trains," Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, said Tuesday in a statement. "But this effort was watered down thanks to corporate pressure, first by writing in many exemptions to the proposed rules and then, under [former President Donald] Trump, by repealing the requirement altogether."

Recent reporting from The Lever revealed that Buttigieg's Department of Transportation (DOT) "has no intention of reinstating or strengthening the brake rule rescinded under Trump," said Hauser. "Additionally, The Leverreports that the train was not being regulated as a high-hazard flammable train, despite it clearly being both high-hazard and flammable. These types of failures to protect the public are invited by perpetual lax enforcement and laziness toward even getting back to the too-low regulatory standards under Obama."

"Now, all eyes are on Secretary Buttigieg," he continued. "For too long he has been content to continue the legacy of his deregulatory predecessor, Elaine Chao, rather than immediately moving to reverse her legacy upon becoming secretary."

"Norfolk Southern's environmental disaster is the latest in a long string of corporate malfeasance committed right under the secretary's nose," Hauser observed, referring to the company that owns the derailed train. "As I've warned before, corporations do not respect Buttigieg as a regulator."

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 Bob Hennelly - Work-Bites, February 8, 2023

Throughout the recent hazardous chemical freight train derailment in Ohio and the four-day ordeal that followed while the flaming wreck was stabilized, the one perspective that was consistently missing from the reporting was that of the union railroad workers. It didn’t matter if it was the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Associated Press , the reporting relied on interviews with local, state and federal officials as well as statements from the Norfolk Southern, the rail carrier but not the perspective of their union workers.

It was as if robots and AI were already driving the train. The entire narrative of the cataclysm was framed by officials and the corporation whose malfunctioning train was now putting workers and the community in life-threatening jeopardy. The derailment played out in the rural borderland of Ohio and Pennsylvania requiring both states to activate an emergency evacuation response.

On Friday evening, the tranquility of East Palestine, Ohio, with a population of 4,761 people, was upended when a Norfolk Southern train with 150 cars in tow, derailed sparking a conflagration that inundated the area with toxic smoke. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], 20 of the cars in train were carrying hazardous materials. 

The U.S. EPA had to start monitoring the air for carbon monoxide, oxygen hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen cyanide, phosgene, and hydrogen chloride. Throughout the weekend, firefighters did their best to keep the disabled tanker cars cool as some of the hazardous cargo burned off. The local fire chief told reporters he was concerned about the presence of vinyl chloride, a colorless, toxic, and flammable gas.

“If you are in this red zone that is on the map and you refuse to evacuate, you are risking death,” Pennsylvania’s Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) warned. “If you are within the orange area on this map, you risk permanent lung damage within a matter of hours or days.”

In initial comments, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board [NTSB] posited that the derailment of the 150-car train was most likely caused by a problem with one of the axles on one of the freight or tanker cars. The catastrophic derailment, with significant public health and environmental implications, comes a few months after President Biden and Congress imposed a contract on the nation’s rail unions that their rank and file rejected in part because it lacked paid sick days.