News and Media

From the Office of Rep. John Garamendi. WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Representative John Garamendi (D-CA) and U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) reintroduced the bipartisan, bicameral Cabin Air Safety Act to protect airline pilots, flight attendants, and passengers from toxic cabin air. While planes pressurize and ventilate the cabin with outside air that flows through the engines, faulty […]

Railroad workers have been sounding the alarm for years over railway safety concerns, and a string of recent train derailments have brought these issues into the spotlight.

Greg Regan, the president of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department, said he has raised safety concerns in front of Congress multiple times in the past, saying it’s not that train accidents are up in the last few months, but they’ve been up over the last 10 years.

WASHINGTON — Today, transportation labor and industry groups urged Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh to adopt a federal framework to manage the broad impacts of new technologies on the transportation workforce. The letter from the Transportation Trades Department (TTD) of the AFL-CIO and ITS America states: “With such rapid technological change […]

WASHINGTON  — Greg Regan and Shari Semelsberger, President and Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department (TTD), issued this statement after the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) issued a safety advisory related to the maintenance and use of hot bearing wayside detectors: “We welcome recent rail safety actions from the Federal Railroad Administration, including the safety […]

WASHINGTON  — Greg Regan and Shari Semelsberger, President and Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department (TTD), issued this statement after the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released a preliminary report on the East Palestine derailment: “Rail unions and their workers are dedicated to ensuring that when railroads adopt technologies, such as wayside defect detectors, […]

LAS VEGAS  — Brightline West, America’s first true high-speed rail system connecting Las Vegas and Southern California, today,  announced a landmark agreement, establishing a commitment with several craft rail unions for the use of highly skilled union labor in critical jobs required to operate and maintain this historic project. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) with […]

Reported by Timothy Noah for The New Republic.

On February 3, a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed near East Palestine, Ohio, a small town (pop. 4,800) situated on the Pennsylvania border 20 miles south of Youngstown. The derailment spewed vinyl chloride and other toxic chemicals into the air, killing fish in nearby streams and prompting an evacuation. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, warned that anyone who lingered in the immediate area would face “grave danger of death.” Five days later, DeWine said it was safe to return home, but local residents continued to report headaches and nausea.

If all this sounds reminiscent of Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel White Noise and Noah Baumbach’s 2022 film adaptation of same, just imagine how it felt to Ben Ratner, an East Palestine resident who, along with various family members, worked as an extra on the movie when Baumbach was shooting nearby. “The first half … is all almost exactly what’s going on here,” Ratner told CNN.

Reported by Christopher Wilson and Caitlin Dickson for Yahoo News.

The fallout continues from the derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border earlier this month, as local residents file lawsuits and some cast doubt on official assurances about air and water quality.

The derailment and evacuation

On Feb. 3, 50 train cars operated by Norfolk Southern derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, a town of about 5,000 people located 50 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. That derailment resulted in a massive fire and Gov. Mike DeWine ordering an evacuation on Sunday, Feb. 5.

Reported by Laura Clawson for Daily Kos.

Residents of East Palestine, Ohio, have been told it’s safe to go back to their homes after a train derailment forced the controlled release and burn of toxic chemicals—but they’re not all so sure about that. Some complain about lingering chemical odors and wonder what that means for the air they’re breathing and the water they’re drinking.

On Sunday, a local news channel reported three chemicals—ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, ethylhexyl acrylate, and isobutylene—on the train in addition to the vinyl chloride and butyl acrylate previously reported. “There’s a lot of what-ifs, and we’re going to be looking at this thing 5, 10, 15, 20 years down the line and wondering, ‘Gee, cancer clusters could pop up, you know, well water could go bad,” Sil Caggiano, a former Youngtown Fire Department battalion chief and hazmat expert told First News.

Reported my Mary Kennedy for Progressive Farmer.

Shortly after the announcement by CSX Transportation that approximately 5,000 CSX engineering and maintenance workers from two unions would receive paid sick leave, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., held a press conference demanding all the railroads provide workers with at least seven paid sick days.

At the Feb. 9 press conference, Sanders and Braun were joined by representatives from SMART-TD, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (BRS), the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes (BMWED), the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department, and the National Association of Chemical Distributors.