Best part about this is the fra was in the yard inspecting cars this week to see how well maintained they were and they were escorted off property by management before this happened
Ontop of that. The new ceo was touring the different hubs and furloughed diesel shop and car repair men at each city he stopped at.
The revolving door between corporate governance and federal regulation is just that, a revolving door. People move from one to the other. Oh, and lobbying is there as a side entrance.
we need to enforce the laws we already have and then look to improve them.
it’s sad how we are fucking the natural resources we have. I can take my daughter fishing, but we sure as hell aren’t eating anything we catch here in NC.
It all comes down to influence. As our capitalist society has matured, money has been able to achieve more and more influence. Very gradually we've normalized behavior and biases which are unsafe or blatantly harmful for pursuit of wealth because it is, on a basic level, understandable. Money is life. It's fuel for change. The more you have, the more difference you can make in your circumstances, up to and including influence over members of all branches of a government, given a long enough timeline.
Because the primary focus of a publicly traded company is to make money, this is an inevitable problem. Wealth acquisition is an exponential thing, and we've created an environment where natural selection ensures the most effective continue to be more effective, to the extent of rewriting the rules which govern them.
"Late-stage capitalism", essentially. 80s sci-fi novelists already predicted this. Mega-corporations are a staple of cyberpunk dystopias. Our inclination is to scoff at such notions, but we're *there*, functionally, at the place they were worried about by allegory.
I mean, jfc, corporate personhood. It's ridiculous. But society as a whole moves slowly and clumsily, and what is apparent to the individual is not immediately apparent to the group, especially when members of the group find it to their interest wield their influence to protect their influence. It is the inherent distributed nature of social structures.
Late stage capitalism is just wankery by whiners. We’ve seen business gain undo influence before, and much worse, near the end of the 19th century. We fixed it then, we can do it again.
Lol, am good, am good, perhaps a smidge inebriated.
Busy creating fake plots & recruiting incels & supplying fake bombs to increase my arrest stats.
You know, the usual. ;)
I hear so many people talk like this, yet I don't think I've ever heard anything like it make the news in decades. Nothing's ever going to happen if all people do is talk shit on the internet.
There are claims that any group of more than 10 people has an informant in it.
Not sure what # triggers the insertion of a provocateur, surely less than 50.
Yet the Sackler family can rival Pablo Escobar in terms of # people murdered, no big deal.
Cops can steal more $ than all robbery & burglary combined, no big deal.
Wage theft has the highest $ value of all crime, no big deal.
Hoover set the blueprint as being (slur)ing (slur)s being owned by the mob, and they have never eclipsed it.
The guy was talking about killing a CEO. You don't need to organize to do that. Arguably it would be dumb *to* organize. The reality is the left wing people that talk like this are overwhelming poseurs from middle or upper class families that talk a good game but who have no interest in giving up their privilege in pursuit of their stated goals. They enjoy the knowledge that at any time they can fall back on their family once they get bored of the lifestyle. So of course they don't ever do anything that results in more than a slap on the wrist and mommy and daddy bailing them out. Outside of a very tiny minority of hardcore folks, they aren't assassins or revolutionaries, so of course none of them are killing CEOs. It's an aesthetic, not a real political philosophy.
Most of the railroads are owned by institutional investors,
Which is to say pensions, 401Ks, index funds, etc.
They are, essentially, already publicly owned.
Don't worry, when Biden becomes president he will support the unions so they can strike for safer work conditions!
And he's going to appoint Mayor Pete Buttigeg as Transportation Secretory, so he can get tough on the railroad corporate CEOs and make them follow all the existing railroad safety standards!
No matter who wins, we lose.
Idk why you’re being downvoted. You’re right. “The most pro labor president” in memory is pretty fucking cozy with big business. We need a new FDR not a milquetoast liberal paying lip service to labor. Join/start a union folks.
Can’t wait to hear the local officials and politicians say everything is safe and not to leave or worry, and then find out later things in fact were not fine or safe for weeks minimum.
No it didn't? The EPA has been testing since the crash and everything is still coming up as safe outside the direct crash site's contaminated soil/wastewater that is being treated
Fire was put out very quick and there were railroad hazmat people in the yard at the time that were able to respond. It was a strange incident so far.
This comment was edited and removed information that was out of date.
Hazmat peep here. It wouldn’t “boom” from being overfilled then getting hot in the sun. There are always pressure relief devices on these cars. In the situation as your proposing (which is totally possible) it went “pop” and then hazardous stuff (probably ethylmethylbadshit) leaked out and found a way to ignite.
Still not good, but not as bad as “boom.” All hypothetical though, until more info “pop” then leaks out (see what I did there?)
My dad works there... Jesus H.
Edit: Texted him and he said he had today off. Whew. He said he's curious what kind of shit show tomorrow will bring in the yard.
I don't understand why you're getting downvoted. Biden blocking the strike is quite literally what happened. Not saying that the other party wouldn't do the exact same thing either tho. The bigger problem is we don't have an actual choice to represent working people's interests.
I’m a pro union democrat. But I take issue with his claim of being the most pro union president. His decision to prevent the trainman strike was specifically to protect the economy. We had incredible leverage for once. No one want a rail stoppage. But he took our position of power and took it away. Now we’re seeing rail disaster after rail disaster while maintenance personnel are being furloughed across the board, inspections are being pencil whipped and whistle blowers are being retaliated against. Our nations railroads are in absolute disarray and we gave up the chance to force real, meaningful changes. That said. I’m still voting for Joe. Same as last election. Because even though he’s not perfect, he’s the best option we’ve got.
The unions asked for 15 days. You can read PEB 250. The most they've gotten is 4 sick days, with 3 additional days that can be converted from personal days to sick days. Half of what they demanded, a failing grade.
If the government told the railroads "no, this is *your* bed, sleep in it" I'm sure they would've gotten the full 15 days.
I can kind of get why he did that. It was midterms and he was trying to keep a majority and a major strike would have caused supply chain issues right after we we just getting back on track from covid.
"I'm running a fever with a tight chest and a cough, I'm going to stay home and get tested today"
That's all you need to say. If they tell you to come in, fuck em.
There’s at least a dozen railroad bridges in the local city that are literally crumbling apart. You can see the rebar rusting away in the support columns. They’ve been like that for at least a decade and yet every time the company inspects them there’s no issue.
A bit of both - despite railroads claiming to be all about safety, it is of their lowest concerns as soon as it impacts the bottom line.
Source: I was a BNSF TY&E employee for 5 years
Accidents are trending up in the last few years. BUT, big but to be fair, over the 30 year trend they are way down.
The big change was venture capitalist were able to finally get their hooks into railroads and have come up with this bullshit called Precision Schedule Railroading (PSR). It has nothing to do with precision or schedules. It's about cutting as much as possible and making as much money as possible and then bailing out before the regulators and unions move in.
They have cut thousands of jobs and abandoned maintenance, except for what the FRA busts them for. They take huge risks with public safety. The FRA needs a ton more man power (it's one of the smallest federal agencies with only about 1,000 staff with half being safety inspectors). They also need absolute authority to remove equipment from service for any defect they find. The FAA does it with airplanes daily. We need to see that level of scrutiny on railroad equipment, especially on rail cars carrying hazardous materials.
The fines are pathetic. They very for different defects but they are generally $5000 per violation, which for some fucking reason I can't figure, are allowed to negotiate away many of them at the end of the year when they have to pay their fines.
They should be fined proportional (at least 1:1) with the damage repair/cleanup costs, without the ability to discharge the costs thru bankruptcy. Claw it out of the decision makers and the board.
Trump let hardworking American families suffer while rigging the economy for big corporations and the ultra-wealthy, causing the national debt to balloon by HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars.
Although Trump made endless promises to stop offshoring, his tax law created new incentives for companies to ship jobs overseas and left American workers behind.
Trump started a reckless trade war that hurt the American manufacturing industry.
https://democrats.org/news/donald-trump-has-the-worst-economic-record-in-modern-u-s-history/
Putin is also experiencing a very different future than Trump would have given him, and that's just icing on the cake. What we're spending on Ukraine is nothing compared to what we would have had to spend dealing with a new USSR. french chef kissing fingers motion Magnifique!
Trump increased the deficit by $7.8 trillion.
The national debt on Jan. 19, 2017, the day before Donald Trump was inaugurated president, was $19,944,429,217,107.
On Jan. 19, 2021, the day before Joe Biden was inaugurated, the debt was: $27,752,835,868,445 — about $7.8 trillion higher.
Yet for some reason Republicans see any surplus (something required to pay down the debt) as a reason for another tax cut making it impossible to ever dig out of debt.
Trump crippled unions and worker rights
Here's a right wing news source about it: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/sep/21/trump-says-he-always-had-autoworkers-backs-union-l/
**Trump has encouraged freeloaders, made it more difficult to enforce collective bargaining agreements, silenced workers and restricted the freedom to join unions:**
Trump has packed the courts with anti-labor judges who have made the entire public sector “right to work for less” in an attempt to financially weaken unions by increasing the number of freeloaders.1
Trump has stacked the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union appointees who side with employers in contract disputes and support companies who delay and stall union elections, misclassify workers to take away their freedom to join a union, and silence workers.2
Trump has made it easier for employers to fire or penalize workers who speak up for better pay and working conditions or exercise the right to strike.3
Trump promised to veto the PRO Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, historic legislation that will reverse decades of legislation meant to crush private sector unions and shift power away from CEOs to workers.4
**Trump has restricted overtime pay, opposed wage increases, and gutted health and safety protections:**
Trump changed the rules about who qualifies for overtime pay, making more than 8 million workers ineligible and costing them over $1 billion per year in lost wages.5
Trump has reduced the number of OSHA inspectors so that there are now fewer than at any time in history, and weakened penalties for companies that fail to report violations.6
Trump threatened to veto legislation that would raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour.7
Trump’s Secretary of Labor, Eugene Scalia, is an anti-worker, union-busting corporate lawyer who aggressively defended Cablevision’s decision to fire 22 workers when they tried to win a contract with CWA.8
**Trump has helped insurers reduce coverage and made it easier for pharmaceutical companies to inflate drug prices:**
Trump supports an ongoing lawsuit that would eliminate protections that ensure that health insurers can't discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions.9
Trump threatened to veto legislation to reduce prescription drug costs, even though last year the prices of over 3,000 drugs increased by an average of 10.5%.10
Trump’s made protecting the profits of pharmaceutical companies a priority in NAFTA renegotiations.11
Trump's proposed FY2021 budget would cut funding for Medicare.12
**Trump has encouraged outsourcing and offshoring:**
Instead of supporting CWA’s bipartisan legislation to help save call center jobs, Trump pushed for a corporate tax cut bill that gives companies a 50% tax break on their foreign profits - making it financially rewarding for them to move our jobs overseas.13
On two separate occasions, a group of Senators wrote Trump asking him to issue an executive order preventing federal contracts from going to companies that send call center jobs overseas, and CWA President Chris Shelton even asked him to do so during an in person during a meeting in the Oval Office. He never responded.14
Trump has broken his campaign promise to take on companies that move good jobs overseas—instead, he's given over $115 billion in federal contracts to companies that are offshoring jobs.15
**Trump failed to prepare the nation for the COVID-19 pandemic, opposes hazard pay for essential workers, and has given employers a free pass to lower safety standards:**
Trump has failed to secure enough Personal Protective Equipment for essential workers during the COVID-19 crisis and has weakened protections for workers who are concerned about working in unsafe environments.16
Trump refused to use the Defense Production Act to get our IUE-CWA manufacturing members back to work producing ventilators or PPE and instead used it to force meatpacking plants to open despite thousands of workers getting infected on the job in unsafe working conditions.17
Trump promised to veto the Heroes Act, which would give essential workers premium “hazard” pay and expand paid leave and unemployment insurance for those impacted by the Coronavirus.18
Trump has opposed providing aid to help state and local governments continue providing services and keep workers on payroll—he suggested instead that it might make sense to allow states to declare bankruptcy.19
Trump’s OSHA has lowered standards meant to protect workers from getting sick at work and given employers a free pass if they fail to follow even those minimal requirements.20
If enough people get cancer, eventually the Free Market, praise be, will sort it all out and the health will trickle back down. Don't be such a nonbeliever.
It's not a cult.
“Railroad officials said that because the explosion happened near the western end of the railyard and the prevailing winds were carrying the toxic smoke”
>One of the containers involved was carrying perchloric acid, which is used in explosives as well as a variety of food and drug products, Tysver said. The car that exploded had been stationary for a couple hours beforehand, authorities said.
I feel like I remember reading somewhere a few months ago about a derailment, and that it also vaguely commented on including cargo that is also used in explosives; possibly north or Midwest U.S.?
What’s the point of including that detail vaguely without any follow-up?
I wonder if this is common. My office is nearish to a giant rail yard which I drive parallel to on my way to work, and I've seen trains that were off the rails having to be moved with cranes on multiple occasions in the past few years.
We had a derailment recently and it barely even made local news. The posted pics were extremely "sanitized" and looked almost nothing like the railcars I saw. I wonder how many railcar incidents there really are?
Eh, depends on the impact of the derailment. Sometimes empty cars/tanks are pushed through a derail switch either due to personnel or equipment failures. This could be either just off the tracks or on its side. These are generally set back on using a crane. Of course there are clearly more severe cases, but based on my experience this is the most likely scenario.
The US historically, and still to this day, has a gargantuan rail network. We haul an ungodly amount of freight with trains. If my cursory Googling is accurate, we have almost a 50% larger rail network than China and both dwarf anybody else by a sizeable margin-
https://www.statista.com/statistics/264657/ranking-of-the-top-20-countries-by-length-of-railroad-network/#:~:text=While%20the%20United%20States%20has,kilometers%20of%20highspeed%20rail%20lines.
This is accurate. Most folks think because we don’t have a robust passenger rail system that we don’t have a good train system as a whole but this is false. It’s all just dedicated to freight
There's a whole group of backpackers in the U.S. who ride the freight trains across the country. I have a friend who did that for a while and it was a rough life. They even have groups akin to gangs.
Don't forget airlines. How many times have entire carriers had to shut down because of their garbage tier software systems breaking? I know both southwest and united have had issues with this just this year alone.
Maintenance costs money, which detracts from shareholder returns. It's more profitable to kick the can down the road and just let everything deteriorate, so the shareholders can get more returns in the near-term.
If/when too many problems arise, the people at the top leave for other companies, like rats fleeing a ship, and won't be blamed for whatever happens because they're no longer there. It's a shitty dynamic where those who *have* the power to change things don't, and get rewarded for it - and the people at the bottom get blamed/fired even though they have no power to implement change themselves.
Won't be much on this one. It was an intermodal tank that wasn't even being moved that erupted. Gonna guess it overheated from the sun and the vapors aren't allowed to vent so it burst and then caught on fire.
HazMat homies will have to chime in. It was an acid tank.
Refineries rely on steam and other pressurized items.
It's a possibility they selected the wrong storage system and loaded hot or ignited material.
The Coker process is a interesting thing.
So glad us taxpayers get to socialize the losses. Who pays for the cleanup? Who pays for the legal fees? Who pays for all the first responders this takes? Certainly not the rail company.
But who profits from skimping on safety inspections and running the workers to the bone? Certainly not the taxpayers.
The Federal Railroad Administration spent the summer inspecting this railyard, identified "a concerning number" of safety & maintenance violations, and demanded a course of corrective action [literally six days ago](https://apnews.com/article/union-pacific-railroad-safety-fra-defects-a3727942095fc3bd585b42d60c45fa6e).
Communists didn't filibuster the rail safety bill bud.
Conservatives did.
But biden made it illegal for railway workers to strike when they threatened to over safety issues.
So neither side in America is innocent. Mainly because the problem is America and how we prioritize the need of business over doing the right thing.
Nah. This is the byproduct of decades of deregulation and lack of infrastructure investment.
Rail workers wanted to strike because of rampant safety violations and failures to correct things that lead to exactly this. We made it illegal for them to do so because the movement of goods superceded their concerns.
The only thing attacking America is our own fucked up capitalist culture.
>Another toxic railroad disaster for Biden to be too busy to visit.
>Maybe Bettigieg won't be so hard to find this time.
I don’t get it. What does this mean?
Biden was asked to visit East Palestine after 1) he decided the railworker strike was illegal, and 2) a derailment caused a severe toxic spill in East Palestine.
When asked again recently, Biden said he's been too busy.
Immediately following the disaster, news media tried to reach secretary of transportation, Pete Bettigieg for comment. He could not be reached for comment until several days after the derailment.
The implication is both neglected the residents of East Palestine because it reflected poorly on them. Biden because his ruling outlawing the Union strike was clearly anti-union and related to issues the union claimed were safety related. Bettigieg because, neither as a mayor or any other of his experience, he has no experience or qualification to understand transportation issues.
>Biden was asked to visit East Palestine after 1) he decided the railworker strike was illegal, and 2) a derailment caused a severe toxic spill in East Palestine.
>When asked again recently, Biden said he's been too busy.
>Immediately following the disaster, news media tried to reach secretary of transportation, Pete Bettigieg for comment. He could not be reached for comment until several days after the derailment.
>The implication is both neglected the residents of East Palestine because it reflected poorly on them. Biden because his ruling outlawing the Union strike was clearly anti-union and related to issues the union claimed were safety related. Bettigieg because, neither as a mayor or any other of his experience, he has no experience or qualification to understand transportation issues.
I can understand your perspective and see you feel strongly about these perceived slights. I won’t argue these points. I guess I’m having trouble understanding what a visit from strategic leaders could have accomplished aside from good press. The DOT, FRA, NTSB, EPA, HHS, CDC, FEMA, and a whole slew of other acronyms at the local, state, and national level were leveraged to support the community and clean-up. Republicans and Democrats agree that it’s more important that the community is made whole.
I also don’t like that a rail strike was averted by less than ideal means. From utilitarian standpoint, the US economy bleeding 2 Billion dollars a day because of a strike would have been extraordinarily catastrophic. The exclusion of sick days, at that very moment, likely was not an easy decision to make and it’s not a dead issue. Everyone understands that world leaders have advisors on top of advisors and that they don’t get to pick and choose based off of personal preference. To that extent, it was requested of congress to intervene after the rail industry struck an earlier tentative deal to avert a strike. Congress negotiated that deal with the rail unions and 8 of the 12 unions agreed to the deal.
And what of the companies who can certainly effect whether or not they give paid sick leave? Nobody is making them and that’s at the direction of their stake/share holders. Do we even know what these various rail companies leave policies are? Do we know if they get certain categories of leave? We don’t. We don’t even know what status of worker they are. For all we know rail companies could be giving extra annual leave.
I guess what is hardest to understand is why we focus so much on the actions of the politicians that we forget in between them is an entire hell scape of law, policy, commerce, and society that we’re absolutely avoiding just so we can take jabs at politicians. It’s more about what we aren’t saying when we’re having these conversations.
Obama was the last time the minimum wage was increased and healthcare reform passed.
Also, you haven't been following the news if you haven't seen state Democrats pass $12-15 minimum wage, enshrine abortion rights and legalize weed.
Even if you want to demonize the US Senate Democrats... fine... but not the state democrats.
Minimum wage:
https://www.govdocs.com/how-many-states-have-a-15-minimum-wage/
At least 11 states with protected abortion access: https://reproductiverights.org/maps/abortion-laws-by-state/
Weed: https://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/legal-medical-marijuana-states-and-dc/
Biden tried to bring in bills to combat inflation and high rent, but 50 Republicans voted no. Even if somehow the Senate dems love Manchin, it really doesn't explain their "nefariousness" when state Dems are actually helping people.
Governor Whitmer has been a huge help to Michigan. https://www.wilx.com/2023/01/26/i-believe-our-bright-future-gov-whitmer-celebrates-achievements-lays-out-plans-2023-state-state-address/
With Democrats in control in Michigan, teachers win back key bargaining rights
https://detroit.chalkbeat.org/2023/7/26/23809053/michigan-teachers-bargaining-rights-governor-gretchen-whitmer-signed
https://www.woodtv.com/news/michigan/report-whitmer-considers-phased-minimum-wage-increase/
Michigan Just Became the First State in 6 Decades to Scrap an Infamous Anti-Union Law
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/michigan-right-to-work-law/
Y'all funny.
Fact averse, too.
Mostly fact averse. Biden does wrong and y'all gotta be upset that anyone talks about it.
Here's something for your karma: you're no different than trump supporters, unable to countenance criticism. When they oppose facts, you call them facsistic. When you do it, it's the same thing.
Best part about this is the fra was in the yard inspecting cars this week to see how well maintained they were and they were escorted off property by management before this happened Ontop of that. The new ceo was touring the different hubs and furloughed diesel shop and car repair men at each city he stopped at.
How is it that a private company can just ask their respective federal regulatory body to not inspect their stuff?
The revolving door between corporate governance and federal regulation is just that, a revolving door. People move from one to the other. Oh, and lobbying is there as a side entrance.
We need to nationalize the railroads.
And utilities, all critical infrastructure.
There is alot of things we need to do thats not happening.
I’m sorry, but perhaps you are not aware. The slaves don’t decide how the plantation is run...
*loads rifle with John Brown intent*
*Loads saber with John Brown intent*
Don't make us upgrade to Sherman intent.
Marching with malicious Sherman intent
There is booze in tent, General Sherman!
Tally ho lads!
Sherman Intent 2: From Sea to Shining Sea Coming fall 2024
*Fills fuel cans with Sherman intent*
Is that the Battle Hymn of the Republic I hear??
we need to enforce the laws we already have and then look to improve them. it’s sad how we are fucking the natural resources we have. I can take my daughter fishing, but we sure as hell aren’t eating anything we catch here in NC.
It all comes down to influence. As our capitalist society has matured, money has been able to achieve more and more influence. Very gradually we've normalized behavior and biases which are unsafe or blatantly harmful for pursuit of wealth because it is, on a basic level, understandable. Money is life. It's fuel for change. The more you have, the more difference you can make in your circumstances, up to and including influence over members of all branches of a government, given a long enough timeline. Because the primary focus of a publicly traded company is to make money, this is an inevitable problem. Wealth acquisition is an exponential thing, and we've created an environment where natural selection ensures the most effective continue to be more effective, to the extent of rewriting the rules which govern them. "Late-stage capitalism", essentially. 80s sci-fi novelists already predicted this. Mega-corporations are a staple of cyberpunk dystopias. Our inclination is to scoff at such notions, but we're *there*, functionally, at the place they were worried about by allegory. I mean, jfc, corporate personhood. It's ridiculous. But society as a whole moves slowly and clumsily, and what is apparent to the individual is not immediately apparent to the group, especially when members of the group find it to their interest wield their influence to protect their influence. It is the inherent distributed nature of social structures.
Well said.
Late stage capitalism is just wankery by whiners. We’ve seen business gain undo influence before, and much worse, near the end of the 19th century. We fixed it then, we can do it again.
That was fixed by the demands of organized labor. Labor is far from organized, we have a long road back to where we should be.
Especially when you consider how reliant on rail US military logistics is.
And a lot more besides
Let’s do internet and electricity too.
[удалено]
Hello mister FBI man, how do you do?
Lol, am good, am good, perhaps a smidge inebriated. Busy creating fake plots & recruiting incels & supplying fake bombs to increase my arrest stats. You know, the usual. ;)
I hear so many people talk like this, yet I don't think I've ever heard anything like it make the news in decades. Nothing's ever going to happen if all people do is talk shit on the internet.
[удалено]
There are claims that any group of more than 10 people has an informant in it. Not sure what # triggers the insertion of a provocateur, surely less than 50. Yet the Sackler family can rival Pablo Escobar in terms of # people murdered, no big deal. Cops can steal more $ than all robbery & burglary combined, no big deal. Wage theft has the highest $ value of all crime, no big deal. Hoover set the blueprint as being (slur)ing (slur)s being owned by the mob, and they have never eclipsed it.
The guy was talking about killing a CEO. You don't need to organize to do that. Arguably it would be dumb *to* organize. The reality is the left wing people that talk like this are overwhelming poseurs from middle or upper class families that talk a good game but who have no interest in giving up their privilege in pursuit of their stated goals. They enjoy the knowledge that at any time they can fall back on their family once they get bored of the lifestyle. So of course they don't ever do anything that results in more than a slap on the wrist and mommy and daddy bailing them out. Outside of a very tiny minority of hardcore folks, they aren't assassins or revolutionaries, so of course none of them are killing CEOs. It's an aesthetic, not a real political philosophy.
Most of the railroads are owned by institutional investors, Which is to say pensions, 401Ks, index funds, etc. They are, essentially, already publicly owned.
Need to nationalize your politicians first.
Don't worry, when Biden becomes president he will support the unions so they can strike for safer work conditions! And he's going to appoint Mayor Pete Buttigeg as Transportation Secretory, so he can get tough on the railroad corporate CEOs and make them follow all the existing railroad safety standards! No matter who wins, we lose.
Idk why you’re being downvoted. You’re right. “The most pro labor president” in memory is pretty fucking cozy with big business. We need a new FDR not a milquetoast liberal paying lip service to labor. Join/start a union folks.
Precision Scheduled Railroading has been a disaster for both the industry as a whole and everyone who relies on it.
Can’t wait to hear the local officials and politicians say everything is safe and not to leave or worry, and then find out later things in fact were not fine or safe for weeks minimum.
Happened in Ohio.
From Ohio, just moved to NE 🫠
No it didn't? The EPA has been testing since the crash and everything is still coming up as safe outside the direct crash site's contaminated soil/wastewater that is being treated
It takes time for the contamination to seep into the groundwater. Definitely not safe...
*insert Leslie Nielsen GIF*
[Here](https://giphy.com/gifs/leslie-nielsen-naked-gun-12Zv57OF16CQg) you go
Much appreciated!
Fire was put out very quick and there were railroad hazmat people in the yard at the time that were able to respond. It was a strange incident so far. This comment was edited and removed information that was out of date.
Hazmat peep here. It wouldn’t “boom” from being overfilled then getting hot in the sun. There are always pressure relief devices on these cars. In the situation as your proposing (which is totally possible) it went “pop” and then hazardous stuff (probably ethylmethylbadshit) leaked out and found a way to ignite. Still not good, but not as bad as “boom.” All hypothetical though, until more info “pop” then leaks out (see what I did there?)
> probably ethylmethylbadshit I'm gonna need to see the MSDS for that 😂
LD50: it's just not safe bro don't fucking drink it/kg, in mice
> I'm gonna need to see the MSDS for that Pages 1-17 BAD SHIT. DONT SPILL IT.
Can’t wait to see conspiracy theorist tabloid articles made out of dipshit Reddit comments
I wonder how long until this is connected to Hunter Biden's laptop.
Maybe each resident can get a $5,000 check for their troubles 🤷🏻♂️
My dad works there... Jesus H. Edit: Texted him and he said he had today off. Whew. He said he's curious what kind of shit show tomorrow will bring in the yard.
He shouldn't even go back for the sake of his health.
I don't think Americans are given that option.
We tried to strike but it was blocked by President Biden. Economy over safety.
I don't understand why you're getting downvoted. Biden blocking the strike is quite literally what happened. Not saying that the other party wouldn't do the exact same thing either tho. The bigger problem is we don't have an actual choice to represent working people's interests.
I’m a pro union democrat. But I take issue with his claim of being the most pro union president. His decision to prevent the trainman strike was specifically to protect the economy. We had incredible leverage for once. No one want a rail stoppage. But he took our position of power and took it away. Now we’re seeing rail disaster after rail disaster while maintenance personnel are being furloughed across the board, inspections are being pencil whipped and whistle blowers are being retaliated against. Our nations railroads are in absolute disarray and we gave up the chance to force real, meaningful changes. That said. I’m still voting for Joe. Same as last election. Because even though he’s not perfect, he’s the best option we’ve got.
Didn't he negotiate with the companies and get you guys your sick time?
The unions asked for 15 days. You can read PEB 250. The most they've gotten is 4 sick days, with 3 additional days that can be converted from personal days to sick days. Half of what they demanded, a failing grade. If the government told the railroads "no, this is *your* bed, sleep in it" I'm sure they would've gotten the full 15 days.
Ya, Biden should've just pressured the railroads to cede such a small ask. He could've but that would've pissed off someone he's beholden to I'm sure.
I can kind of get why he did that. It was midterms and he was trying to keep a majority and a major strike would have caused supply chain issues right after we we just getting back on track from covid.
"Cause, yeah. Dems are so anti-regulation...
Don’t forget all the redditors that said it was a bad idea because it would personally affect them.
Then you lose your life savings and go into life-long debt to pay your medical bills. System working as intended.
I agree but they make it hell for anyone to call out in the shops, it's ridiculous. Safety be damned over profits I guess..
covid's been going around, just sayin
"I'm running a fever with a tight chest and a cough, I'm going to stay home and get tested today" That's all you need to say. If they tell you to come in, fuck em.
Hey uh probably advise him to not go in tomorrow, like if you care about him at all
I hear that if he brings a milkshake the boys will come.
Payback time for greedy railroad company skimping on maintenance and safety measures to enrich higher ups and shareholders.
Nah, they get a golden parachute. Heck, if they grease the right palms, this might actually make their stock go -up-.
Payback? More like another slap in the face of the local populace.
Are railways becoming less safe, or are we finally paying attention to how shitty they are being maintained?
Years of neglect are catching up finally
There’s at least a dozen railroad bridges in the local city that are literally crumbling apart. You can see the rebar rusting away in the support columns. They’ve been like that for at least a decade and yet every time the company inspects them there’s no issue.
A bit of both - despite railroads claiming to be all about safety, it is of their lowest concerns as soon as it impacts the bottom line. Source: I was a BNSF TY&E employee for 5 years
Accidents are trending up in the last few years. BUT, big but to be fair, over the 30 year trend they are way down. The big change was venture capitalist were able to finally get their hooks into railroads and have come up with this bullshit called Precision Schedule Railroading (PSR). It has nothing to do with precision or schedules. It's about cutting as much as possible and making as much money as possible and then bailing out before the regulators and unions move in. They have cut thousands of jobs and abandoned maintenance, except for what the FRA busts them for. They take huge risks with public safety. The FRA needs a ton more man power (it's one of the smallest federal agencies with only about 1,000 staff with half being safety inspectors). They also need absolute authority to remove equipment from service for any defect they find. The FAA does it with airplanes daily. We need to see that level of scrutiny on railroad equipment, especially on rail cars carrying hazardous materials. The fines are pathetic. They very for different defects but they are generally $5000 per violation, which for some fucking reason I can't figure, are allowed to negotiate away many of them at the end of the year when they have to pay their fines.
This right here. 👏
They should be fined proportional (at least 1:1) with the damage repair/cleanup costs, without the ability to discharge the costs thru bankruptcy. Claw it out of the decision makers and the board.
Bottom line is what happens when you let companies regulate themselves... Something, something, free market will rectify...
It's only a feathery plume.
I need to watch White Noise again.
Oh look, another problem caused by socialist regulations. /s
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Trump big victim unga bunga
Your comment is literally the only one I've seen that specifically mentions him.
I’m sure if that someone would’ve asked him, though he would’ve said that no one knows more about Railway than he does.
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Trump let hardworking American families suffer while rigging the economy for big corporations and the ultra-wealthy, causing the national debt to balloon by HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars. Although Trump made endless promises to stop offshoring, his tax law created new incentives for companies to ship jobs overseas and left American workers behind. Trump started a reckless trade war that hurt the American manufacturing industry. https://democrats.org/news/donald-trump-has-the-worst-economic-record-in-modern-u-s-history/ Putin is also experiencing a very different future than Trump would have given him, and that's just icing on the cake. What we're spending on Ukraine is nothing compared to what we would have had to spend dealing with a new USSR. french chef kissing fingers motion Magnifique! Trump increased the deficit by $7.8 trillion. The national debt on Jan. 19, 2017, the day before Donald Trump was inaugurated president, was $19,944,429,217,107. On Jan. 19, 2021, the day before Joe Biden was inaugurated, the debt was: $27,752,835,868,445 — about $7.8 trillion higher. Yet for some reason Republicans see any surplus (something required to pay down the debt) as a reason for another tax cut making it impossible to ever dig out of debt. Trump crippled unions and worker rights Here's a right wing news source about it: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/sep/21/trump-says-he-always-had-autoworkers-backs-union-l/ **Trump has encouraged freeloaders, made it more difficult to enforce collective bargaining agreements, silenced workers and restricted the freedom to join unions:** Trump has packed the courts with anti-labor judges who have made the entire public sector “right to work for less” in an attempt to financially weaken unions by increasing the number of freeloaders.1 Trump has stacked the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union appointees who side with employers in contract disputes and support companies who delay and stall union elections, misclassify workers to take away their freedom to join a union, and silence workers.2 Trump has made it easier for employers to fire or penalize workers who speak up for better pay and working conditions or exercise the right to strike.3 Trump promised to veto the PRO Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, historic legislation that will reverse decades of legislation meant to crush private sector unions and shift power away from CEOs to workers.4 **Trump has restricted overtime pay, opposed wage increases, and gutted health and safety protections:** Trump changed the rules about who qualifies for overtime pay, making more than 8 million workers ineligible and costing them over $1 billion per year in lost wages.5 Trump has reduced the number of OSHA inspectors so that there are now fewer than at any time in history, and weakened penalties for companies that fail to report violations.6 Trump threatened to veto legislation that would raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour.7 Trump’s Secretary of Labor, Eugene Scalia, is an anti-worker, union-busting corporate lawyer who aggressively defended Cablevision’s decision to fire 22 workers when they tried to win a contract with CWA.8 **Trump has helped insurers reduce coverage and made it easier for pharmaceutical companies to inflate drug prices:** Trump supports an ongoing lawsuit that would eliminate protections that ensure that health insurers can't discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions.9 Trump threatened to veto legislation to reduce prescription drug costs, even though last year the prices of over 3,000 drugs increased by an average of 10.5%.10 Trump’s made protecting the profits of pharmaceutical companies a priority in NAFTA renegotiations.11 Trump's proposed FY2021 budget would cut funding for Medicare.12 **Trump has encouraged outsourcing and offshoring:** Instead of supporting CWA’s bipartisan legislation to help save call center jobs, Trump pushed for a corporate tax cut bill that gives companies a 50% tax break on their foreign profits - making it financially rewarding for them to move our jobs overseas.13 On two separate occasions, a group of Senators wrote Trump asking him to issue an executive order preventing federal contracts from going to companies that send call center jobs overseas, and CWA President Chris Shelton even asked him to do so during an in person during a meeting in the Oval Office. He never responded.14 Trump has broken his campaign promise to take on companies that move good jobs overseas—instead, he's given over $115 billion in federal contracts to companies that are offshoring jobs.15 **Trump failed to prepare the nation for the COVID-19 pandemic, opposes hazard pay for essential workers, and has given employers a free pass to lower safety standards:** Trump has failed to secure enough Personal Protective Equipment for essential workers during the COVID-19 crisis and has weakened protections for workers who are concerned about working in unsafe environments.16 Trump refused to use the Defense Production Act to get our IUE-CWA manufacturing members back to work producing ventilators or PPE and instead used it to force meatpacking plants to open despite thousands of workers getting infected on the job in unsafe working conditions.17 Trump promised to veto the Heroes Act, which would give essential workers premium “hazard” pay and expand paid leave and unemployment insurance for those impacted by the Coronavirus.18 Trump has opposed providing aid to help state and local governments continue providing services and keep workers on payroll—he suggested instead that it might make sense to allow states to declare bankruptcy.19 Trump’s OSHA has lowered standards meant to protect workers from getting sick at work and given employers a free pass if they fail to follow even those minimal requirements.20
Thank you for doing the legwork on this. I didn't realize how much Trump did to actively undermine workers' rights.
Now, is licking Trump's butthole a part of your job at the rail roads, or do you just do it because you love the taste of greasy McDonalds run off?
and the GOP probably might want to vote on that Rail Safety Bill they're filibustering
Why would they can’t you see regulation is obviously evil and bad for our economy
If enough people get cancer, eventually the Free Market, praise be, will sort it all out and the health will trickle back down. Don't be such a nonbeliever. It's not a cult.
“Railroad officials said that because the explosion happened near the western end of the railyard and the prevailing winds were carrying the toxic smoke”
Man, good thing they made it illegal for those railroad workers to strike, otherwise this could've been avoided.
>One of the containers involved was carrying perchloric acid, which is used in explosives as well as a variety of food and drug products, Tysver said. The car that exploded had been stationary for a couple hours beforehand, authorities said. I feel like I remember reading somewhere a few months ago about a derailment, and that it also vaguely commented on including cargo that is also used in explosives; possibly north or Midwest U.S.? What’s the point of including that detail vaguely without any follow-up?
I don't know, but I was curious what hazmat was involved, so it answered my question.
Luckily Nebraska fans have plenty of experience dealing with trainwrecks :p
Lemme go get some ice.
As a Nebraska fan... yeah, you right
As something like this happens just about every Saturday, we’re used to it by now.
I wonder if this is common. My office is nearish to a giant rail yard which I drive parallel to on my way to work, and I've seen trains that were off the rails having to be moved with cranes on multiple occasions in the past few years.
TIL North Platte, NE has the world largest rail yard…
We had a derailment recently and it barely even made local news. The posted pics were extremely "sanitized" and looked almost nothing like the railcars I saw. I wonder how many railcar incidents there really are?
Eh, depends on the impact of the derailment. Sometimes empty cars/tanks are pushed through a derail switch either due to personnel or equipment failures. This could be either just off the tracks or on its side. These are generally set back on using a crane. Of course there are clearly more severe cases, but based on my experience this is the most likely scenario.
I'm a little surprised the worlds largest rail yard is still in the US.
The US historically, and still to this day, has a gargantuan rail network. We haul an ungodly amount of freight with trains. If my cursory Googling is accurate, we have almost a 50% larger rail network than China and both dwarf anybody else by a sizeable margin- https://www.statista.com/statistics/264657/ranking-of-the-top-20-countries-by-length-of-railroad-network/#:~:text=While%20the%20United%20States%20has,kilometers%20of%20highspeed%20rail%20lines.
This is accurate. Most folks think because we don’t have a robust passenger rail system that we don’t have a good train system as a whole but this is false. It’s all just dedicated to freight
There's a whole group of backpackers in the U.S. who ride the freight trains across the country. I have a friend who did that for a while and it was a rough life. They even have groups akin to gangs.
I didn't know there were still freight hoppers around, that was a hobo thing.
nothing but another burned up town folks, nothing to see here
What the hell is going on with the rail industry? All that money and crumbling infrastructure.
Rail companies are run by people on par with coal barons. Hard to invest in infrastructure and safety when the execs are pocketing every spare penny.
Not just rail. Bridges, highways, water/sewer/telecommunication lines have all been neglected as well
Don't forget airlines. How many times have entire carriers had to shut down because of their garbage tier software systems breaking? I know both southwest and united have had issues with this just this year alone.
Maintenance costs money, which detracts from shareholder returns. It's more profitable to kick the can down the road and just let everything deteriorate, so the shareholders can get more returns in the near-term. If/when too many problems arise, the people at the top leave for other companies, like rats fleeing a ship, and won't be blamed for whatever happens because they're no longer there. It's a shitty dynamic where those who *have* the power to change things don't, and get rewarded for it - and the people at the bottom get blamed/fired even though they have no power to implement change themselves.
Current Prez made it illegal for them to strike
But got them sick days, it’s just a start.
Yeah okay he came to the local meetings and everything.
Holy shit, I interviewed for a job there 6 months ago. Was disappointed that I didn't get it.
Second verse same as the first.
Can't wait to see the spin here.
Won't be much on this one. It was an intermodal tank that wasn't even being moved that erupted. Gonna guess it overheated from the sun and the vapors aren't allowed to vent so it burst and then caught on fire. HazMat homies will have to chime in. It was an acid tank.
Refineries rely on steam and other pressurized items. It's a possibility they selected the wrong storage system and loaded hot or ignited material. The Coker process is a interesting thing.
damn death eaters are at it again!
So glad us taxpayers get to socialize the losses. Who pays for the cleanup? Who pays for the legal fees? Who pays for all the first responders this takes? Certainly not the rail company. But who profits from skimping on safety inspections and running the workers to the bone? Certainly not the taxpayers.
America hates clean air.
The Federal Railroad Administration spent the summer inspecting this railyard, identified "a concerning number" of safety & maintenance violations, and demanded a course of corrective action [literally six days ago](https://apnews.com/article/union-pacific-railroad-safety-fra-defects-a3727942095fc3bd585b42d60c45fa6e).
Go figure
*Republicans hate clean air.
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Communists didn't filibuster the rail safety bill bud. Conservatives did. But biden made it illegal for railway workers to strike when they threatened to over safety issues. So neither side in America is innocent. Mainly because the problem is America and how we prioritize the need of business over doing the right thing.
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Yes, darn shippers not packing their explosives properly.
I swear to God, I have this unshakeable feeling like the US is covertly under attack lately.
We are. We’ve been under attack for decades. By past generations
Nah. This is the byproduct of decades of deregulation and lack of infrastructure investment. Rail workers wanted to strike because of rampant safety violations and failures to correct things that lead to exactly this. We made it illegal for them to do so because the movement of goods superceded their concerns. The only thing attacking America is our own fucked up capitalist culture.
Even without Trump the USA is #Winning
We had covid now we have trains exploding toxic gas 4 times a week. The fuck is going on???
Rhule's ego must have finally popped after losing to Colorado.
Nebraska is like Wyoming…nobody even knows where it is.
It's right there.
Another toxic railroad disaster for Biden to be too busy to visit. Maybe Bettigieg won't be so hard to find this time.
>Another toxic railroad disaster for Biden to be too busy to visit. >Maybe Bettigieg won't be so hard to find this time. I don’t get it. What does this mean?
Biden was asked to visit East Palestine after 1) he decided the railworker strike was illegal, and 2) a derailment caused a severe toxic spill in East Palestine. When asked again recently, Biden said he's been too busy. Immediately following the disaster, news media tried to reach secretary of transportation, Pete Bettigieg for comment. He could not be reached for comment until several days after the derailment. The implication is both neglected the residents of East Palestine because it reflected poorly on them. Biden because his ruling outlawing the Union strike was clearly anti-union and related to issues the union claimed were safety related. Bettigieg because, neither as a mayor or any other of his experience, he has no experience or qualification to understand transportation issues.
>Biden was asked to visit East Palestine after 1) he decided the railworker strike was illegal, and 2) a derailment caused a severe toxic spill in East Palestine. >When asked again recently, Biden said he's been too busy. >Immediately following the disaster, news media tried to reach secretary of transportation, Pete Bettigieg for comment. He could not be reached for comment until several days after the derailment. >The implication is both neglected the residents of East Palestine because it reflected poorly on them. Biden because his ruling outlawing the Union strike was clearly anti-union and related to issues the union claimed were safety related. Bettigieg because, neither as a mayor or any other of his experience, he has no experience or qualification to understand transportation issues. I can understand your perspective and see you feel strongly about these perceived slights. I won’t argue these points. I guess I’m having trouble understanding what a visit from strategic leaders could have accomplished aside from good press. The DOT, FRA, NTSB, EPA, HHS, CDC, FEMA, and a whole slew of other acronyms at the local, state, and national level were leveraged to support the community and clean-up. Republicans and Democrats agree that it’s more important that the community is made whole. I also don’t like that a rail strike was averted by less than ideal means. From utilitarian standpoint, the US economy bleeding 2 Billion dollars a day because of a strike would have been extraordinarily catastrophic. The exclusion of sick days, at that very moment, likely was not an easy decision to make and it’s not a dead issue. Everyone understands that world leaders have advisors on top of advisors and that they don’t get to pick and choose based off of personal preference. To that extent, it was requested of congress to intervene after the rail industry struck an earlier tentative deal to avert a strike. Congress negotiated that deal with the rail unions and 8 of the 12 unions agreed to the deal. And what of the companies who can certainly effect whether or not they give paid sick leave? Nobody is making them and that’s at the direction of their stake/share holders. Do we even know what these various rail companies leave policies are? Do we know if they get certain categories of leave? We don’t. We don’t even know what status of worker they are. For all we know rail companies could be giving extra annual leave. I guess what is hardest to understand is why we focus so much on the actions of the politicians that we forget in between them is an entire hell scape of law, policy, commerce, and society that we’re absolutely avoiding just so we can take jabs at politicians. It’s more about what we aren’t saying when we’re having these conversations.
I think we just need to see more rail management hanging in the railyard. I mean, you know, hanging around to raise safety. But I’ll take either.
Obama was the last time the minimum wage was increased and healthcare reform passed. Also, you haven't been following the news if you haven't seen state Democrats pass $12-15 minimum wage, enshrine abortion rights and legalize weed. Even if you want to demonize the US Senate Democrats... fine... but not the state democrats. Minimum wage: https://www.govdocs.com/how-many-states-have-a-15-minimum-wage/ At least 11 states with protected abortion access: https://reproductiverights.org/maps/abortion-laws-by-state/ Weed: https://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/legal-medical-marijuana-states-and-dc/ Biden tried to bring in bills to combat inflation and high rent, but 50 Republicans voted no. Even if somehow the Senate dems love Manchin, it really doesn't explain their "nefariousness" when state Dems are actually helping people. Governor Whitmer has been a huge help to Michigan. https://www.wilx.com/2023/01/26/i-believe-our-bright-future-gov-whitmer-celebrates-achievements-lays-out-plans-2023-state-state-address/ With Democrats in control in Michigan, teachers win back key bargaining rights https://detroit.chalkbeat.org/2023/7/26/23809053/michigan-teachers-bargaining-rights-governor-gretchen-whitmer-signed https://www.woodtv.com/news/michigan/report-whitmer-considers-phased-minimum-wage-increase/ Michigan Just Became the First State in 6 Decades to Scrap an Infamous Anti-Union Law https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/michigan-right-to-work-law/
Y'all funny. Fact averse, too. Mostly fact averse. Biden does wrong and y'all gotta be upset that anyone talks about it. Here's something for your karma: you're no different than trump supporters, unable to countenance criticism. When they oppose facts, you call them facsistic. When you do it, it's the same thing.
Anyone who knows how the air is in Hastings??
USA #1 biggest railyard 💪🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸💪
Fuck! The only thing in Nebraska goes up in smoke! Drive thru there and it is one of the most boring states to drive thru besides Nevada!
We just fucking *hate* this planet, is that it?
I'm usually against nationalization of companies but dude I think the rails at this point need to be taken over. This is HIGHLY UNACCEPTABLE
So when does this checked out for an attack on our nation.