Vol. 79/No. 41 November 16, 2015
They face 47 counts of criminal negligence causing death and the possibility of a life sentence. The two workers, members of United Steelworkers Local 1976, along with former manager Jean Demaitre, have a Dec. 1 hearing to discuss the date and location of their trial.
People in the Lac-Mégantic area overwhelmingly believe the charges should be dropped and instead Transport Canada officials and former MMA owners should be put in the dock.
Many regard Harding as a hero. He was awoken by the noise of the explosion. He later helped firefighters and other area workers move unexploded tanker cars away from the fire, preventing further destruction.
“We have no way of knowing what the prosecution’s case is, because they cancelled the normal preliminary hearing,” Thomas Walsh, Harding’s attorney, told the Militant by phone Oct. 29. In such hearings each side outlines their case and witnesses they intend to call, and can raise questions to clarify the issues.
The prosecution says it will ask to move the trial out of Lac-Mégantic, claiming it is unfair to Harding because it’s a French-speaking area and his first language is English. The real reason is their fear no local jury would convict the rail workers.
Disaster like Lac-Mégantic inevitable
Lac-Mégantic was a disaster waiting to happen. For the rail bosses, and their government enablers across North America, the safety of rail workers and communities takes second place to the drive to extract profits from the North Dakota Bakken oil shale fields, amid increased competition and falling oil prices.They speed up work and cut crews, cut back on maintenance and let tracks go longer between inspection and repair. They balance the odds of derailments and deaths, and the costs they bring, against the money they can save.
It’s why Montreal, Maine and Atlantic bosses fought for — and got — special permission to reduce the crew on their trains to one person. It’s why disasters like Lac-Mégantic have happened since and will happen again, and why the stakes are high for all workers in the fight to roll back the frame-up.
The charges and slander campaign against Harding have centered on the allegation he didn’t set enough hand brakes.
Because of the company’s special dispensation from the government, Harding was the only crew member. He reported to company dispatchers that he left the train after completing his 12-hour shift for his scheduled sleep. The lead engine was running, powering the air brakes, he says in a transcript of company call records, and he had set hand brakes on seven cars.
Due to negligent company maintenance, a fire broke out on the lead engine during the night. Volunteer firefighters from Nantes switched off the engine when they put the fire out. When the dispatcher informed him, Harding asked if he should go there and start another engine. Go back to sleep, the dispatcher told him, the company has sent someone else.
The company sent a track manager, was not trained on operating locomotives. He took no further steps. Without an engine powering the air compressors, the air brakes eventually bled out and the train started its deadly roll.
“This is a failure of one individual,” charged former MMA Chairman Edward Burkhardt, saying Harding just didn’t set enough hand brakes. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said an insufficient number of hand brakes was one of 18 factors contributing to the disaster, as was the rail line’s “weak safety culture.”
The hand brake issue is a calculated diversion to turn attention away from the actions of the bosses and the government and to fuel the frame-up. In both Canada and the U.S., government rail guidelines and company rules specify that a “sufficient number” of hand brakes should be applied to parked trains in case the air brakes fail or are turned off.
The railroad’s rulebook said nine should be set on a train like the one Harding was operating. The Safety Board report concludes that it would have taken at least 17 and as many as 26 hand brakes, depending on how tightly they were set, to secure the train.
But to determine what is “sufficient” requires at least two workers, taking the time necessary to set, test and observe if the brakes hold, because conditions vary. It can’t be set by a rulebook or formula.
The report also charged that Harding didn’t properly test the hand brakes, because he ran a test while the locomotive’s air brakes were on. But this was common company practice. Engines on the train were equipped with a “fail-safe” feature to apply the brakes if the air pressure drops, but they did not operate that night, because the rate of leakage was too low.
Harding “had parked the train there for years,” said Walsh. “The procedures haven’t changed. The distance from Nantes to Lac-Mégantic hasn’t changed. The incline hasn’t changed. What has changed is the train length, the volatility of the crude oil, the crew size and the condition of aging equipment.”
Funds for the legal defense can be sent in Canada to Syndicat des Métallos, 565, boulevard Crémazie Est, bureau 5100, Montreal, Quebec, H2M 2V8. Credit card donations can be made at justice4USWrailworkers.org. In the U.S. checks can be sent to Tom Harding Defense Fund, First Niagara Bank, 25 McClellan Drive, Nassau, NY 12123.
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