Vol. 78/No. 19      May 19, 2014

Only the use of union power by working people can protect the lives of train workers, commuters and residents who live near tracks. Government safety bureaucrats openly seek a “balance” between safety and profit, while their main function is to cover for the bosses and ensure the profit system is not impinged.

In the course of working-class struggles, we can build unions strong enough to exert control over conditions on the job. On the railroads, we could start by reducing trains to 50 cars; bring back the caboose at the rear of every train; reinstitute eight-hour days with adequate rest; and double the crew size to four — two in the back and two on the engine. We need workers control policed by unions strong enough to bring trains to a halt when necessary to impose safe operation.

We would also demand bosses open their books for workers’ inspections and lift the veil of secrecy over the capitalists’ operations and their collusion with the government against us.

These are the kind of demands we can fight for today. Such a fight would strengthen our unions, win popular support and boost the confidence of workers and farmers.

It’s also important to recognize that energy production and its transport — whether by train or pipeline — is not the problem. In fact, class-conscious workers champion the expansion of energy production and industrialization, particularly in the less developed parts of the world where the working class is growing today as capitalist exploitation reaches to every corner of the globe. This development is essential to lift out of darkness some one-third of the world’s human population who lack access to electricity; to accelerate the growth of literacy, culture and working-class forms of struggle; to bring the conditions and experiences of workers in the imperialist countries and semicolonial world closer together; and provide new opportunities for international solidarity in action.

The growing numbers of oil train disasters, the recent natural gas explosion in New York that brought down two apartment buildings, the injuries and deaths of construction workers, assembly workers, miners, meat packers and more, show how and for whom capitalism is run.

This points to why workers and farmers, for the sake of humanity and nature, must build a movement that can advance a working-class course toward taking political power in the U.S. and around the world.
 
 
Related articles:
Oil, rail bosses’ profit drive causes yet another fiery train explosion
Illinois socialist candidate: Close down ‘petcoke’ site
Chicago rally protests ‘petcoke’ dust near neighborhood
Statement by Eleanor García, Socialist Workers candidate for California governor
 
 
 
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