BOSTON – With news stories lately about train wrecks involving crude oil – the Bakken crude oil boom is fueling that – you may have wondered what steps were being taken to make sure those cars stay on the track, especially in densely populated urban areas such as Providence or Boston.
I did too, and began digging into it. Quite by accident I discovered some truly bad news, not involving crude oil tankers, but involving so-called “toxic inhalant hazard” cars, which, as it turn out, are far more dangerous.
MONTREAL – Montreal, Maine and Atlantic and three of its employees are to be charged Tuesday with criminal negligence causing death in connection with the Lac-Mégantic derailment.
Forty-seven people died after a runaway MMA crude oil train derailed and exploded there on July 6, 2013. Millions of litres of crude oil spilled in the accident.
Politics seem to be more divisive than ever, and campaigns seem to never end. The one thing that unites Americans across political and ideological lines is the need for good transportation options, and their overwhelming support for our national passenger railroad, Amtrak.
Red, blue or purple, recent polls across America in places like Kansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Illinois and North Dakota have shown huge support for Amtrak as a necessary transportation link for Americans. In other words, Americans who may disagree on a whole host of issues – from the role of government to the environment and taxes – seem to like their trains and want more of them.
CHICAGO – Grand Trunk Western Railroad Co. has been ordered to reinstate a conductor and pay him more than $244,000 in back wages and damages following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA found that the company was in violation of the whistleblower provisions of the Federal Railroad Safety Act for terminating an employee in Flint, Mich., for failing to perform an inspection of a passing train under hazardous safety conditions.
“When employees are disciplined for legally choosing not to conduct work tasks in unsafe environments, worker safety and health are clearly not the company’s priority,” said Nick Walters, OSHA’s regional administrator in Chicago. “Whistleblower protections play an important role in keeping workplaces safe. Workers should never be forced to choose between safe work practices and keeping their job.”
Grand Trunk Western Railway, a subsidiary of the Canadian National Railway, has been ordered to pay the conductor $99,324 in back wages and benefits, less applicable employment taxes, $45,000 in compensatory and $100,000 in punitive damages and reasonable attorney’s fees. The company must also remove disciplinary information from the employee’s personnel record and provide whistleblower rights information to its employees.
OSHA’s investigation upheld the employee’s allegation that the railroad terminated his employment on Feb. 26, 2013, in retaliation for reporting hazardous safety conditions and refusing to complete the dangerous tasks. Operating in dark, foggy conditions during the early morning hours of Dec. 15, 2012, the conductor did not perform a required roll-by inspection of a passing train near the Flint rail yard. The train was stopped on a bridge with a steep incline down to the river, and the conductor felt this was an unsafe location for the inspection.
Following an internal investigative hearing, the railroad removed him from service and accused him of violating the company’s policy to inspect passing trains when duties and terrain permit, and subsequently terminated the employee. OSHA’s investigation, however, found that the railroad terminated the employee in retaliation for having engaged in protected conduct under the FRSA. The investigation also found that crew members of the passing train were not held to the same standard to conduct a roll-by inspection.
Either party in these cases can file an appeal with the department’s Office of Administrative Law Judges.
OSHA enforces the whistleblower provisions of the FRSA and 21 other statutes protecting employees who report violations of various airline, commercial motor carrier, consumer product, environmental, financial reform, food safety, health care reform, nuclear, pipeline, worker safety, public transportation agency, maritime and securities laws.
Employers are prohibited from retaliating against employees who raise various protected concerns or provide protected information to the employer or to the government. Employees who believe that they have been retaliated against for engaging in protected conduct may file a complaint with the secretary of labor to request an investigation by OSHA’s Whistleblower Protection Program. Detailed information on employee whistleblower rights, including fact sheets, is available at http://www.whistleblowers.gov.
Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA’s role is to ensure these conditions for America’s working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance. For more information, visit http://www.osha.gov.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Friday announced the creation of a Railroad Safety and Security Task Force that includes state agency officials and subject matter experts.
Task force members will be responsible for making recommendations and taking actions to enhance Virginia’s capability to protect lives, property and the environment along rail lines, said McAuliffe in a press release.
Infrastructure Week 2014 will be held May 12-16 and will explore emerging solutions, innovative approaches and best practices being developed nationwide to modernize aging infrastructure.
Daily signature events will focus on major infrastructure challenges, including freight and goods movement, passenger transportation, and drinking water and wastewater treatment.
A “Jobs and Infrastructure Rally” will be held May 15 in front of the AFL-CIO building is Washington. Speakers will include AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department President Edward Wytkind, Brent Booker of North America’s Building Trades Unions, and Victor Mendez of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Print a flyer.
The events will focus the consequences of inaction and the importance of interconnected infrastructure that provides a safe, secure and competitive climate for business operations nationwide.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines solidarity as a feeling of unity between people who have the same community of interests or goals based on certain objectives and standards. Is this not what our union, and all of organized labor around the world, is truly about?
The term “solidarity” became well-known in the early 1980s from a Polish shipyard-workers trade union, under the leadership of Lech Walesa. It grew into an anti-bureaucratic social movement, using methods of civil resistance to advance the causes of workers’ rights and social change.
Nearly 35 years later, solidarity is what we need more of today.
It is important that all of our union brothers and sisters understand the meaning of solidarity.
Think of solidarity as all of our working families and our future working families standing in unity for the protection of all working families. This applies to not only our fellow SMART members, but workers of all crafts in all labor unions.
As members of a union, we know the benefits of a union contract. Or do we? Do you think your employer provides you with the benefits you and your family have out of the goodness of his or her heart?
Those wages and benefits came about from our predecessors standing tall and strong in the face of adversity, and we must continue that stand.
We must remain active in protecting ourselves and our families from the assaults of groups and corporations that are trying to downsize us. We must stand together to support the team and be part of the team.
A recent article on the SMART Transportation Division website entitled “More Americans see middle class status slipping” notes that many Americans’ sense of belonging to the middle class is that they are no longer part of it.
Your union officers are working hard for you and are trying to do the best they can. They need you and they need your support. Stand together. Stand strong. Solidarity!
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller unveiled an initiative to advance the commercial deployment of clean coal technologies.
On May 5, Rockefeller introduced two bills in the U.S. Senate: The Carbon Capture and Sequestration Deployment Act of 2014 seeks to facilitate the development and commercial deployment of Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) technologies. The Expanding Carbon Capture through Enhanced Oil Recovery Act of 2014 is an innovative approach to providing tax credits for CCS deployment. It would expand and reform the existing Section 45Q Tax Credit for Carbon Sequestration to advance capture technology through the greater use of carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) in the United States.
This bill is the result of the National Enhanced Oil Recovery Initiative (NEORI) project. For more information about the project, see http://neori.org. ““We at the SMART Transportation Division applaud Sen. Rockefeller for his leadership in introducing legislation to reform the current Q45 tax credit. This legislation will provide the necessary incentives to develop CCS technology and work to reduce the carbon footprint of our nation’s fossil energy resources. This legislation is a strong step toward ensuring that fossil resources, like coal, will have their carbon captured and be used cleanly enough to maintain their role in the U.S. energy mix for decades to come,” said SMART Transportation Division President John Previsich.
President Obama has appointed Steven J. Anthony to be the management member of the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board. His appointment was confirmed by the Senate on April 9, and he was sworn into office on May 8. Mr. Anthony’s term will expire in August 2018.
Anthony succeeds Jerome F. Kever, who had served as the management member since August 1992. Kever’s tenure of more than 21 years made him the longest serving board member in the agency’s history.
Anthony, 65, has more than 36 years of experience in the railroad industry. Prior to his appointment, he served as the senior general counsel of the Norfolk Southern Corporation from 2007 to 2012. Previously, he was a Washington representative for Norfolk Southern from 1997 to 2007, and also served as a general attorney at the company from 1981 until 1997.
Before joining Norfolk Southern, Anthony was the secretary and general counsel of the Illinois Terminal Railroad from 1978 to 1981, having joined the company as a general attorney in 1976.
Anthony earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from the University of Missouri (1971) and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Tulsa (1974). A native of Missouri, Anthony currently resides in Florida. He is a widower and the father of two adult sons.
Headquartered in Chicago, the Railroad Retirement Board provides retirement, survivor, disability, unemployment and sickness benefit payments totaling over $11 billion a year to railroad workers and their families under the Railroad Retirement and Unemployment Insurance Acts.
The agency is managed by a three-member Board comprised of a representative of rail labor, a representative of rail carriers, and a member representing the general public who serves as chairman. Anthony’s appointment was recommended by the Association of American Railroads and the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association.
International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers General Secretary-Treasurer Joe Sellers Jr. has issued the following SMART General Convention notice to all local union presidents, business managers, financial secretary-treasurers and local Transportation Division secretaries.
“Dear Brothers and Sisters:
“As you know, the SMART General Convention will be held the week of August 11, 2014. The International Constitution provides in Article Seven (7), Section 3(f), that no local union or council shall be eligible to represent or vote in the Convention unless all dues, fees and other obligations due this Association are paid in full. In order to be eligible to send delegates to the Convention, a local union’s obligations for all months through and including May 2014 must be paid in full by June 15, 2014.
“You are further advised that the number of delegates and votes to which a local union is entitled at the General Convention will be determined on the basis of each local’s administratively accredited membership as of June 1, 2014. Accordingly, it is imperative that Local Union Financial Secretary-Treasurers and Transportation Division Treasurers have their May 2014 reports and official receipts or the Transportation Division required dues confirmations filed with the General Office by June 15, 2014.”
CHICAGO – Grand Trunk Western Railroad Co. has been ordered to reinstate a conductor and pay him more than $244,000 in back wages and damages following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA found that the company was in violation of the whistleblower provisions of the 
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller unveiled an initiative to advance the commercial deployment of clean coal technologies.
President Obama has appointed Steven J. Anthony to be the management member of the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board. His appointment was confirmed by the Senate on April 9, and he was sworn into office on May 8. Mr. Anthony’s term will expire in August 2018.
International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers General Secretary-Treasurer Joe Sellers Jr. has issued the following SMART General Convention notice to all local union presidents, business managers, financial secretary-treasurers and local Transportation Division secretaries.