http://themilitant.com/2015/7934/793401.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 79/No. 34 September 28, 2015
(lead article)
Oct. 11 Quebec protest
set to demand rail safety
Fight frame-up of rail workers for 2013 disaster
Journal MRG/Daniel Poulin
Press conference Sept. 14 announces Oct. 11 protest for rail safety in
Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, site of 2013 derailment and fire that killed 47
people. From left, activists Gilles Fluet, Richard Poirier, André
Lachapelle, Gilbert Carette, Robert Bellefleur and André Blais.
BY JOHN STEELE
MONTREAL — “Most people in Lac-Mégantic agree that Tom Harding and
Richard Labrie are just scapegoats,” André Blais, a leader of the
Citizens’ Coalition and Groups Committee for Rail Safety, told the
Militant in a Sept. 14 phone interview.
Harding and Labrie face government frame-up charges for the 2013 oil
train derailment that killed 47 people in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec.
“Those who are really guilty are Transport Canada and the Montreal,
Maine and Atlantic Railway owners,” Blais said. “The railroad cut staff
and maintenance work, ran trains with a one-person crew, and Transport
Canada didn’t do anything.”
Support for the rail workers is intertwined with a growing movement
there to force the rail bosses to operate trains safely.
During the early morning hours of July 6, 2013, an unoccupied 72-car
train operated by the now-bankrupt Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway
careened down a slope, derailed, exploded and burned in Lac-Mégantic. It
was filled with crude oil from the North Dakota Bakken shale oil fields,
headed to the Irving Oil refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick. The
downtown area was reduced to smoldering ruins, and millions of gallons
of toxic crude oil poured into the soil, the lake and the Chaudière River.
The MMA had been granted special dispensation by Transport Canada, as a
cost-cutting measure, to run their oil trains with a one-person crew.
Harding, Labrie and low-level Montreal, Maine and Atlantic official Jean
Demaître face life in prison on 47 counts each of criminal negligence
causing death.
A government ban on crude oil transport through Lac-Mégantic expires in
January 2016. U.S. hedge fund Fortress Investment Group bought up the
bankrupt railway and set up the Central Maine and Quebec Railway, hoping
to profit from resuming oil traffic.
For now, Bakken crude for the Irving Oil refinery, the largest in
Canada, is taken by train to Albany, New York, and by boat down the
Hudson River through New York City harbor and up the Atlantic Coast.
“Our original goal was to get 2,500 signatures by October on a petition
calling for an injunction to stop Central Maine and Quebec from shipping
dangerous goods and demanding that they repair their unsafe tracks
through Lac-Mégantic,” André Lachapelle, a leader of the Sécu-Rail
Committee-Lac Mégantic region, said by phone. “We got 2,500 in two
weeks. We will present the petition to City Council Sept. 21 and we’re
organizing a demonstration on Oct. 11.”
Uneasy about the widespread support for Harding and Labrie in
Lac-Mégantic — where many are convinced Harding is a hero for risking
his life to prevent nine additional oil tanker cars from exploding — the
Quebec prosecutors are maneuvering to move the jury trial out of the
area. The next court date is Dec. 1.
“We still don’t know what the prosecution’s case is,” Thomas Walsh,
Harding’s lawyer, told the Militant.
Harding and Labrie have the support of their union, the United
Steelworkers, which organized a defense fund; the Teamsters Rail
Conference, Canada’s main rail union; the Transportation Division of the
SMART union in the U.S.; and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and
Trainmen division of the Teamsters.
The rail barons have joined the government to target Harding for the
disaster. “This is a failure of one individual,” charged Edward
Burkhardt, former chairman of the MMA. The disaster happened “because of
one person’s behavior,” Canadian Pacific Railway CEO Hunter Harrison
told the Toronto Globe and Mail.
Railroad vital for region’s bosses
The railway through Lac-Mégantic is critical for the owners of Tafisa
Canada Inc., the biggest particle board factory in North America. Tafisa
employs about 350 workers, members of the Canadian Energy and Paper
Workers Union. Central Maine and Quebec also serves dozens of saw mills
in the area and pulp and paper operations just across the border in Maine.
“One woman at our petition table on the street said she would have
signed but her husband advised her not to, since his employer, Tafisa,
had made it clear that its employees should not sign,” Blais said.
Central Maine and Quebec is the lifeline for 50 businesses in Quebec’s
Eastern Townships that employ 4,200 workers. But the big profits are in
oil. This is behind the company’s drive to restart the oil trains.
The Citizen’s Committee has campaigned to expose conditions on the line.
Blais and Lachappelle gave this reporter a portfolio of photos
documenting rotting ties, broken spikes and other graphic examples of
the dangerous shape of the railroad’s tracks.
Attacking the committee’s work, Central Maine and Quebec Railway
President John Giles released an Aug. 12 “open letter,” saying
“well-intentioned but misguided individuals” are promoting “myths.” He
said, “There are no plans to restart movements of crude oil through the
town of Lac-Mégantic at this time.” But, he added, “things change all
the time.”
The Oct. 11 demonstration begins at 1:30 p.m. at the Lac-Mégantic Sports
Centre, where victims were brought after the derailment and fire. The
Dec. 1 court hearing is at the provincial court in the same building.
Join the defense campaign!
Funds for the legal defense of Tom Harding and Richard Labrie can be
donated in Canadian currency at www.justice4USWrailworkers.org and in
U.S. currency at www.tomhardingdefensefund.com. Solidarity should be
sent to their union local — USW 1976 / Section locale 1976, 2360 De
Lasalle, Suite 202, Montreal, QC H1V 2L1. Email: info@xxxxxxxxxx.
Related articles:
Steelworkers rally against boss cutback demands, ATI lockout
On the Picket Line
Fight for $15, union drives mark NY Labor Day Parade
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home