Vol. 79/No. 3      February 2, 2015

“No worker has to die!” Glova Scott, Socialist Workers Party candidate for City Council in Washington, D.C., told transit workers Jan. 18. “The workers themselves have to be in charge of all health and safety procedures. We need to build fighting unions to organize this.” Six days earlier Carol Glover was killed when a city Metro subway train was stranded and engulfed with smoke for more than an hour. More than 80 other passengers were injured.

Rail bosses are pushing to impose the one-person “crew” — with only an engineer on the train — as part of contract negotiations on freight lines across North America. Already working people are paying a growing price in life and limb for the rail bosses’ greed. Trains have grown longer — some now exceed two miles. And the amount of highly volatile fracked crude oil being transported daily has skyrocketed. The bosses press rail workers to run longer trains and work on smaller crews with less rest.

The bosses disregard for safety means more disasters like the 2013 wreck of an oil train in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people. These aren’t “accidents” — they are inevitable as long as the bosses are allowed the final say over working conditions.

Recent passenger train derailments have had deadly consequences. In 2013 alone, six were killed and nearly 200 injured in a derailment south of Paris, 79 were killed in Spain, five in Mexico, and four in a December derailment in the Bronx, N.Y. Amtrak bosses in Washington, D.C., recently tried to eliminate an entire shift in the yard there, making all remaining jobs 12 hours long.

Rail workers are fighting back against the erosion of working conditions and carriers’ demands for crew reductions. Workers on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, backed by family members and many who live along the tracks, overwhelmingly defeated the railroad’s demand for one-man trains last September.

The rail unions should demand reduction of train length to 50 cars; limit the working day to eight hours, with adequate rest; return the caboose to every train and double the crew size to four; and 100 percent union control over working conditions.

In their relentless efforts to boost profit rates, the owners of the railroads, factories, mines and mills are targeting the living standards, working conditions and safety of all workers. In response, workers’ resistance is growing. Fights like the battle against the one-man “crew” in rail are part of the broader fight for workers control of conditions on the job, enforced by union power.



Related articles:
‘Workers need to fight for control of safety on the job’
DC socialist: Bosses at fault for subway death
Airport workers across U.S. rally to demand higher pay
Rail workers discuss fight against bosses’ attack on safety, crew size
 
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home