B. N. Railroad in head-on collision with union
1985Misha Fox 1985-03Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 4 →
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Wives of rail workers protest Burlington Northern's safety violations.
MINNEAPOLIS-In June 1984 two trains on the Burlington Northern Railroad collided head-on in Minnesota. The BN's dispatch office had sent the trains hurtling toward each other at a combined speed of over 90 miles an hour. Three railroad employees were killed in the disaster.
To this day the Burlington management refuses to accept any responsibility for the accident. The company and representatives of the Federal Railroad Administration charged last summer that the victims had been operating under the influence of alcohol.
A recent report issued by the FRA, however, states that high alcohol levels in the blood of the victims was due to decomposition of their bodies following the crash.
Lately, the company has shifted the entire blame onto Joe Ceaser, the dispatcher who was on duty at the time of the collision. Ceaser, an 11-year clerical employee of BN and a member of the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline CORNERS MARCH 1985 Clerks, has been fired from his job.
"Firing Joe Ceaser will not stop accidents on the BN, union activists in the Inter-craft Association of Minnesota (ICAM) write in their newsletter. "Only by instituting adequate training procedures and upgrading the tracks and equipment will accidents be prevented."
The newsletter cites 635 BN accidents in 1982 alone, including 77 collisions and 447 derailments. Over 100 people died in these incidents.
ICAM states that the June collision was the result of massive cost-cutting measures that put company profits ahead of safety. Joe Ceaser was rushed through a sped-up training course and was working only his second unsupervised tour of duty as a dispatcher on the day of the crash.
ICAM points out that several dispatcher positions had been consolidated shortly before the accident, and even experienced dispatchers were having problems with the increased workload in unfamiliar territory.
Trade unionists and their families have organized protest rallies and picket lines to protest Burlington Northern's dangerous cutbacks. They have already forced the hiring of some additional dispatchers, additional training, and the continual staffing of outposts slated to be shut down. Now they are demanding that Joe Ceaser, a "sacrificial lamb," be returned to his former job as a clerk.
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CUTS LIVES Socialist Action/ Anne Zukowski