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Vol. 82/No. 17 April 30, 2018
Norfolk Southern sues rail workers for crash damage
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
Seeking to pin the blame on workers for deteriorating railroad safety
conditions, Norfolk Southern Railway bosses are suing two of its
employees for a collision and derailment in Georgetown, Kentucky, last
month.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court April 5, the company claims
that engineer Kevin Tobergte and conductor Andrew Hall were responsible
for the “total destruction” of two locomotives and extensive damage to
other rail cars. The bosses are asking the court to find these workers
liable for damages to the locomotives, rail cars, tracks, right of way,
communications and signal equipment, the costs of cleaning up spilled
diesel fuel, as well as payouts to landowners adjacent to the wreck and
Norfolk Southern customers whose freight was delayed.
“This is outrageous, Norfolk Southern Railway is attempting to set a
precedent in scapegoating a train crew for damages even if the company
could prove negligent,” Dan Crocker, a BNSF engineer working out of
Lincoln, Nebraska, and president of Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
and Trainmen Division 98, told the Militant. “There is an increasing
hypocrisy of the employers and the government to let business owners off
the hook and go after the workers.”
Late in the evening March 18 a track was switched to put Norfolk
Southern train No. 175 onto an adjacent track. When the crew stopped the
train, another freight train collided with it, Trains magazine reported.
All four crew members were injured. Over 200 train cars were involved in
the collision, 13 of them derailed, with a fire that led to temporary
evacuation of residents from the area.
Initially the rail bosses refused to say what the trains were carrying
or what spilled, but later said it was a nonhazardous nut oil.
Rail bosses in their drive for profits are skimping on rail and train
maintenance, endangering rail workers and nearby communities. They’re on
a drive to get fewer workers to do more in less time on longer and
longer trains.
As a result, the number of train disasters has risen, with the bosses
accusing workers of being at fault. “In the wake of recent dramatic and
highly visible railroad accidents in the United States and Canada,” said
BLET President Dennis Pierce earlier this year, “there has been a trend
to criminalize railroad workers and prosecute them as the sole cause of
these tragedies.”
This includes the 2013 runaway train that derailed and exploded in
Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killing 47 people. Engineer Thomas Harding and
traffic coordinator Richard Labrie were scapegoated by the rail bosses
and put on trial by the Canadian government. But the frame-up came apart
and the jury found the rail workers not guilty in January.
Other examples include the Amtrak train that derailed and killed eight
people near Philadelphia in 2015; derailment of a CSX freight train in
Hyndman, Pennsylvania, in August 2017, with spillage of molten sulfur
and liquefied petroleum gas forcing evacuation of residents; and the
December 2017 crash and derailment of an Amtrak train in Washington
state, killing three passengers and wounding over 100.
Many unionists think the rail bosses’ goal in the lawsuit is not to get
money. “They’re going to have to start paying railroaders $1 million or
$2 million annually so they can pay for when their employer sues them,”
John Risch, national legislative director for the SMART Transportation
Division union, told Trains after the Kentucky derailment.
The real reason for the suit is to intimidate and threaten rail workers.
Joe Swanson in Lincoln, Nebraska, contributed to this article.
Related articles:
Teachers mount fights against gov’t attacks
School protests inspire workers, set example
France: Rail workers strike against government attacks
Workers in Puerto Rico resist attacks by US, colonial rulers
On the Picket Line
Colo. teachers rally at Capitol April 16, plan more actions
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