http://themilitant.com/2015/7937/793720.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 79/No. 37 October 19, 2015
(editorial)
Fight frame-up of Quebec rail workers!
The Socialist Workers Party and Communist League of Canada are
campaigning to fight the frame-up of Thomas Harding and Richard Labrie.
The two rail workers are threatened with life in prison as scapegoats
for the 2013 oil train disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec.
But it’s the profit-hungry owners of the railroad and Canadian
government officials who should be in the dock. They OK’d the deadly
“cost-saving” measures, from cuts in maintenance to imposing the one-man
“crew.” The Militant pledges to continue to offer a voice for this key
labor defense battle.
If you can, join the Oct. 11 rally for rail safety in Lac-Mégantic,
demanding the railroad fix its tracks before more deadly hazardous cargo
is hauled through the area.
Help get out the facts about what happened in Lac-Mégantic and the fight
to defeat the frame-up of the two rail workers. Raise it in your union.
In their drive to squeeze more profits out of fewer workers, the rail
bosses have imposed conditions that guarantee more disasters: cuts in
crew size, brutally long hours and irregular schedules, skimping on
track maintenance and equipment, excessively long and heavy trains.
Workers in other industries face similar attacks. Safety was the key
issue in the national oil workers strike earlier this year. Questions of
hours, schedules and relentless pressure to do more, faster, with fewer
workers are key issues in the fights of nurses, fast-food workers and
many others today.
To address these conditions, we need to fight for workers control of
safety on the job. We need to build unions that are strong enough to
stop production until unsafe conditions are fixed.
There are immediate safety measures we should fight for to reduce the
risks to life and limb for rail workers and the communities the trains
pass through: make it illegal for the railroads to operate without a
minimum crew of four; restore the caboose at the end of every train;
mandate a maximum train length of 50 cars; and immediate use of
double-hulled cars to haul oil and other hazardous materials.
It’s a fight in the interest of all workers and those who live near the
railroad tracks. Help defeat frame-up charges against Tom Harding and
Richard Labrie!
Related articles:
Lac-Mégantic rail safety fight is ‘needed now more than ever’
Fiat Chrysler workers vote down contract to protest two-tier wages
‘As long as ATI doesn’t budge, we’ll be out here’
On the Picket Line
Fast-food workers lead fight for $15 in Chicago suburbs
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home