Railroad Workers Memorial Day is Friday, June 19th, 2015

CHICAGO - June 17, 2015 - PRLog -- Press Release

Subject: Railroad workers group observes day to honor and remember railroad workers killed on the job

For more information: Ron Kaminkow secretary@railroadworkersunited.org 608-358-5771; or Jen Wallis wallisjeanette@gmail.com 206-755-9705.

Railroad Workers Memorial Day is Friday, June 19th

On Friday, June 19th, railroad workers are encouraged to wear black to work as a sign of remembrance and recognition of fallen fellow workers who were killed on the job over the course of the previous year. Sponsored by Railroad Workers Unit-ed, each year the event focuses on a specific theme. Because of the large number of contract and non-union railroaders who were killed the past 12 months, this year’s Railroad Workers Memorial Day will focus on these workers and their plight.

Those non-union and contract workers killed this past year include: a contract worker involved in track work on Canadian Pacific near Forreston, IL; a train crew member of The Western Group, while operating a train near Roswell, NM on former BNSF territory; two employees of a contract railcar servicing outfit while performing service in Omaha, NE; a trainman spotting cars at an industry in Pine Bluff, AR; a contract worker for BNSF unloading rail cars in Kansas City, KS; a conductor mak-ing a switch move for Alabama Warrior Railway in Birmingham, AL.

Throughout our history, railroad workers have organized into unions to improve our wages, benefits and working conditions. Improved safety has always been a major reason for railroad workers to organize. Rail carriers – like other corporations - have historically resisted employee organization and the associated demands for better wages, benefits, working conditions and improved safety.

In recent decades, rail carriers – once again like many modern corporations – have devised a means by which they can circumvent the largely unionized railroad workforce. It is known as "contracting out". Rather than keep the work in-house, the big rail carriers have opted to farm out all types of jobs to smaller, mostly non-union outfits that all-too-often offer their employees low pay, few benefits, and miserable unsafe working conditions.

Class I railroads have contracted out everything from locomotive servicing to track construction, weed spraying and brush trimming to car repair, rail inspec-tion and train crew transport. It is hard to say just how many jobs have been contracted in this manner, in the tens of thousands perhaps. This is bad news for all railroad workers and it is an issue of grave concern to the future of the industry, working conditions, pension, and crucially, safety and health.

The railroad industry proudly touts its safety programs, the declining numbers of on-the-job "reportable" injuries and so forth. However, this disingenuous posturing ignores the fact that the railroad is engaged in contracting out work to outfits that often have poor safety standards and records. These contract companies employ workers – usually on the railroad’s property -- to perform the exact same work that was once performed by railroad employ-ees. But now cynically, the railroad takes no responsibility for these workers because they are no longer in the rail-road’s direct employ. The rail carriers’ attitude towards these workers is that they are not responsible for their health and safety – even though they are on our property, performing the same essential work that was once done by our employees, working in safety sensitive jobs, and making profit for the company’s bottom line. Also, the carri-ers know that many accidents and injuries of contract workers do not have to be reported to the FRA.

For a listing of all contract and non-union railroad workers killed on the job the past 12 months, see below.

For a listing of all railroad workers killed on the job the last 12 months, below.

Contract and Non-Union Railroaders Killed in the Line of Duty

June 2014 to June 2015

The fatalities listed below are the ones that Railroad Workers United was made aware of. It is hard to say if others – and how many – might have been killed this past year. These workers often work for small firms and are usually not union-ized. As such, when one of them suffers an industrial accident, the news of his/her death is not necessarily well broadcast.

April 30, 2015 - Forreston, IL - An R.J. Corman Railroad Group employee was killed Thursday in a railroad work acci-dent in Illinois, authorities said. James C. Campbell, 20, of Prestonsburg, KY suffered a fatal head injury while working along Canadian Pacific Railroad tracks near the village of Forreston.

April 28, 2015 - Roswell NM - Two Southwestern Railroad freight trains collided head-on just after 6 a.m. Tuesday about 10 miles southeast of Roswell, killing one person, injuring another and derailing locomotives and freight cars. Crew member Jesse T. Coburn III, 48, of Texico was pronounced dead at the scene by the Office of the Medical Investi-gator. The second crew member was transported to Lubbock, Texas for medical treatment and was listed in stable condi-tion.

April 15 - Omaha NE - Two employees of a contract company, Nebraska Railcar Cleaning Services, hired by GE Capi-tal Rail Services were killed in an explosion while cleaning out a tanker car near First and Hickory Streets about 1:10 p.m. The force of the blast blew one man off a tanker car and to the ground, while the ladder shot out of the car and left another man trapped. One of the men was identified as Dallas Foulk, 40, who was lying on the ground when first re-sponders arrived. He died after being taken in extremely critical condition to Creighton University Medical Center. The other man’s body was extricated from the tank car by Omaha firefighters about 6 hours after the explosion. He was iden-tified as Adrian LaPour, 44.

Pine Bluff AR - April 3, 2015 - A Pine Bluff man, Kye Garrett Stewart, 35, was killed Friday night when he was apparently struck by a train while working on it near Evergreen Packaging on Fairfield Road. He was pronounced dead at the scene by Deputy Coroner Eric Belcher at 10:53 p.m.

Kansas City, KS - July 14, 2014 - A contractor for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway was killed Monday after he fell into a train car full of grain. The man has been identified as 48-year-old James Breedlove. Fire rescue crews respond-ed to the railroad yards near Interstate 635 and Kansas Avenue about 9:30 a.m. Monday.

June 24, 2014 - Birmingham, AL - Caleb Bankston, a 27-year-old Collinsville man, died midday Tuesday in an acci-dent at the Alabama Warrior Railway in Birmingham. Bankston was a train conductor at the Walter Coke Plant in Bir-mingham. On Tuesday he and an engineer were backing up a loaded train which consisted of two engines and five hop-per cars, according to the Jefferson County Coroner's Office.