Vol. 79/No. 10      March 23, 2015

“The government is not concerned about the safety of the public,” Chris Yeandel, an engineer and chairman of Locomotive Engineers Division 689 of the Teamsters at Canadian Pacific Railway in Montreal, told the Militant in a Feb. 21 interview. “The new regulations only deal with the companies having enough insurance to cover accidents — that is after there is a derailment and a town blows up.” Yeandel also chairs the local’s health and safety committee.

The government-appointed Transportation Security Board conducted a review of the Lac-Mégantic disaster last August, saying that Transport Canada, the federal agency responsible for regulating the railroads, allowed the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway to continually break its own security rules.

Oil shipments by train across Canada and the U.S. have increased dramatically in recent years, as production has outstripped pipeline capacity. In 2014, rail lines in North America carried more than 1.2 million oil tankers.

Just days after the government announced these new laws, the Transportation Security Board released reports that pointed to neglected track and maintenance as major factors in two other derailments.

“There used to be 4,300 and now there are 3,000 workers” at Canadian Pacific, Yeandel said. “But we are doing the same amount of work. Everything CP does is for profit. They have cut back on maintenance. They have leased or sold most of their locomotives, which means the ones they have kept don’t go in for maintenance as often. Combined with engineer fatigue, this means that another Lac-Mégantic is a matter of time.”

The Teamsters organize the majority of workers on the railways in Canada. In recent negotiations with Canadian Pacific, they’ve raised reducing mandatory hours and overtime that cause workers’ fatigue. In February, workers at Canadian Pacific struck for a day before the federal government began preparing back-to-work legislation, and union officials accepted binding arbitration.

“I think there is a change in the unions because something needs to happen,” Yeandel said. “People are starting to band together and it is time for all the unions to help each other.”

Auditor General Michael Ferguson issued a report in November stating that the rail bosses carried out a paltry 14 safety audits over the last three years on the 31 railways Transport Canada is responsible for, just a quarter of the number required. Most “were narrowly focused and provided assurance on only a few aspects of railway safety management systems,” Ferguson said. Rail workers initiate forums to discuss fight for safety

 
 
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Rail workers initiate forums to discuss fight for safety
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