Ron Kaminkow

By Jeff Schuhrke - In These Times, July 25, 2022

After Biden appointed an emergency board to help resolve the labor dispute, rail workers warn: “We have the ability to stop the trains from moving.”

After waiting over two years to secure a new union contract, and still reeling from the impacts of Wall Street-ordered cost-cutting measures, 115,000 beleaguered workers who operate the nation’s freight railroads are inching closer towards a possible strike, which could come as soon as September. 

In an effort to drive down operating expenses and reward their wealthy shareholders, in recent years railroad companies have implemented ​“precision scheduled railroading,” or PSR — a version of just-in-time, lean production that centers on reducing the workforce and closing facilities. 

“For years, they cut and cut and cut. It didn’t matter which department or terminal, it was indiscriminate,” said Michael Paul Lindsey, an Idaho-based locomotive engineer with Union Pacific.

Over the past six years, the major Class I railroads like BNSF, Union Pacific, CSX and Norfolk Southern have slashed their collective workforce by 29 percent (around 45,000 workers), leaving the industry woefully understaffed and putting extra strain on workers already accustomed to long, irregular hours. 

Lindsey said the severe staffing shortages have resulted in ​“constant chaos and crisis,” with workers being called at all hours, day and night, expected to take on assignments they were not initially scheduled for. 

Cost-cutting has also meant freight trains are running with more cars and more cargo than existing infrastructure is equipped to handle, or else misrouting rail cars just to get them moving. This cost-cutting, along with a labor shortage, have been major contributors to the supply-chain crisis. 

Meanwhile, the railroad companies remain highly profitable, with owners raking in $183 billion in stock buybacks and dividends since 2010.

By Ron Kaminkow, et. al. - More Perfect Union, February 3, 2022

By Ron Kaminkow - Railroad Workers United, August 6, 2019

Docket Management System
U.S. Department of Transportation
West Building, Ground Floor, Room W12–140, Routing Symbol M–30 1200
New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590

August 6th, 2019

Comment Re: PHMSA–2019–0100, Draft Environmental Assessment for a Special Permit Request for Liquefied Natural Gas by Rail

To William S. Schoonover, Associate Administrator of Hazardous Materials Safety, and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration:

Railroad Workers United (RWU) urges you to deny the special permit requested by Energy Transport Solutions, LLC to ship large quantities of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) using unit trains of DOT-113C120W tank cars. Rail shipments of LNG would pose dramatic health, safety, and environmental risks to railroad workers and com-munities across the United States. LNG train derailments could cause fires and ex-plosions, property damage, mass injuries and fatalities - impacts that are largely ignored in PHMSA’s cursory, 23-page analysis.

As an organization of working rank & file railroad workers from all crafts and all car-riers, Railroad Workers United is deeply concerned about the casual attitude to-wards shipping LNG by rail. Over the course of the last six years or so we have wit-nessed the danger inherent in shipping Bakken crude oil by rail with limited over-sight and regulation, a danger that continues to this day.

It is obvious that the proposal to ship LNG by rail likewise is inherently dangerous for train crews, trackside communities and the public at large if it is not moved in a safe manner. Most of the oil trains which have crashed over the last six years or so - re-sulting in spills, fires, and explosions – were in fact made up of DOT-113C120W tank cars, ones of the type that apparently are being proposed now for LNG trains. Therefore, before any LNG is moved in unit trains across the U.S., Railroad Workers United recommends the following regulation:

• LNG shall not be moved by rail unless it is moved in tank cars that have been crash tested to withstand puncturing. Many of the rail cars currently in service are not capable of safely transporting LNG and should not be used in this capacity.
• Electrically Controlled Pnuematic (ECP) braking should be employed on all unit trains of LNG as a means of possibly preventing a disaster, and/or mitigating the extent of the disaster in the event of a derailment/crash.
• The longer and heavier the train, the greater the propensity for it to derail, and having derailed, the greater chance of disaster. We recommend all such dangerous trains be limited to no more than 50 cars.
• All such trains must have a minimum of at least two persons in the cab of the locomotive to ensure safe move-ment and delivery of the product, and to mitigate against disaster throughout its routing, should there be a mishap.
• Prior to departure from the originating terminal, all such trains must undergo a thorough and proper inspection by host railroad employees who are properly trained and certified to do the work.
• Prior to movement on the mainline, such trains should have an advance “high-rail” escort service to ensure that the track ahead is clear and in proper condition for the safe passage of the train.
• After a string of oil train derailments, fires and explosions, crude oil train speed was limited to 40 mph in urban areas. Unit trains of LNG should likewise be so restricted.

Only once these safety features at a minimum are adopted would RWU be comfortable in supporting the proposed shipment of LNG by rail.

Ron Kaminkow
General Secretary
Railroad Workers United

Download (PDF).

By Sydney Parker - Real Change, May 3, 2017

In our fractured political climate, it’s hard to envision a cause that could unite a rural farmer with a big-city tech worker, a union laborer with a grassroots environmentalist, or a tribal leader with a government official, but Bill Moyer thinks he’s found just the cause: Solutionary Rail.

Solutionary Rail proposes that the public electrify America’s railroads, run them on renewable energy and transform railroad corridors into electricity superhighways transmitting wind and solar energy from remote rural areas to urban centers. If enacted, Moyer said the proposal would recenter the role of rail in U.S. transportation and provide the public with a new sustainable source of economic vitality.

In other words, with Solutionary Rail, everybody wins.  

“It provides almost a psychic relief from the burden of being defined by what we oppose,” said Moyer, who serves as executive director of the Washington state-based Backbone Campaign, a nonporift that creates “artful activism.” “This offers an opportunity to be for something great, to be in dialogue with communities that we may not have anything else otherwise in common about some shared interest.”

It all began with Mike Elliott, a rail labor leader affiliated with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. In 2013, Elliott challenged Moyer to devise a “green” concept for modernization of the northern corridor railroad. Elliott is best known in Washington state for blowing the whistle on safety violations by Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) railroad. His call for change was echoed by hundreds of BNSF employees fed up with the status quo.

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.