Disir
Platinum Member
- Sep 30, 2011
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CHICAGO—Railroad workers from around the country and Chicago residents stood on an overpass on a recent bright September Sunday, watching a seemingly endless line of black tanker cars pass on the railroad tracks below. The train was likely carrying crude oil from the Bakken shale in North Dakota, judging by the red hazard placards on the cars and widely documented trends in crude oil shipment.
Chicagoans have become increasingly worried about oil trains carrying the highly explosive Bakken crude through the city, a major transport hub on the way to East Coast refineries. A conference hosted by the progressive labor group Railroad Workers United in Chicago Sept. 19 brought together railroad workers and local residents and train buffs to discuss how railroad workers’ safety and labor rights issues dovetail with safety and environmental concerns for the larger public.
Oil trains are a perfect example, speakers and participants at the conference noted. Just look at the July 6, 2013 disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, when a parked oil train dislodged and plowed into the town, killing 47 and causing massive destruction and ecological devastation.
The train was operated by a single crew member, engineer Thomas Harding, who now faces the possibility of life in prison, with trial starting in November.
....Railroaders similarly experience “micro-sleep” where “you don’t realize you’ve fallen asleep, and the next thing you know you are a couple miles down the road and you don’t know how you got there,” as Kurtz said.
On Sept. 22, BLET national president Dennis R. Pierce sent a letter to railroad CEOs and federal officials warning that locomotive engineers “are being forced by threat of an attendance policy violation to work when fatigued, even though such safety-critical locomotive engineers honesty believe that working in such circumstances would jeopardize safety.”
He charged that railroads’ variable work schedules and punitive attendance policies combined constitute violations of the Federal Rail Safety Act by forcing employees to work in unsafe conditions.
Railroad Work Is Getting More and More Dangerous. These Workers Want To Change That. - Working In These Times
Another fine example of profit before people.
Chicagoans have become increasingly worried about oil trains carrying the highly explosive Bakken crude through the city, a major transport hub on the way to East Coast refineries. A conference hosted by the progressive labor group Railroad Workers United in Chicago Sept. 19 brought together railroad workers and local residents and train buffs to discuss how railroad workers’ safety and labor rights issues dovetail with safety and environmental concerns for the larger public.
Oil trains are a perfect example, speakers and participants at the conference noted. Just look at the July 6, 2013 disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, when a parked oil train dislodged and plowed into the town, killing 47 and causing massive destruction and ecological devastation.
The train was operated by a single crew member, engineer Thomas Harding, who now faces the possibility of life in prison, with trial starting in November.
....Railroaders similarly experience “micro-sleep” where “you don’t realize you’ve fallen asleep, and the next thing you know you are a couple miles down the road and you don’t know how you got there,” as Kurtz said.
On Sept. 22, BLET national president Dennis R. Pierce sent a letter to railroad CEOs and federal officials warning that locomotive engineers “are being forced by threat of an attendance policy violation to work when fatigued, even though such safety-critical locomotive engineers honesty believe that working in such circumstances would jeopardize safety.”
He charged that railroads’ variable work schedules and punitive attendance policies combined constitute violations of the Federal Rail Safety Act by forcing employees to work in unsafe conditions.
Railroad Work Is Getting More and More Dangerous. These Workers Want To Change That. - Working In These Times
Another fine example of profit before people.
