Resolution on safety on the railroad

Whereas:

Over 20 years ago, the labor movement commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Haymarket martyrs and the fight for the eight hour day. Yet today, tens of thousands of railroad workers are forced to work 12 hours a day six days a week, with additional waiting and travel time, much it unpaid.  And not satisfied with this, the rail bosses are implementing one-person crews, remote-controlled engines and satellite controlled trains to eliminate workers, further endangering the public in their relentless drive for profits.

And whereas:

 They are reducing costs by downsizing the unionized non operating crafts: shop repair people, car inspectors and yard and track maintenance people.  Increasingly, this highly skilled work is subcontracted out to nonunion companies.  Other crafts are forced to inspect trains.  Carmen are constantly sped up, harassed and fired for reporting serious defects.  Increasingly, even long trains of over a hundred cars are leaving yards without proper air brake tests. 

The company's response to personal injuries or accidents is the same for all crafts --intimidation and severe discipline including many firings.

And whereas:

The entire society is endangered by the increased possibility of catastrophic accidents as a direct result of the conscious and pre-meditated actions of the railroad corporations. 

Therefore we demand:

1. Reduction in the work day of operating employees to eight hours, 40 hours a week with no loss in pay.

2. Massive increase in hiring of all crafts of railroad workers.  Massive hiring of skilled trades and construction workers to rebuild the crumbling bridges, yards and track.

3. Rail employees to overhaul the safety regulations of the FRA and OSHA.

4. Large increase in hiring of FRA inspectors , with real enforcement of safety regulations, including drastically heavier fines against violating companies and shutting down the rail operations when necessary.  Eliminate fines against individual workers.

5. Abolish the FELA system which results in discipline and firings of those who attempt to get compensated for injuries and a much greater number of workers under treated and permanently injured, who did not report their injuries. 

6. End the police state search, random testing and disciplinary approach to drug and alcohol use.  Put resources into rehabilitation instead.

To achieve this:

RWU recognizes that the corporate owners arrogantly and publicly flaunt their lawless behavior, which stands out even in the corporate dominated United States.

Government safety regulatory agencies such as OSHA and the FRA are at best, toothless and weak and at worst, agents of the bosses in targeting the workforce.

Only collective mass action utilizing our power to completely stop the transport of goods will be enough to maintain our present safety conditions.

Therefore:

With these principles in mind, RWU proposes:

1. Union based safety committees responsible to and controlled by the workers of each workplace -yard, shop, etc.  Such committees will only be effective if every union is represented on all levels.

Necessarily this means the exclusion of management and government representatives.

2. We should be flexible in the tactics towards the existing committees and safety structures.  Even joint committees and company structures can be utilized if the unions decide and act as a unit.  We should attempt to get all the union representatives to meet together, and bring their collective proposals into the meetings

3. We should organize for strong safety provisions such as the right to refuse unsafe work to be spelled out in the collective bargaining agreements. 

4. RWU organizers should attempt to bring the struggle out of the meetings and into the yards to the rest of the rank and file. A regular safety newsletter put out by the unions would be extremely useful   we should attempt to organize actions such as press conferences, demonstrations, and informational pickets. These tactics should be employed with the idea of bringing the maximum pressure against the company as well as to make every union member an organizer.

5. RWU believes it is necessary to bring our fight to the public outside of the workplace.  We need to enlist the support of a wide spectrum of activist organizations, safety, labor activists, environmental activists and student groups.

Coalitions should be built with the people living in the neighborhoods directly threatened by lack of safety on the railroad. These communities are almost entirely made up of working-class people with a high proportion of black, Latino, Native American, and other minority populations who are well aware that the corporations are not their friend. This gives us a huge potential for success.*

*for instance in Chicago right now, communities are organizing to stop the sale of the EG&E Railroad to the Canadian National because of the potential destruction of the neighborhood. Native Americans in Canada organized to block trains to defend their land against destruction to their environment.  A conference was organized in Chicago some years ago to fight the transport of radioactive waste by rail.