The Norfolk Southern train derailment and "controlled release" of toxic vinyl chloride in East Palestine, Ohio, was an avoidable catastrophe. Long before the train cars crashed on Feb. 3 and residents' lives were turned completely upside down, railroad workers had been warning anyone who would listen that the relentless cost-cutting and profit-maximizing practices implemented on the freight rail system by greedy rail executives and their Wall Street shareholders would endanger workers and the public, and they were right. In recent hearings held in East Palestine by the National Travel Safety Board (NTSB), testimonies by representatives from rail labor and even Norfolk Southern itself have revealed what workers already knew: a combination of reckless business practices by the rail carriers, including yearly staff cuts to rail maintenance workers and the outsourcing of vital safety functions to unregulated machines, and lax federal regulation of the railroads has created the conditions for catastrophes like East Palestine to happen with greater frequency. But it is not too late to reverse course and build a safer, greener, more efficient, more humane rail system. In this episode, we discuss the latest revelations to come out of the ongoing investigations into the East Palestine disaster with Jason Cox, national representative for the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, who testified at the NTSB hearings in East Palestine in June.
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Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)
A Veteran Longshoreman's View of the Baltimore Bridge Disaster (w/ John Blom & Marc Steiner)
"South Baltimore is a sacrifice zone" (w/ David Jones, Angela Smothers, Carlos Sanchez, & Tiffany Thompson)
Vina Colley
Working People Deserve Bread and Roses—and Musicals (w/ Gene Bruskin)
Justice for East Palestine Residents & Workers Conference in East Palestine
From Baltimore to East Palestine, This Is Unacceptable (w/ The Valley Labor Report & Maximillian Alvarez)
Labor, Community, & Environmental Organizations Are Mobilizing to Get East Palestine Healthcare (w/ Justice for East Palestine Residents & Workers)
Brett Cross, Uzi's Dad
**'The Upsurge' is Dead. Long Live 'The Upsurge'! (w/ Teddy Ostrow)**
Why Do Railroad Workers Keep Dying on the Job? (w/ Nick Wurst, Matt Weaver, Mark Burrows, & Ross Grooters)
"Shut It Down!": On the Ground at Johns Hopkins Grad Union's Practice Picket
Baltimore's Co-Ops Show There's Another Way to Work (at the Baltimore Museum of Industry)
Homegrown Sandwich Shop Workers Hit 100 Days on Strike (w/ Sydney Lankford & Perry)
East Palestine—1 Year After the Derailment
After Waging the Largest Healthcare Worker Strike in US History, Kaiser Workers Win Big (w/ Meg Niemi & Audrey Cardenas)
Brazil's Radical Plan to Fight Slave-Like Working Conditions (w/ Marcos, John, & Vitor Filgueiras)
Chris & Jessica Albright
"This Is McCarthyism All Over Again": Suppressing Unions' Free Speech Rights over Gaza (w/ Allie Goodman, Michael Letwin, & Dany Greene)
Stuck in Legal Limbo while Fighting to Hold Amazon Accountable (w/ Matt Littrell)
A Three-Minute Message from Gaza (w/ Mohamed el Saife)
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