http://www.themilitant.com/2008/7241/724151.html

Vol. 72/No. 41 October 20, 2008

California train crash
spotlights lack of rail safety

BY ARLENE RUBINSTEIN
LOS ANGELES—Twenty-five people were killed and 135 injured when a Metrolink commuter train collided with a freight train here September 12. Officials from the National Transportation Safety Board and the Metrolink commuter rail company say the engineer was text messaging just before the crash and may have been distracted.
But rail workers say the accident puts a spotlight on the criminal lack of rail safety.

While the wreckage was still on the tracks, Metrolink officials were pinning the blame on the engineer, Robert Sanchez, who died in the crash. Metrolink officials say he ran through a red signal.

“It is a rush to judgment,” said Ray Garcia, who until 2006 was a conductor on the same Metrolink 111 train. Garcia pointed to a situation where the central computer showed a signal was red, when on the tracks it was not. Garcia said he knew Sanchez for nine years and that he was a qualified worker.

Three people standing on the platform as the train departed the station, one of them a station guard, insist that the signal was green, and not red. Their reports would explain why the alarm at the Metrolink computer dispatch system in Pomona was not triggered when the train passed the signal.

OAKLAND, CA - Monday 10/13- Labor Leaders Tour-Encuentro con Lideres Sindicales-Colombia- Nicaragua

Labor leaders tour
Encuentro con Lideres Sindicales

Uniting Americas Working Class and Increasing its Influence

Uniendo a la Clase Trabajadora y Aumentando su Influencia

Raising the level of struggle and Unity of the Worker Movements

Public Meeting - Evento Publico

OSCAR GUSTAVO PENAGOS ORTIZ.
SINTRATELEFONOS (CUT), Bogota, Colombia

Fredy Franco
Secretary General, FEPDES
Federation of Professional Teachers of Higher Education,
Nicaragua

When:
Monday, October 13, 2008
7:00 PM
Where:
International Maritime Center
4001 7th St.
Oakland, CA

At this meetinglabor leaders will discuss their views and experiences about important topics for working people everywhere. Some of these topicsinclude: the effects of neoliberal globalizationof free trade agreements, from the repercussions on U.S. workers to the destruction of Latin American economies forcing emigration to the United States and alternatives like ALBA being developed in Latin America.

En esta reunion lideres sindicales discutiran sus opiniones y experiencias sobre tematicas importantes para la clase trabajadora. Algunas incluye: Los efectos de las politicas de la Globalizacion Neoliberal de los tratados de libre comercio, desde las repercuciones a los trabajadores de los EEUU a la destrucion de las economias de Latino-America forsando a los trabajadores a emigrar y alternativas creadas en Latino-America como el ALBA

Labor Community Rallies On October 6 For Beaten and Arrested ILWU Local 10 Members in Yolo County House Courthouse

A hundred ILWU Local 10 longshoremen, officers and other labor and community supporters were in Woodland at the Yolo County Courthouse on October 6, 2008 to protest the trial of Jason Ruffin and Aaron Harrison, two members who had been beaten and arrested on the docks of Sacramento. In August of 2007, after returning from lunch they were pulled out of their car by Yolo County police, maced and arrested for trespassing and resisting arrest.
After organizing a support campaign, the district attorney was forced to drop the charge of "trespassing" but they continue to press charges of resisting arrest against the two longshore workers. The absurdity of continuing this trial while the basis for the arrest in the first place has not missed the eye of legal experts and longshoremen alike.
The rally was chaired by ILWU Local 10 Business Agent Trent Willis and ILWU members attended from Locals 34, 17, 6 and the IBU-ILWU. ILWU Local 10 Executive Board member Clarence Thomas led off the rally and called for building support within the labor movement for the case and pointed out that ILWU Local 10 had strong history of solidarity actions including the May Day walkout against the war and repression against working people.

UK RMT Scotland Rail strike suspended after talks
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/7657523.stm

Page last updated at 22:17 GMT, Wednesday, 8 October 2008 23:17 UK

Rail strike suspended after talks

Rail journeys across the country were severely disrupted by the strike
A second 24-hour Scottish rail strike due to start at midday on Thursday has been suspended.
Following a nine-hour meeting with Network Rail and the conciliation body Acas, the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union suspended the walkout.
An RMT spokesman said progress had been made and the union's executive would consider a full report before making a statement later in the week.
A total of 450 signal workers were due to take part in the strike action.
A 24-hour walkout on Tuesday severely disrupted rail services and caused traffic chaos throughout Scotland.
The row centres on rota changes and compulsory safety assessments.

We are pleased that strike action has been suspended and will continue to seek a negotiated resolution to this dispute
Network Rail
The RMT insists employers have failed to move on its demand to stop last-minute changes to rotas. Network Rail said it had made concessions on that issue but safety assessments remained the sticking point.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-metrolink9-2008oct09,0,5017595.story

Freight railroads pledge to install advanced safety measures by 2012
Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific, which share tracks with Metrolink, say the system's complexity may prevent a complete rollout by that date, however.
By Jennifer Oldham, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
6:47 PM PDT, October 8, 2008
Two freight railroads that share track with Metrolink commuter trains pledged Wednesday to install advanced safety measures in Southern California three years sooner than a new federal law would require -- with several caveats.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific executives, who called U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) earlier this week to inform her of their decision, said the system's complexity may prevent a complete rollout by 2012.

Feinstein announced the agreement in Van Nuys during a state Senate hearing on rail safety called after the Sept. 12 head-on collision of a Metrolink train and a Union Pacific freight train that killed 25 people and injured 135.

"If [the safety system known as] positive train control had been in place on Metrolink on Sept. 12, I believe 25 people would still be alive today," Feinstein said.

United Airlines to lay off 414 at SFO-IBT Says "Its Another Low"
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/08/BUPH13D6Q6.DTL

United Airlines to lay off 414 at SFO
George Raine, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 8, 2008

United Airlines has told the union that represents its mechanics at San Francisco International Airport that it will lay off as many as 414 workers beginning Dec. 7, as part of its efforts to contain costs.

The workers will be shed in what is the second round of layoffs announced this year. The first round ended Friday, during which time 137 workers departed with an involuntary furlough, with recall rights, said Paul Molenberg, business agent for Teamsters Local 856 in San Bruno, one of two locals representing approximately 3,000 mechanics at the United Airlines Maintenance Facility at San Francisco International Airport.

United said in a statement released Tuesday: "As we reduce the size of our fleet and take actions companywide to enable United to compete in this challenging economic environment, we must take the difficult but necessary step to reduce the number of people we have to run our business."

The layoffs are part of the "ongoing effort to size the company appropriately," said United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski.

http://railroadworkersunited.org/metrolink-crash-–-metrolink-crash:-opportunity-make-real-safety-improvements

The Metrolink Crash: An Opportunity to Make Real Safety Improvements
September 23, 2008
The recent crash of a Metrolink commuter train and a
Union Pacific Freight train should provide the impetus to make real
safety improvements which would reduce or eliminate the possibility of
such tragic wrecks in the future. More than two dozen people died,
including the engineer of the Metrolink train, and scores -- including
the crew of the freight train -- were injured, many critically.

The emerging, premature consensus over the following week was that the
engineer of the Metrolink train was preoccupied, texting and receiving
cell phone messages, when he should have been observing wayside signals
that would have informed him of the need to safely bring his train to a
stop. Wasting no time, the California Public Utilities Commission voted
to ban the use of a cell phone device while operating a locomotive. We
can expect such a law to become national in scope in the coming months.

But we miss the point – and the opportunity to create a safer railroad –

Bullish Union Busting Bosses Blamed For LA Train Wreck
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/03/BA9M13AMSM.DTL

Attorneys blame company in deadly train crash
Sue Doyle, Los Angeles Daily News
Friday, October 3, 2008
(10-03) 04:00 PDT Simi Valley, Ventura County -- Warning grieving families and injured passengers still reeling from last month's deadly Metrolink train crash to think about the future, attorneys are laying the groundwork for litigation stemming from the head-on collision that killed 25 people.

At two town-hall meetings Tuesday inside a Simi Valley hotel, lawyers spoke for two hours about a bullish corporate culture fueling the operator of Southern California's commuter rail system that they say leads to unsafe practices.

Metrolink officials knowingly send out trains with mechanical defects and encourage engineers to exceed speed limits and fudge record-keeping, all to avoid being late and reap lucrative financial bonuses for arriving on time, the attorneys said.

"Their chief concern is not what it should be," attorney R. Edward Pfiester Jr. said. "And that's the safety of their passengers."

His Los Angeles-based law firm, which set up public meetings Tuesday and Saturday, has represented people from Metrolink train crashes in Placentia in 2002 and Glendale in 2005.

Workers Liberty
http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2008/09/24/solidarity-3139.
Acid test for RMT as
key activist victimised

Tubeworkers: under pressure
Andy Littlechild, a well-known
local rep at Lillie Bridge and
activist on the “company council”
— the top relevant union body — was
suspended by the infrastructure company
Metronet on Tuesday 16 September, on
trumped-up charges.
The London Underground Engineering
and Fleet branches, and the RMT union
executive, have voted to ballot Metronet
workers for strike action. If Metronet is
allowed to get away with this, every union
rep across the network will be in danger.
The workers whom Andy directly works
with are reported as being very solid in
their determination to stop the victimisa-
tion. Success will depend on making sure
all workers across Metronet know the
issues. Leaflets are already being distrib-
uted to workplaces by reps and activists.
The spark was a local manager ’s arbi-
trary insistence on workers wearing hard
hats at all times. Andy was working on a
job with an agreed risk assessment not call-
ing for hard hats.
The manager wrote a new risk assess-

ILWU Local 10 Rally October 6th at Yolo County Courthouse Near Sacramento

Defend Local 10 Members Jason Ruffin and Aaron Harrison Beaten and
Arrested By Police.
Stop Racial Profiling! Drop The Bogus Charges!

6:00 AM: Buses leave ILWU Local 10 (400 North Point St. by Fisherman's Wharf).

8:00 AM: Rally in Woodland (near Sacramento)

On October 6, 2008 at the Yolo County Courthouse two ILWU Local 10
longshoremen, Jason Ruffin and Aaron Harrison, will go on trial. These
two brothers were beaten and arrested by police while returning to
work after lunch in the port of Sacramento on August 23, 2007. When
port security guards demanded they open the car trunk to be searched,
they called their union business agent to find out what their rights
are. New repressive (MARSEC) maritime security regulations was cited
in the assault, handcuffing, macing and arrest the two black union
members. They were initially charged with "trespassing" and "resisting
arrest". The "trespassing" charge was dropped. The video shows that
they did nothing wrong.

Sacramento police have a record of racist attacks on African American
and Mexican American youth. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)