(Source: People’s World, April 4, 2023)
Unions, safety specialists, and—now—the residents of East Palestine, Ohio, have contended that corporate greed drove Norfolk Southern Railway to cut corners on safety inspections and prevention, thus leading to the disastrous Feb. 3 wreck there. But buried deep in the March 31 federal Justice Department filing, for both itself and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, against Norfolk Southern in U.S. District Court in Cleveland, comes confirmation of the extent of that greed—and it’s mind-boggling. To be precise, “80 percent of the compensation” for Norfolk Southern’s top honchos, including its CEO, depends on how big its profit margin is. The larger the profit, the larger their pay. That’s an incentive to reduce human safety inspections, let experienced workers go, force remaining workers to shoulder jobs they weren’t trained for, and line up rail cars in an unsafe way, with heavy tank cars in the rear, to satisfy their profit model, precision scheduled railroading, and cut trains to just one crew member, the engineer, rail unions say.
Full story: People’s World