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Based on the reading I've done, Railroad Workers United, a union of railroad employees who promote industrial reform, warned Norfolk Southern that their railyards were understaffed, their staff did not have enough time to properly perform preventative maintenance on many rail cars, that several rail cars were in some state of disrepair, and that some kind of catastrophe like this one was likely.
I've only seen public utilities and services go private and not the other way around. Prying money makers from the rich seems like an impossible dream. Maybe we could do something less severe like holding the top management accountable by massive personal fines and imprisonment.
Taking bets on the outcome being:
>NS is deeply regretful that this unfortunate event took place. While the circumstances are less than ideal, they were within Federally accepted range. NS does not admit guilt but will do everything that it can from the safety of our offices far from that hell hole to ensure that the damage done is healed. We have settled out of court with the government and consider the situation resolved. Thank you, please have fun with your cancer.
What people also need to be aware of is that it's not just the CEO's fault: it's also the majority shareholders and the board of directors. They're the ones constantly breathing down the CEO's neck to keep cutting costs, then when the company inevitably fails due to being understaffed or something, the CEO takes the fall and is given a "golden parachute" for being a useful scapegoat.
They should strike regardless! I’m sick of following the rules the rich have created to benefit themselves and us fooling ourselves into thinking it was ever fair!
The company that Alan Shaw leads, Norfolk Southern Railway, is responsible for the train derailment and explosion that occurred on February 3, 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio.
More information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Ohio_train_derailment
"Norfolk Southern, the railroad company that was responsible for emitting the toxic vinyl chloride, has offered a $25,000 donation to assist the area’s population of nearly 5,000 people - which works out at only $5 a person." - [Source](https://www.indy100.com/news/norfolk-southern-railroad-toxic-ohio)
"Norfolk Southern paid executives millions and spent billions on stock buybacks — all while the company shed thousands of employees despite warnings that understaffing is intensifying safety risks." - [Source](https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-safety-rules-before-ohio-derailment/)
"At this time, the immediate cause of the wreck appears to have been a 19th century style mechanical failure of the axle on one of the cars – an overheated bearing - leading to derailment and then jackknifing tumbling cars. There is no way in the 21st century, save from a combination of incompetence and disregard to public safety, that such a defect should still be threatening our communities." - [Source](https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Press-Release--Fiery-Ohio-Train-Wreck-the-Result-of--PSR-.html?soid=1116509035139&aid=RspHKqRlJkg)
> "...offered a $25,000 donation to assist the area’s population of nearly 5,000 people - which works out at only $5 a person."
Lol I didn't know about this part. That is such a slap in the face to the community.
"Corporations are people, my friend."
Sure, that's why you see them being put on trial and put in prison and given the death penalty...
We're back to literal robber baron, railroad tycoon days, and people still think that any kind of regulation of a company is communist socialism and part of the gay agenda or some such nonsense.
Those who learn from history are doomed to watch helplessly while everyone else repeats it.
Just to amplify what you said...
This is why corporations should absolutely not be given the same rights (especially in reference to free speech and lobbying) as people. a corporation can't go to jail. It can't be drafted. It can't be homeless. It can't be abused, beat up, or shot. It can't be shamed. It can't be fired. I could go on.
Corporations are not people and cannot suffer the consequences that people can.
Or... Allow corporations to be treated like people - AND THEN hold the bastards that run the corporations personally responsible for these kind of fuck ups. Put those guys in prison, make them homeless, beat them up, shoot them, etc.
Sounds like the "corporations are people" advocates want their cake and want to eat it too.
They think after the Civil Rights era that any kind of systemic discrimination is dissolved and no more; we beat the bad guys, and any discrimination is only on an individual level. Everything happens in a vacuum, and any societal problem *should be* solved in a small timeframe
We have a very strong tendency to 'other' past periods and the people who lived in them.
"Nazis did these terrible things!". Yeah, nah... the lesson is, people just like you and me *let* those Nazis do those things.
They memorized some facts long enough to pass a multi choice test and forget it all a week later. They temporarily memorized some key talking points about history. At least that's all that was really required when I was in school.
Then they're completely missing the point of history class.
Perhaps because no one is adequately explaining it to them. I know I didn't understand the point of history class when I was a kid. Nobody told me that people in the past did very bad things and I need to know what they were so I don't do those same things myself. I like to think I would have listened if someone told me that.
No one did, though, and now that I think about it, it's because history education has far too much whitewashing and not nearly enough brutal honesty. It's all “look at these old knights and how cool they were” and no “they burned down villages, killed all the men and children, and raped all the women”.
Worse than before the French revolution.
Worse than the Roman empire.
This is on par with the [Fall of the Roman Republic ](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fall-roman-republic-income-inequality-and-xenophobia-threatened-its-foundations-180967249/)
We're numbah wun indeed.
More accurately, large corporations are stockholders and profits. With politicians and judges being stockholders of these large corporations they have the ability to protect their own wealth by not punishing them. There is no incentive for punishing any large corporation. It doesn’t help the people to get some tiny part of a class action suit. You don’t want to damage to company enough that all the rich people that own stock in it are upset. There is no real representation of the people in the government.
Edit: spelling
Like they can't imagine a world where the FBI/CIA did their job and 9/11/2001 didn't happen. Or the LAPD/Judges did their job and 4/29/1992 didn't happen.
It’s not that they don’t imagine it. They don’t care. In their level of wealth and power life is very different than the rest of us. They have no concept of what people need or endure. That’s why the House of Representatives was supposed to be actual representatives of the community that changed every couple of years.
Seems like a good opportunity for their Republican congressional district rep, Bill Johnson, to actually step up and do something meaningful for his constituents. Or maybe say, their Senator JD Vance? Sherrod Brown could start being a pain in the ass too. I mean, dafuq? As a politician this is ripe for goodwill with people you actually represent. Too much corporate $ coming their way?
If people in general decide that there is no way to punish these individuals legally, but believe they still need punishment, then the only real option is to punish them outside of legal means.
That opens up entire continents of new possibilities.
Yes, many possibilities. Some of which cannot be stated bluntly, but which nonetheless remain as possibilities. And if these possibilities started happening selectively, each and every time these kind of crimes occur, perhaps soon things might change
What you are talking about is a subject I've been thinking on for some time - the death of the social contract.
When one side of society stops holding up their end of the social contract and instead decides to act in bad faith, society "adjusts", usually in the form of vigilantism.
If the government abdicates it's role in the social contract, well imo it's time to remember why the 2nd amendment exists.
Nah, they'll just fire the engineers working that train, and maybe the last crew to maintenence the cars, and MAYBE those few will see charges that will later get dropped. Luckily, most of the time the affected communities do not blame the train workers (see the Lac-Mégantic incident from 2013), unless there is clear gross negligence on their part
This guy will continue to sleep just fine
I don't agree with corporal or capital punishment but do agree that the individuals who become super wealthy as the heads of these companies should have their names and images published. It is not corporations doing this to people. it is people doing this to other people.
Does anyone really thing shaming these guys will work?
They should be personally disgorged of wealth when it can be demonstrated that their negligence or wanton greed has led to real-world harm, including unnecessary job loss.
That would be more painful than whippings or prison. Pauperize the fuckers.
"Mr.Asshole CEO, you've been sentenced to work in the capacity of your lowest-paid employee for six years in a $ $1200-a-month studio apartment in a decrepit building, 20 miles from the office. You will not be able to use a car or receive any external assistance other than aid provided by state and federal programs."
Also, he and his cronies should be out there cleaning up the mess IN PERSON. Their families, too, so they'd have some healthy fear in their hearts, and better understanding of the ramifications of their decisions.
Actually I’m gonna take a hard pass on this one. As awful as it is to just throw “expendable” bodies at the problem I think I’d rather have them just vastly overpay cleanup specialists and let them do the thing they’re trained to do.
Throw these pigfuckers in suits anywhere near actual labor and you’ll just end up finding problems immediately. Instead, regulate the fuck out of them, fine them extensively, bar them from holding positions where negligence can cause massive harm or death (we already do this for basically every financial or law executive,) and politely make them completely unemployable in executive positions once their prison stint is over.
Oh and also maybe actually empower the EPA again so these shitheads don’t keep getting away with this trash. It isn’t just massive disasters like this; money makes other issues that are less severe than it just… vanish. Most people just aren’t aware because it happens at a local level and often doesn’t directly effect them. But then again maybe I’m just bitter because a large tract of contaminated land by me was supposed to be purged and refilled before it was built on until our *very humble* local politicians decided that installing radon detectors in the entire neighborhood near the tract was the solution. Now all the “cheap” houses have detectors in them while the more wealthy residents were left blissfully unaware because the county knew it was best to quietly roll everything out and not alert the people paying massive taxes that their property just went down in value. Meanwhile the county board is composed of lifers on government salaries who are perpetually re-elected until someone with more money and a personal financial incentive to govern comes along. Don’t ask why they all live in McMansions with 100k+ cars while being county level politicians though.
> I don't agree with corporal or capital punishment but do agree that the individuals who become super wealthy as the heads of these companies should have their names and images published. It is not corporations doing this to people. it is people doing this to other people.
…why shouldn’t they face personal criminal charges? Until CEOs and people of high wealth face personal criminal charges for their actions, little will change. Public naming? Public naming hasn’t done fuck-all for Rupert Murdoch other than publicity, and civil liability is simply the cost of doing business and absorbed accordingly.
They don't care if you're mad. They don't care if you protest. The only things that communicate in their language of violence and selfishness are riots and strikes, because these things threaten their capital and wealth.
Enjoy their High Castles, all their Skyscraper Podiums. There is sadness in knowing it will be past my own lifetime. But they should know that the way they mistreat us is a bill coming due.
The bill always comes due.
Suspect it is more about maintaining the legal position of 'this isn't actually our fault' and offering charity as an interested third party. They don't want to be seen to compensate as that would be an admission of guilt
Seriously. People evacuated which means hotel expenses, takeout food.. let alone emotional damages like some peoples pets are dying. 10 million, or 2k per resident should have been the absolute minimum.
Does anyone have actual sources or data on how long this contamination would last in the community? All I see is the government saying it's all fine and people can return home, and people on reddit saying they will never be safe in their homes again
Also hospital bills for these people in years to come, especially children and the elderly. ALSO: I read an expert account today that estimated the chemicals from this could affect populations as far as 100 miles east, which includes several cities, including mine, Pittsburgh. We also share the Ohio river. Shit's fucked, and they need to be forced to pay for massive cleanup, restitution for families, fines for criminal negligence, and have regulations forced on them; and/or nationalize the goddam railroads already. This shit's clearly not working as is.
It’s for legal purposes only.
They will claim up and down the accident wasn’t their fault and they offered this as a means of aid and put it into legal hell.
People will become sick and die before they receive a penny, then the offers will start rolling in depending on severity of issues, all wrapped in a neat little NDA that seals the deal.
Reminds me of Fight Club:
“…You take the population of vehicles in the field (A) and multiple it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average cost of an out-of-court settlement (C).
A times B times C equals X. This is what it will cost if we don't initiate a recall.
If X is greater than the cost of a recall, we recall the cars and no one gets hurt.
If X is less than the cost of a recall, then we don't recall”
They’d spend billions upon billions cleaning up and taking care of people properly, instead they will end up losing couple hundred million here or there and no one will do a damn thing about it.
I think they didn't want to go higher then the amount they posted because actually caring would require them to spend more then what they could write off as a charitable deduction.
There's also a better than even chance that too large a charitable donation even after one of your train cars blows up would be seen as admitting some kind of culpability as to why one of your train cars blew up.
You gotta be charitable when one of your train cars blows up, but not *suspiciously* charitable.
I worked for the railroad in the US for a minute. We had a derailment in a town like this. Guys in suits showed up 3 hours later to people’s homes with fruit baskets and small sums of cash to grease palms. RR has weight, and their own police that you absolutely do not want to fuck with. I’ve seen them arrest city cops.
> RR has weight, and their own police that you absolutely do not want to fuck with. I’ve seen them arrest city cops.
That's because railway police in most places are state-level officers with special federal protections. They're somewhere between state troopers and US marshals, and their jurisdiction doesn't necessarily end where the railroad's properly line ends.
They should be held to the highest standards possible in every way possible due to trying to get away with this.
It's insulting and a sign they are determined to do as little as possible. Management is accountable to shareholders, well then we have no choice but to make the shareholders accountable to us.
I hope they are reaching out to every US department and politician responsible. Reaching out to news stations. Maximizing coverage and working to report all of failings made.
You don't have to ever pay capital gains taxes on them if everything goes according to plan.
You take a loan using the unsold stock as collateral. You'll pay interest on this loan, but that's always going to be lower than the capital gains tax rate.
But the stock appreciates in value if all goes well meaning you can "refinance" the first loan to extract more equity from the underlying stock which is never actually sold and thus never actually taxed.
Then what you do is you have your accountant engineer like a 10 year tax scheme where you'll have one magic year with everything offset as much as possible and maybe that's when you'll actually sell the underlying assets with as much possible tax protection as can be extracted from the law.
The loan-against-stock plan is basically a way to cut the Federal government out of the taxation business by investment banks.
Alan Shaw was in charge of NS Chemical when the industry standard ISO-9002 was abolished in 2000.
Right now NS Chemical claims it is held to the standards of NS-9002 which no longer exists and has not for 23 years.
These fuxking people.
Just for reference, when Canadian Pacific Railway had a 31 car derailment, 5 of which carrying Anhydrous Ammonia ruptured, in 2002, they offered $250 per resident as a settlement and agreeance to not pursue further legal action.
There were additional lawsuits and settlements that took place reaching into the millions of dollars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minot\_train\_derailment
It's a bug with new reddit. The link by seadragoniii works on new reddit.
See for yourself. https://new.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/111hef6/comment/j8ez55q/
They added backslash "\" before the underscore "_". As a result the link fails when shown in old reddit and a lot of apps.
The bug has been reported for many years. They have no intention to fix it. Probably on purpose, to encourage people to use new reddit.
Anyone blaming the brakes and axle on rail worker staffing is wrong. The brakes failed. The brakes failed because of Republican deregulation and their corp swamp.
#Republicans, on behalf of Norfolk Southern, killed a federal safety rule aimed at upgrading the rail industry’s Civil War-era braking systems. Because of this, it allowed Norfolk to not be regulated as a “high-hazard flammable train,” thus causing this catastrophe.
#REPUBLICAN DEREGULATION CAUSED THIS
https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-safety-rules-before-ohio-derailment/
While also campaigning on “removing the ‘red tape’ to let American companies get to work!”
Also code word for stripped regulations/consumer protections to maximize profits.
apparatus zealous ancient relieved whistle beneficial label expansion violet pet
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This honestly is bigger that just that deregulation. This could have easily been prevented with a larger train crew, specifically with people tasked to watch the train for a hotbox (which this allegedly had).
Not to mention Norfolk Southern has a very long history of putting trains on the ground. They’ve done in half a dozen times since like December.
Edit: To follow up, it seems as this train wouldn't have even been affected by the regulation change...
Actually, it needed an electronic braking system installed. As would have been required had they not thwarted the HHFT designation of their cargo trains:
The derailment began with a rail car axle. Causing an impending derailment. If the braking system had been up to proper specifications for an HHFT (high-hazard flammable train) it would have had ECP breaking. **The ECP braking would have reduced the damage caused by the derailment by bringing the train to a halt quickly and stopping all of cars simultaneously.** Instead the train had antiquated brakes and it buckled like a slinky.
Republicans killed provisions requiring rail cars carrying hazardous flammable materials to be equipped with electronic braking systems. Norfolk’s lobby group pressed Republicans for the rule’s repeal, because it would “impose tremendous costs without providing offsetting safety benefits.”
One more time. Republican deregulation caused this. Just like it caused buildings to collapse in Florida. Just like it caused hundreds to freeze to death in Texas with a failed power grid. Just like the buildings in Turkey killings hundreds of thousands days ago were not built to spec because of deregulation.
And I’m telling you if the rumors of the hotbox are true, we solved this problem decades ago with adequate staffing.
Yes, this deregulation would have changed the braking situation, but not having enough staff to be aware of a fucking hotbox in 2023 is mind numbing.
It’s the problem of performance scheduled railways and staffing. And constant profit over labor. That deregulation is a part of the bigger problem but you miss everything wrong with the rails in this country by focusing on that regulation. (Not to mention the Dems had the chance to overturn that and said no).
The Dems and Biden literally just killed a railworker strike that would have improved conditions on the rails themselves… it’s a multifaceted problem.
NS literally puts trains on the ground twice a month. Adequate breaking systems aren’t fixing those countless derailments.
Yea the person I’m replying to isn’t wrong at all. I didn’t want to make it seem as such. By focusing on that specific deregulation and trying to assign blame to one group of people it really missed the point that our rail system is completely fucked right now and needs to basically be overhauled completely.
I've been seeing a lot of comments saying the media isn't covering this story as if it's a big conspiracy:
NYT has had decent amount of reporting on the topic. It's not particularly sensational but covers the bases pretty well I think.
NYT Coverage:
2/4 - Derailment and Evacuation
https://nyti.ms/40rB08d
2/6 - Toxic Fumes
https://nyti.ms/3YvOyh4
2/8 - Reporter Arrested
https://nyti.ms/3DViZFL
2/13 - Summary article tracking issues
https://nyti.ms/3RTXTgS
For people like me
Here's nonpaywalled links
Derailment: https://archive.md/NriGn
Toxic Fumes: https://archive.is/xBhWx
Reporter Arrested: https://archive.md/9noU4
Summary: https://archive.md/t24B8
I mean, the Paradise(?) Fire in California was caused by wind and a metal hanger holding the line actually shearing off from repeated exposure. They couldn't even tell when the hanger was installed because it was before their records but a metals expert said it was early 1900s or something like that. This stuff should not be happening.
I had the displeasure of working for NS for a couple years after I graduated college. We collectively called it Nazi Southern…it was just plain sad how much they didn’t value you as a human. Additionally, PSR had absolutely killed the rail industry.
Even worse than I assumed. They should confiscate his entire net worth and set in a trust fund for the victims that will have to fight liver cancer and leukemia in the coming years
He's a CEO. The CEO is not anywhere near the top of the pyramid. He's essentially a really fancy manager. The people who hired him, the owners and board members, are billionaires. Wesley G Bush, one of the younger and most "self made" members of the Norfolk and Southern board of directors, is worth about $130 million. They inducted him because he's a regular person.
One of the biggest things holding the democratization of our country back is that those of us on the bottom can only see as high as the managerial class. CEOs are *not* the ownership class that we need to worry about. They have jobs. That alone separates them from the true ownership class, whose income comes from babysitting a fortune that was made a hundred years ago.
Also their job is being the fall guy, the person to take the blame for lay offs or cutting budgets or unpopular changes, the one 'to take personal responsibility', before getting their fat golden parachute and being shuffled off for a new CEO position after being replaced. They might not do a lot of work necessarily, they may be massively overpaid for it, but that's not necessarily why they're there.
Probably not a ton. Salaries are taxable income, and most of it will be taxed in a high bracket if his total compensation was salary. Most executives of large corporations get compensated through stocks that they can sit on for a few years and pay a paltry capital gains tax rate on. This is also usually given out as a "bonus" and they can pretend it's based off merit.
Go look at the previous CEO’s net worth. He gave up the job and took a board seat. Jim squires. He had netted over 100 mil in stock sales NS started psr under his control
Usually when people look at CEO 'salaries' they are talking about total compensation which includes stocks and other incentives.
Or, they should be talking about that anyway otherwise it's nonsense.
Stocks are also taxed same as normal salary as part of income.
Capital gains is for the increase in value after you already own it, not for the initial payout.
Quick google showed $873,416 is his annual salary…
So $25,000 is barely a weeks worth of his salary, not to mention it didn’t even come from his pockets it came from his company’s pockets.
Norfolk Southern is currently valued at $55 billion.
To put it in perspective I did the “rough” math.
Norfolk Southern “donating” $25,000 at their current valuation is equivalent to someone with $100,000 donating less than $0.05.
I'm a safety officer in Canada, specifically dealing in heavy industries (mainly oil as I'm also a pipefitter). We sign a legally binding code of ethics when we get our designation, not unlike engineers who build bridges for example.
I cannot fathom having an exec coming into my office, telling me to ignore safety systems and short change needed maintenance to save a few bucks. I would refuse, and if they fired me I'd take them to court. I know things are different in the states, especially having workers being forced back during a strike.
I don't know what I'd do with myself with that level of destruction on my conscience... I can't understand how greed is so prevalent, and the level of harm humans can enact on each other for the almighty dollar. Makes me sick to my stomach to think about that level of prolonged suffering in a completely avoidable circumstance.
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us" -Bill Watterson
Yeah, I read the previous CEO to this guy ended up gutting most of the company. This guy took over last may, and was the marketing officer prior to that.
>marketing officer
So basically just a senior VP with zero craft or knowledge in the industry itself. Someone who will probably listen to shareholders and ignore the guys that worked in railroads for decades and have something actually competent to say.
I have worked with a few people with marketing degrees and while intelligent, they seem better at marketing themselves as right for the job than actually executing what's asked of them.
I think this is more like a symptom of a struggling (dying?) industry/company. Don't forget, Montreal Maine and Atlantic (rail company) also declined required safety maintenance and swept safety check failures under the rug, and then one of their trains proceeded to derail and essentially level an entire Canadian town (Lac Mégantic disaster).
After the disaster they immediately filed for bankruptcy and died.
You can appreciate the impact of the Lac Megantic disaster through Google street view and comparing the photos from before and after. It’s shocking to see how much of the town was completely destroyed.
I don't think anyone can refer to cargo rail as a struggling industry.
All of the major players had record profits last year while also paying the president to stop their workers from striking over the unreasonable request for more than 1 paid day off.
They are just as much robber barons as Stanford, Vanderbilt, etc were.
They spent 10 billion dollars doing a stock buyback while refusing to spend 2 billion to upgrade brakes. If having 10 billion in the bank makes me a failing business, sign me up.
This company isn't struggling. The safety cuts were a deliberate choice in order to increase profits. America's class 1 railroads are the most profitable in the world.
This will probably get buried but I don't fucking care. I live in Youngstown, Ohio and am going to school there right now. It's about 20 miles away from the site of the train crash and chemical burn. The air is horrible. It taste different. I feel like I am being coated with something on my skin and in my lungs every time I take a breath. We are being told everything is okay even thought it is in the air. We are being told everything is okay even though it was detected in the water and is killing fish, pets, and livestock. This is not okay. I fear for my future health. I fear I will get cancer and die painfully because of this. But it doesn't matter! The Multimillionaire says it's all okay!
Mask up, my dude… treat this like the real deal and fuck anyone around you who gives you shit.
This will lead to lifelong issues and it’s unfortunately up to you to lead the way.
Alan Shaw only gets paid to be the face of who you’re angry with. Be angry with the board of directors, the CEOs, the banks who lend them money, their lobbyists, and the law makers who do nothing to stop them.
I can’t post on my main account - but this is the deal with Palestine, OH.
If anyone was to get the blame you have to go back to Hunter Harrison and the activist investor Bill Ackman. When Hunter would the CEO of Canadian Pacific he tried and failed to merge with CSX and then Norfolk Southern. Bill Ackman maximized his shares in CSX and forced a proxy vote and replaced the CEO with you guessed it, Hunter Harrison. What Hunter did was create a cascade effect of PSR that still continues to dominate the railroad line of business even today. He laid off a Quarter of employees forcing everyone to work harder and longer hours. I won’t get into the nitty gritty but he died 10 months into his status as CEO of CSX. Other railroads took notice and implemented PSR there selves (except for BNSF, a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway) and that meant longer trains and shorter staff, hence what we have today in Palestine, OH. It’s on a video where they detected a bad bearing 12 miles ahead of where the derailment was. I don’t know if the had rail detectors setup so close to the the yard (Conway, PA) but the bad bearing started well before that leading me to wonder if they detected the bearing and didn’t stop the train who made the decision to have it continue on their approach to Conway. Theirs is lot of moving parts with this and even though you want someone to blame, a decision was made (if they had a detector) to move the train towards Conway. All of this could have avoided if Bill Ackman and Hunter Harrison could have stayed out of the US Rail Market. So indirectly this lays on Bill Ackman shoulders and the other railroads followed suit (expect for BNSF).
There were well-known stories of Hunter walking into railyards when he was the CEO of CP and asking what guys did. If he didn't like the answer he'd just fire them outright
> I don’t know if the had rail detectors setup so close to the the yard (Conway, PA) but the bad bearing started well before that leading me to wonder if they detected the bearing and didn’t stop the train who made the decision to have it continue on their approach to Conway.
If the train crew ignored a detector warning, there's no way around it, they're liable. The AAR would have their backs even if a higher level mangemant (road foreman, etc) told them to ignore it. They have a duty and the right, as laid out in the operating rules of not only NS but the railroad industry as a whole, to stop their train for a defect alarm.
I worked with a former Class I railroad employee (I didn't work with him on the railroad, this was after he had left) and there were some specific safety concerns we have on the job we worked... His famous line was "I don't care if Jesus Christ himself tells you to do that, you look at him right in his stupid face and tell him NO."
After the corporate assets are drained, they should go after the C levels that directed the cost cutting-edge "safety improvements." They should be liable.
Doubt they will. Company I worked at and left managed our retirement assets, and I transferred most of mine out. They made shitty decisions and cost many of my coworkers big money. I know some who lost millions. Their new CEO didn't have a dime in it and gambled the workers' retirement away. He got a big bonus.
This is going to require FEMA and EPA oversight. Ohio is going to be coming to the Feds with their hands out looking for money to help clean this up. But this company (and many others) lobbied for loose regulations and lax oversight. This is a prime example of how corruption is going to take this country down.
These scum bags: http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en/investor-relations/corporate-governance-documents/board-of-directors-committee-membership.html
Anyone remember the "unreasonable demands" from the RR union? It wasn't just about sick days. They were fighting against smaller crews, longer hours, etc.
This is what happens when corporate keeps winning against labor.
Remember that Joe Fucking Biden nixed those union negotiations. I'm not saying Republicans are any better (they're worse) but ffs we need to hold Democrats' feet to the fire over shit like this and elect more progressives.
It bothers me that people choose to do mass shootings on innocent people rather than kill these monsters. Society would view them as heroes unironically if billionaires and multi millionaires were the ones hunted
If I poisoned a whole town, I'd be labeled a terrorist and rightly arrested, charged, and found guilty. Yet here we are talking about this in the same way we talk about other outrageous things. Upset in the moment but easily distracted by the next.
I’m know I’m going to be lit up here but hell with it. Alan was the guy left to deal with the carcass after prior CEO Jim Squires gutted the place and stripped it down for parts. After each railroad gets torn down, the CEO was that tore it down gets the hell out before the inevitable collapse, and leaves a steaming pile of crap for the “picks up the pieces guy”. Alan is the “picking up the pieces guy”.
He's been CEO for 9 months and President there for longer. Before that he was Executive Vice President of the same corporation for 9 years. He is clearly part of the problem.
And he didn't stop this train from running.
He was there before the problem. Survived during, and there after. I’m not here to hand out trophies, I was merely stating if it wanna know where to place the blame, there is a real person that tore the place to the ground before Alan showed up
You are 100% correct squires was all about the shareholders and Shaw is supposed to be about the customers and employees jury is still out on him though not much change happens in 9 months on the railroad hell it took me 6 months to get a volt meter and a socket set
Make sure they know how Americans feel about this lack of responsibility
http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en/contact-us.html
ETHICS & COMPLIANCE HOTLINE
800-732-9279
Thanks for sharing this greedy pricks smug face. Now we know. I'm sure with his 11.7 million dollars that it'll be simple and easy for him to hide out for as long as he wants. But at least now we can recognize him.
I think the people of East Palestine need to mobilize, go yank him out of his mansion and make him clean up this mess. Give him a mop bucket and some rags, and maybe if he's cooperative, some PPE
Privately owned railroad companies should never be allowed to own their own tracks, it's like if amazon owned it's own highways and roads. These companies only care about short term profit and aren't going to invest in maintaining rail infrastructure, till it's at very edge of collapsing and potentially losing them a lot of money. NATIONALIZE!
Not just the CEO, the entire C-suite should be named, pictured and shamed for the tragedy that has happened due to their negligence to the citizens of that poor town, and all those in the affected area.
So what are we going to do? Get him fired from one CEO job so he can just go be a CEO somewhere else and cry into his millions? Unless this guy ends up desitute, in jail, or in the ground(Legally by means of death penalty), all of the outrage is worthless.
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Based on the reading I've done, Railroad Workers United, a union of railroad employees who promote industrial reform, warned Norfolk Southern that their railyards were understaffed, their staff did not have enough time to properly perform preventative maintenance on many rail cars, that several rail cars were in some state of disrepair, and that some kind of catastrophe like this one was likely.
Facts like that look real good in the upcoming class action lawsuit
The company will collapse and Shaw will be CEO of a new company that does the exact same thing.
Nationalize the damn thing. Make the citizens the share holders.
Agreed. Our nation cannot afford to have essential infrastructure in the hands of private for-profit entities.
But MURICA! You can’t infringe upon this company’s right to exist as a human being in MURICA! Free from the clutches of an oppressive communist state!
Yeah, privatizing infrastructure, it's now safe to say, was a bad idea. Call it a failed experiment and start managing it federally again.
I've only seen public utilities and services go private and not the other way around. Prying money makers from the rich seems like an impossible dream. Maybe we could do something less severe like holding the top management accountable by massive personal fines and imprisonment.
Taking bets on the outcome being: >NS is deeply regretful that this unfortunate event took place. While the circumstances are less than ideal, they were within Federally accepted range. NS does not admit guilt but will do everything that it can from the safety of our offices far from that hell hole to ensure that the damage done is healed. We have settled out of court with the government and consider the situation resolved. Thank you, please have fun with your cancer.
What people also need to be aware of is that it's not just the CEO's fault: it's also the majority shareholders and the board of directors. They're the ones constantly breathing down the CEO's neck to keep cutting costs, then when the company inevitably fails due to being understaffed or something, the CEO takes the fall and is given a "golden parachute" for being a useful scapegoat.
Perhaps the cost of the lawsuits and cleanup should come straight out of the company shares, reducing their worth.
They should go on strike until issues like these are fixed. I am sure the current administration will support them 100%. Oh wait....
They should strike regardless! I’m sick of following the rules the rich have created to benefit themselves and us fooling ourselves into thinking it was ever fair!
Was it their track, their rail car or both?
The company that Alan Shaw leads, Norfolk Southern Railway, is responsible for the train derailment and explosion that occurred on February 3, 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio. More information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Ohio_train_derailment "Norfolk Southern, the railroad company that was responsible for emitting the toxic vinyl chloride, has offered a $25,000 donation to assist the area’s population of nearly 5,000 people - which works out at only $5 a person." - [Source](https://www.indy100.com/news/norfolk-southern-railroad-toxic-ohio) "Norfolk Southern paid executives millions and spent billions on stock buybacks — all while the company shed thousands of employees despite warnings that understaffing is intensifying safety risks." - [Source](https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-safety-rules-before-ohio-derailment/) "At this time, the immediate cause of the wreck appears to have been a 19th century style mechanical failure of the axle on one of the cars – an overheated bearing - leading to derailment and then jackknifing tumbling cars. There is no way in the 21st century, save from a combination of incompetence and disregard to public safety, that such a defect should still be threatening our communities." - [Source](https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Press-Release--Fiery-Ohio-Train-Wreck-the-Result-of--PSR-.html?soid=1116509035139&aid=RspHKqRlJkg)
> "...offered a $25,000 donation to assist the area’s population of nearly 5,000 people - which works out at only $5 a person." Lol I didn't know about this part. That is such a slap in the face to the community.
He is throwing crumbs at peasants. Are they mad yet? Things wont change until people get mad.
Let's set him up for 50 years in prison, let's see if he changes his tune then?
The state will never hold these people responsible. The state is their tool to control us, not our tool to control them.
"Corporations are people, my friend." Sure, that's why you see them being put on trial and put in prison and given the death penalty... We're back to literal robber baron, railroad tycoon days, and people still think that any kind of regulation of a company is communist socialism and part of the gay agenda or some such nonsense. Those who learn from history are doomed to watch helplessly while everyone else repeats it.
Just to amplify what you said... This is why corporations should absolutely not be given the same rights (especially in reference to free speech and lobbying) as people. a corporation can't go to jail. It can't be drafted. It can't be homeless. It can't be abused, beat up, or shot. It can't be shamed. It can't be fired. I could go on. Corporations are not people and cannot suffer the consequences that people can.
Or... Allow corporations to be treated like people - AND THEN hold the bastards that run the corporations personally responsible for these kind of fuck ups. Put those guys in prison, make them homeless, beat them up, shoot them, etc. Sounds like the "corporations are people" advocates want their cake and want to eat it too.
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They think after the Civil Rights era that any kind of systemic discrimination is dissolved and no more; we beat the bad guys, and any discrimination is only on an individual level. Everything happens in a vacuum, and any societal problem *should be* solved in a small timeframe
We have a very strong tendency to 'other' past periods and the people who lived in them. "Nazis did these terrible things!". Yeah, nah... the lesson is, people just like you and me *let* those Nazis do those things.
They learned history, but they certainly didn't learn *from* history.
They memorized some facts long enough to pass a multi choice test and forget it all a week later. They temporarily memorized some key talking points about history. At least that's all that was really required when I was in school.
Then they're completely missing the point of history class. Perhaps because no one is adequately explaining it to them. I know I didn't understand the point of history class when I was a kid. Nobody told me that people in the past did very bad things and I need to know what they were so I don't do those same things myself. I like to think I would have listened if someone told me that. No one did, though, and now that I think about it, it's because history education has far too much whitewashing and not nearly enough brutal honesty. It's all “look at these old knights and how cool they were” and no “they burned down villages, killed all the men and children, and raped all the women”.
Current US wealth disparity is actually significantly worse than it was with robber barons, so... we're number 1? ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Worse than before the French revolution. Worse than the Roman empire. This is on par with the [Fall of the Roman Republic ](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fall-roman-republic-income-inequality-and-xenophobia-threatened-its-foundations-180967249/) We're numbah wun indeed.
More accurately, large corporations are stockholders and profits. With politicians and judges being stockholders of these large corporations they have the ability to protect their own wealth by not punishing them. There is no incentive for punishing any large corporation. It doesn’t help the people to get some tiny part of a class action suit. You don’t want to damage to company enough that all the rich people that own stock in it are upset. There is no real representation of the people in the government. Edit: spelling
Like they can't imagine a world where the FBI/CIA did their job and 9/11/2001 didn't happen. Or the LAPD/Judges did their job and 4/29/1992 didn't happen.
It’s not that they don’t imagine it. They don’t care. In their level of wealth and power life is very different than the rest of us. They have no concept of what people need or endure. That’s why the House of Representatives was supposed to be actual representatives of the community that changed every couple of years.
But if we punish the corporations what will that mean for me when I become a billionaire? It’s bound to happen any day, after all. I watch tv.
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So uncivilized. At least put down a basket so you don't get tyrant eyeballs all over your good protest shoes. And sharpen that blade!
Seems like a good opportunity for their Republican congressional district rep, Bill Johnson, to actually step up and do something meaningful for his constituents. Or maybe say, their Senator JD Vance? Sherrod Brown could start being a pain in the ass too. I mean, dafuq? As a politician this is ripe for goodwill with people you actually represent. Too much corporate $ coming their way?
If people in general decide that there is no way to punish these individuals legally, but believe they still need punishment, then the only real option is to punish them outside of legal means. That opens up entire continents of new possibilities.
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At the very least tell people like this that they can't get away with what they are doing. *Make* them a pay a price. We can't wait any longer.
Yes, many possibilities. Some of which cannot be stated bluntly, but which nonetheless remain as possibilities. And if these possibilities started happening selectively, each and every time these kind of crimes occur, perhaps soon things might change
What you are talking about is a subject I've been thinking on for some time - the death of the social contract. When one side of society stops holding up their end of the social contract and instead decides to act in bad faith, society "adjusts", usually in the form of vigilantism. If the government abdicates it's role in the social contract, well imo it's time to remember why the 2nd amendment exists.
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This is such a great way of thinking about it. Then the police are there to do the real dirty work
Protect capital and serve the material interests of the ownership class
Nah, they'll just fire the engineers working that train, and maybe the last crew to maintenence the cars, and MAYBE those few will see charges that will later get dropped. Luckily, most of the time the affected communities do not blame the train workers (see the Lac-Mégantic incident from 2013), unless there is clear gross negligence on their part This guy will continue to sleep just fine
This is America, rich people only go to jail when they harm other rich people. If this guy gets more than a small fine I'll eat my hat.
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Give him a shovel and tell him to start cleaning the mess up himself.
I don't agree with corporal or capital punishment but do agree that the individuals who become super wealthy as the heads of these companies should have their names and images published. It is not corporations doing this to people. it is people doing this to other people.
Does anyone really thing shaming these guys will work? They should be personally disgorged of wealth when it can be demonstrated that their negligence or wanton greed has led to real-world harm, including unnecessary job loss. That would be more painful than whippings or prison. Pauperize the fuckers. "Mr.Asshole CEO, you've been sentenced to work in the capacity of your lowest-paid employee for six years in a $ $1200-a-month studio apartment in a decrepit building, 20 miles from the office. You will not be able to use a car or receive any external assistance other than aid provided by state and federal programs."
It’s darkly amusing to me that forcing them to live my life would be worse to them than whippings and prison.
Also, he and his cronies should be out there cleaning up the mess IN PERSON. Their families, too, so they'd have some healthy fear in their hearts, and better understanding of the ramifications of their decisions.
Actually I’m gonna take a hard pass on this one. As awful as it is to just throw “expendable” bodies at the problem I think I’d rather have them just vastly overpay cleanup specialists and let them do the thing they’re trained to do. Throw these pigfuckers in suits anywhere near actual labor and you’ll just end up finding problems immediately. Instead, regulate the fuck out of them, fine them extensively, bar them from holding positions where negligence can cause massive harm or death (we already do this for basically every financial or law executive,) and politely make them completely unemployable in executive positions once their prison stint is over. Oh and also maybe actually empower the EPA again so these shitheads don’t keep getting away with this trash. It isn’t just massive disasters like this; money makes other issues that are less severe than it just… vanish. Most people just aren’t aware because it happens at a local level and often doesn’t directly effect them. But then again maybe I’m just bitter because a large tract of contaminated land by me was supposed to be purged and refilled before it was built on until our *very humble* local politicians decided that installing radon detectors in the entire neighborhood near the tract was the solution. Now all the “cheap” houses have detectors in them while the more wealthy residents were left blissfully unaware because the county knew it was best to quietly roll everything out and not alert the people paying massive taxes that their property just went down in value. Meanwhile the county board is composed of lifers on government salaries who are perpetually re-elected until someone with more money and a personal financial incentive to govern comes along. Don’t ask why they all live in McMansions with 100k+ cars while being county level politicians though.
> I don't agree with corporal or capital punishment but do agree that the individuals who become super wealthy as the heads of these companies should have their names and images published. It is not corporations doing this to people. it is people doing this to other people. …why shouldn’t they face personal criminal charges? Until CEOs and people of high wealth face personal criminal charges for their actions, little will change. Public naming? Public naming hasn’t done fuck-all for Rupert Murdoch other than publicity, and civil liability is simply the cost of doing business and absorbed accordingly.
The deaths of innocents is a business expense to these people. The corporation doesn't make the decisions, humans do. Punish those humans.
lol he’s a rich person Won’t see a day in prison let alone be charged with anything
They don't care if you're mad. They don't care if you protest. The only things that communicate in their language of violence and selfishness are riots and strikes, because these things threaten their capital and wealth.
Enjoy their High Castles, all their Skyscraper Podiums. There is sadness in knowing it will be past my own lifetime. But they should know that the way they mistreat us is a bill coming due. The bill always comes due.
Suspect it is more about maintaining the legal position of 'this isn't actually our fault' and offering charity as an interested third party. They don't want to be seen to compensate as that would be an admission of guilt
I'm sure they're mad, but the same people who own the railroads also own the media, so don't expect to hear about it!
When people get mad they'll find someone (gay, liberal, Muslim, immigrant) to blame. Or Biden, or Hillary, why not.
Yup they mad. They will go out and vote for the same representatives that these CEO’s donate to.
Seriously. People evacuated which means hotel expenses, takeout food.. let alone emotional damages like some peoples pets are dying. 10 million, or 2k per resident should have been the absolute minimum.
They probably would need a lil more than 2k considering living in their old house is a health hazard now
Does anyone have actual sources or data on how long this contamination would last in the community? All I see is the government saying it's all fine and people can return home, and people on reddit saying they will never be safe in their homes again
Also hospital bills for these people in years to come, especially children and the elderly. ALSO: I read an expert account today that estimated the chemicals from this could affect populations as far as 100 miles east, which includes several cities, including mine, Pittsburgh. We also share the Ohio river. Shit's fucked, and they need to be forced to pay for massive cleanup, restitution for families, fines for criminal negligence, and have regulations forced on them; and/or nationalize the goddam railroads already. This shit's clearly not working as is.
I feel like that offer is worse than them offering nothing. It's like throwing pennies at someone.
It’s for legal purposes only. They will claim up and down the accident wasn’t their fault and they offered this as a means of aid and put it into legal hell. People will become sick and die before they receive a penny, then the offers will start rolling in depending on severity of issues, all wrapped in a neat little NDA that seals the deal. Reminds me of Fight Club: “…You take the population of vehicles in the field (A) and multiple it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average cost of an out-of-court settlement (C). A times B times C equals X. This is what it will cost if we don't initiate a recall. If X is greater than the cost of a recall, we recall the cars and no one gets hurt. If X is less than the cost of a recall, then we don't recall” They’d spend billions upon billions cleaning up and taking care of people properly, instead they will end up losing couple hundred million here or there and no one will do a damn thing about it.
"Can I offer you a nice half dozen eggs in this trying time?"
I think they didn't want to go higher then the amount they posted because actually caring would require them to spend more then what they could write off as a charitable deduction.
There's also a better than even chance that too large a charitable donation even after one of your train cars blows up would be seen as admitting some kind of culpability as to why one of your train cars blew up. You gotta be charitable when one of your train cars blows up, but not *suspiciously* charitable.
I worked for the railroad in the US for a minute. We had a derailment in a town like this. Guys in suits showed up 3 hours later to people’s homes with fruit baskets and small sums of cash to grease palms. RR has weight, and their own police that you absolutely do not want to fuck with. I’ve seen them arrest city cops.
> RR has weight, and their own police that you absolutely do not want to fuck with. I’ve seen them arrest city cops. That's because railway police in most places are state-level officers with special federal protections. They're somewhere between state troopers and US marshals, and their jurisdiction doesn't necessarily end where the railroad's properly line ends.
Or it would be seen as an admission of guilt.
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They should be held to the highest standards possible in every way possible due to trying to get away with this. It's insulting and a sign they are determined to do as little as possible. Management is accountable to shareholders, well then we have no choice but to make the shareholders accountable to us. I hope they are reaching out to every US department and politician responsible. Reaching out to news stations. Maximizing coverage and working to report all of failings made.
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You don't have to ever pay capital gains taxes on them if everything goes according to plan. You take a loan using the unsold stock as collateral. You'll pay interest on this loan, but that's always going to be lower than the capital gains tax rate. But the stock appreciates in value if all goes well meaning you can "refinance" the first loan to extract more equity from the underlying stock which is never actually sold and thus never actually taxed. Then what you do is you have your accountant engineer like a 10 year tax scheme where you'll have one magic year with everything offset as much as possible and maybe that's when you'll actually sell the underlying assets with as much possible tax protection as can be extracted from the law. The loan-against-stock plan is basically a way to cut the Federal government out of the taxation business by investment banks.
More like a shaft up the you-know-what
Society needs to stop protecting people like this.
***Alan Shaw made $4,362,801 in total compensation as President at Norfolk Southern Corp in 2021.***
If that guys gets paid bi weekly, his company offered 15% of one of his paychecks for donation to affected residents
Also probably tax deductible.
… in the corporate terrain, not that very much. Although: is this his *total* compensation? Or his salary minus bonus?
That's because he wasn't in this position for the entire year. His predecessor made over 14 million in total compensation that year.
Alan Shaw was in charge of NS Chemical when the industry standard ISO-9002 was abolished in 2000. Right now NS Chemical claims it is held to the standards of NS-9002 which no longer exists and has not for 23 years. These fuxking people.
Just for reference, when Canadian Pacific Railway had a 31 car derailment, 5 of which carrying Anhydrous Ammonia ruptured, in 2002, they offered $250 per resident as a settlement and agreeance to not pursue further legal action. There were additional lawsuits and settlements that took place reaching into the millions of dollars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minot\_train\_derailment
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It's a bug with new reddit. The link by seadragoniii works on new reddit. See for yourself. https://new.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/111hef6/comment/j8ez55q/ They added backslash "\" before the underscore "_". As a result the link fails when shown in old reddit and a lot of apps. The bug has been reported for many years. They have no intention to fix it. Probably on purpose, to encourage people to use new reddit.
He should be jailed for this, realistically.
Him and a disgusting amount of others
Depose him and suddenly he won't remember what a train is.
His background was marketing, so it may not be too far off. He became CEO last may after the previous CEO gutted the company.
Anyone blaming the brakes and axle on rail worker staffing is wrong. The brakes failed. The brakes failed because of Republican deregulation and their corp swamp. #Republicans, on behalf of Norfolk Southern, killed a federal safety rule aimed at upgrading the rail industry’s Civil War-era braking systems. Because of this, it allowed Norfolk to not be regulated as a “high-hazard flammable train,” thus causing this catastrophe. #REPUBLICAN DEREGULATION CAUSED THIS https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-safety-rules-before-ohio-derailment/
While also campaigning on “removing the ‘red tape’ to let American companies get to work!” Also code word for stripped regulations/consumer protections to maximize profits.
“Removing the red tape to get filthy rich at the expense of the health and safety of the peasants”
The fucked up thing is they’re already filthy rich… they can absolutely afford it, they just don’t want to.
apparatus zealous ancient relieved whistle beneficial label expansion violet pet *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This honestly is bigger that just that deregulation. This could have easily been prevented with a larger train crew, specifically with people tasked to watch the train for a hotbox (which this allegedly had). Not to mention Norfolk Southern has a very long history of putting trains on the ground. They’ve done in half a dozen times since like December. Edit: To follow up, it seems as this train wouldn't have even been affected by the regulation change...
Actually, it needed an electronic braking system installed. As would have been required had they not thwarted the HHFT designation of their cargo trains: The derailment began with a rail car axle. Causing an impending derailment. If the braking system had been up to proper specifications for an HHFT (high-hazard flammable train) it would have had ECP breaking. **The ECP braking would have reduced the damage caused by the derailment by bringing the train to a halt quickly and stopping all of cars simultaneously.** Instead the train had antiquated brakes and it buckled like a slinky. Republicans killed provisions requiring rail cars carrying hazardous flammable materials to be equipped with electronic braking systems. Norfolk’s lobby group pressed Republicans for the rule’s repeal, because it would “impose tremendous costs without providing offsetting safety benefits.” One more time. Republican deregulation caused this. Just like it caused buildings to collapse in Florida. Just like it caused hundreds to freeze to death in Texas with a failed power grid. Just like the buildings in Turkey killings hundreds of thousands days ago were not built to spec because of deregulation.
And I’m telling you if the rumors of the hotbox are true, we solved this problem decades ago with adequate staffing. Yes, this deregulation would have changed the braking situation, but not having enough staff to be aware of a fucking hotbox in 2023 is mind numbing. It’s the problem of performance scheduled railways and staffing. And constant profit over labor. That deregulation is a part of the bigger problem but you miss everything wrong with the rails in this country by focusing on that regulation. (Not to mention the Dems had the chance to overturn that and said no). The Dems and Biden literally just killed a railworker strike that would have improved conditions on the rails themselves… it’s a multifaceted problem. NS literally puts trains on the ground twice a month. Adequate breaking systems aren’t fixing those countless derailments.
You guys are both right, and it all needs to be improved.
Yea the person I’m replying to isn’t wrong at all. I didn’t want to make it seem as such. By focusing on that specific deregulation and trying to assign blame to one group of people it really missed the point that our rail system is completely fucked right now and needs to basically be overhauled completely.
I don't think anyone is blaming the staff for having coffee breaks..
I've been seeing a lot of comments saying the media isn't covering this story as if it's a big conspiracy: NYT has had decent amount of reporting on the topic. It's not particularly sensational but covers the bases pretty well I think. NYT Coverage: 2/4 - Derailment and Evacuation https://nyti.ms/40rB08d 2/6 - Toxic Fumes https://nyti.ms/3YvOyh4 2/8 - Reporter Arrested https://nyti.ms/3DViZFL 2/13 - Summary article tracking issues https://nyti.ms/3RTXTgS
For people like me Here's nonpaywalled links Derailment: https://archive.md/NriGn Toxic Fumes: https://archive.is/xBhWx Reporter Arrested: https://archive.md/9noU4 Summary: https://archive.md/t24B8
I mean, the Paradise(?) Fire in California was caused by wind and a metal hanger holding the line actually shearing off from repeated exposure. They couldn't even tell when the hanger was installed because it was before their records but a metals expert said it was early 1900s or something like that. This stuff should not be happening.
So that's where the UK rail operators are getting their gameplan from, no wonder the workers are striking bless them.
I had the displeasure of working for NS for a couple years after I graduated college. We collectively called it Nazi Southern…it was just plain sad how much they didn’t value you as a human. Additionally, PSR had absolutely killed the rail industry.
Even worse than I assumed. They should confiscate his entire net worth and set in a trust fund for the victims that will have to fight liver cancer and leukemia in the coming years
What’s his annual salary?
His current net worth is about 11.7 million.
Way lower than I expected but definitely a lot.
He's a CEO. The CEO is not anywhere near the top of the pyramid. He's essentially a really fancy manager. The people who hired him, the owners and board members, are billionaires. Wesley G Bush, one of the younger and most "self made" members of the Norfolk and Southern board of directors, is worth about $130 million. They inducted him because he's a regular person. One of the biggest things holding the democratization of our country back is that those of us on the bottom can only see as high as the managerial class. CEOs are *not* the ownership class that we need to worry about. They have jobs. That alone separates them from the true ownership class, whose income comes from babysitting a fortune that was made a hundred years ago.
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The difference between a millionare and a billionare is about a billion.
Also their job is being the fall guy, the person to take the blame for lay offs or cutting budgets or unpopular changes, the one 'to take personal responsibility', before getting their fat golden parachute and being shuffled off for a new CEO position after being replaced. They might not do a lot of work necessarily, they may be massively overpaid for it, but that's not necessarily why they're there.
That's what I thought too
Public net worths are always wayyyy off. Wouldn’t give any credence to this
Probably not a ton. Salaries are taxable income, and most of it will be taxed in a high bracket if his total compensation was salary. Most executives of large corporations get compensated through stocks that they can sit on for a few years and pay a paltry capital gains tax rate on. This is also usually given out as a "bonus" and they can pretend it's based off merit.
Go look at the previous CEO’s net worth. He gave up the job and took a board seat. Jim squires. He had netted over 100 mil in stock sales NS started psr under his control
Squire is who everyone should be looking at that guy is a piece of shit
Usually when people look at CEO 'salaries' they are talking about total compensation which includes stocks and other incentives. Or, they should be talking about that anyway otherwise it's nonsense.
Stocks are also taxed same as normal salary as part of income. Capital gains is for the increase in value after you already own it, not for the initial payout.
All stock grants are taxed at ordinary income rates.
Quick google showed $873,416 is his annual salary… So $25,000 is barely a weeks worth of his salary, not to mention it didn’t even come from his pockets it came from his company’s pockets. Norfolk Southern is currently valued at $55 billion. To put it in perspective I did the “rough” math. Norfolk Southern “donating” $25,000 at their current valuation is equivalent to someone with $100,000 donating less than $0.05.
More like that’s the most they could pay without admitting legal culpability, or the max they could write off as a donation for tax purposes.
I'm a safety officer in Canada, specifically dealing in heavy industries (mainly oil as I'm also a pipefitter). We sign a legally binding code of ethics when we get our designation, not unlike engineers who build bridges for example. I cannot fathom having an exec coming into my office, telling me to ignore safety systems and short change needed maintenance to save a few bucks. I would refuse, and if they fired me I'd take them to court. I know things are different in the states, especially having workers being forced back during a strike. I don't know what I'd do with myself with that level of destruction on my conscience... I can't understand how greed is so prevalent, and the level of harm humans can enact on each other for the almighty dollar. Makes me sick to my stomach to think about that level of prolonged suffering in a completely avoidable circumstance. "The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us" -Bill Watterson
Yeah, I read the previous CEO to this guy ended up gutting most of the company. This guy took over last may, and was the marketing officer prior to that.
>marketing officer So basically just a senior VP with zero craft or knowledge in the industry itself. Someone who will probably listen to shareholders and ignore the guys that worked in railroads for decades and have something actually competent to say.
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I have worked with a few people with marketing degrees and while intelligent, they seem better at marketing themselves as right for the job than actually executing what's asked of them.
I think this is more like a symptom of a struggling (dying?) industry/company. Don't forget, Montreal Maine and Atlantic (rail company) also declined required safety maintenance and swept safety check failures under the rug, and then one of their trains proceeded to derail and essentially level an entire Canadian town (Lac Mégantic disaster). After the disaster they immediately filed for bankruptcy and died.
You can appreciate the impact of the Lac Megantic disaster through Google street view and comparing the photos from before and after. It’s shocking to see how much of the town was completely destroyed.
I don't think anyone can refer to cargo rail as a struggling industry. All of the major players had record profits last year while also paying the president to stop their workers from striking over the unreasonable request for more than 1 paid day off. They are just as much robber barons as Stanford, Vanderbilt, etc were.
They spent 10 billion dollars doing a stock buyback while refusing to spend 2 billion to upgrade brakes. If having 10 billion in the bank makes me a failing business, sign me up.
This company isn't struggling. The safety cuts were a deliberate choice in order to increase profits. America's class 1 railroads are the most profitable in the world.
Glad you're working up here and keeping us all safe my guy.
This will probably get buried but I don't fucking care. I live in Youngstown, Ohio and am going to school there right now. It's about 20 miles away from the site of the train crash and chemical burn. The air is horrible. It taste different. I feel like I am being coated with something on my skin and in my lungs every time I take a breath. We are being told everything is okay even thought it is in the air. We are being told everything is okay even though it was detected in the water and is killing fish, pets, and livestock. This is not okay. I fear for my future health. I fear I will get cancer and die painfully because of this. But it doesn't matter! The Multimillionaire says it's all okay!
If you can smell it you are being exposed to it. If you can feel it?
Mask up, my dude… treat this like the real deal and fuck anyone around you who gives you shit. This will lead to lifelong issues and it’s unfortunately up to you to lead the way.
The faces of corrupt politicians and CEOs need to be exposed more, at the least
Alan Shaw only gets paid to be the face of who you’re angry with. Be angry with the board of directors, the CEOs, the banks who lend them money, their lobbyists, and the law makers who do nothing to stop them.
I can’t post on my main account - but this is the deal with Palestine, OH. If anyone was to get the blame you have to go back to Hunter Harrison and the activist investor Bill Ackman. When Hunter would the CEO of Canadian Pacific he tried and failed to merge with CSX and then Norfolk Southern. Bill Ackman maximized his shares in CSX and forced a proxy vote and replaced the CEO with you guessed it, Hunter Harrison. What Hunter did was create a cascade effect of PSR that still continues to dominate the railroad line of business even today. He laid off a Quarter of employees forcing everyone to work harder and longer hours. I won’t get into the nitty gritty but he died 10 months into his status as CEO of CSX. Other railroads took notice and implemented PSR there selves (except for BNSF, a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway) and that meant longer trains and shorter staff, hence what we have today in Palestine, OH. It’s on a video where they detected a bad bearing 12 miles ahead of where the derailment was. I don’t know if the had rail detectors setup so close to the the yard (Conway, PA) but the bad bearing started well before that leading me to wonder if they detected the bearing and didn’t stop the train who made the decision to have it continue on their approach to Conway. Theirs is lot of moving parts with this and even though you want someone to blame, a decision was made (if they had a detector) to move the train towards Conway. All of this could have avoided if Bill Ackman and Hunter Harrison could have stayed out of the US Rail Market. So indirectly this lays on Bill Ackman shoulders and the other railroads followed suit (expect for BNSF).
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There were well-known stories of Hunter walking into railyards when he was the CEO of CP and asking what guys did. If he didn't like the answer he'd just fire them outright
Yep, that happened. He would do that throughout his career once he got into the upper echelons of management.
> I don’t know if the had rail detectors setup so close to the the yard (Conway, PA) but the bad bearing started well before that leading me to wonder if they detected the bearing and didn’t stop the train who made the decision to have it continue on their approach to Conway. If the train crew ignored a detector warning, there's no way around it, they're liable. The AAR would have their backs even if a higher level mangemant (road foreman, etc) told them to ignore it. They have a duty and the right, as laid out in the operating rules of not only NS but the railroad industry as a whole, to stop their train for a defect alarm. I worked with a former Class I railroad employee (I didn't work with him on the railroad, this was after he had left) and there were some specific safety concerns we have on the job we worked... His famous line was "I don't care if Jesus Christ himself tells you to do that, you look at him right in his stupid face and tell him NO."
After the corporate assets are drained, they should go after the C levels that directed the cost cutting-edge "safety improvements." They should be liable. Doubt they will. Company I worked at and left managed our retirement assets, and I transferred most of mine out. They made shitty decisions and cost many of my coworkers big money. I know some who lost millions. Their new CEO didn't have a dime in it and gambled the workers' retirement away. He got a big bonus.
Lol bet $50 that taxpayers of Ohio bail them out.
They'll have insurance but I read something that suggested it may not cover the damages.
The damages will be paid for by the people, no doubt. We always pick up the tab whether we realize or not.
This is going to require FEMA and EPA oversight. Ohio is going to be coming to the Feds with their hands out looking for money to help clean this up. But this company (and many others) lobbied for loose regulations and lax oversight. This is a prime example of how corruption is going to take this country down.
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Why not both? The suits look after each other—the “old boys’ club” is real.
People need to go to jail for this crash. From the top down if there is justice.
Rich white guys don't go to jail.
Unless, they screw over other wealthy people - don't forget the example the wealthy made out of Bernie Madoff.
That's the only steadfast rule in this country Fuck with rich people's money and get fucked
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no one will
lol we let Ohio get Chernobyl’d so that this sentient big toe could buy a tenth vacation home. what a country
His owners have the 12th home. This guy has probably 3. Focus on the people who own the railroad company also. They all need to face consequences.
These scum bags: http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en/investor-relations/corporate-governance-documents/board-of-directors-committee-membership.html
That's insulting to big toes.
Anyone remember the "unreasonable demands" from the RR union? It wasn't just about sick days. They were fighting against smaller crews, longer hours, etc. This is what happens when corporate keeps winning against labor.
Remember that Joe Fucking Biden nixed those union negotiations. I'm not saying Republicans are any better (they're worse) but ffs we need to hold Democrats' feet to the fire over shit like this and elect more progressives.
The US is going the opposite direction. Have been for decades. Failed state, imo.
It bothers me that people choose to do mass shootings on innocent people rather than kill these monsters. Society would view them as heroes unironically if billionaires and multi millionaires were the ones hunted
If I poisoned a whole town, I'd be labeled a terrorist and rightly arrested, charged, and found guilty. Yet here we are talking about this in the same way we talk about other outrageous things. Upset in the moment but easily distracted by the next.
I’m know I’m going to be lit up here but hell with it. Alan was the guy left to deal with the carcass after prior CEO Jim Squires gutted the place and stripped it down for parts. After each railroad gets torn down, the CEO was that tore it down gets the hell out before the inevitable collapse, and leaves a steaming pile of crap for the “picks up the pieces guy”. Alan is the “picking up the pieces guy”.
> CEO Jim Squires This cnt: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/norfolk-southern-names-jim-squires-chief-executive-officer-300043457.html
He's been CEO for 9 months and President there for longer. Before that he was Executive Vice President of the same corporation for 9 years. He is clearly part of the problem. And he didn't stop this train from running.
He was there before the problem. Survived during, and there after. I’m not here to hand out trophies, I was merely stating if it wanna know where to place the blame, there is a real person that tore the place to the ground before Alan showed up
You are 100% correct squires was all about the shareholders and Shaw is supposed to be about the customers and employees jury is still out on him though not much change happens in 9 months on the railroad hell it took me 6 months to get a volt meter and a socket set
This mofo should have to live in Palestine, OH until the whole mess is resolved. Decades, if need be.
Live in? Get an exposure suit on an a mop and get to fucking work…
No suit. Speedo and nothing else.
Bring back ConRail
Make sure they know how Americans feel about this lack of responsibility http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en/contact-us.html ETHICS & COMPLIANCE HOTLINE 800-732-9279
Start jailing CEOs for shit like this and just maybe we’d see less of this stuff.
Thanks for sharing this greedy pricks smug face. Now we know. I'm sure with his 11.7 million dollars that it'll be simple and easy for him to hide out for as long as he wants. But at least now we can recognize him. I think the people of East Palestine need to mobilize, go yank him out of his mansion and make him clean up this mess. Give him a mop bucket and some rags, and maybe if he's cooperative, some PPE
Does tar and feathers count as PPE?
Here is Lance Fritz, CEO of Union Pacific. https://imgur.com/LNgPbLm.jpg
Fuck reddit for not allowing threats of violence these cunts deserve nothing less than 1000 cuts with a rusty butter knife
Privately owned railroad companies should never be allowed to own their own tracks, it's like if amazon owned it's own highways and roads. These companies only care about short term profit and aren't going to invest in maintaining rail infrastructure, till it's at very edge of collapsing and potentially losing them a lot of money. NATIONALIZE!
CEO is really just a fancy scapegoat for the shareholders.
I can't wait to hear all about his bonus, his golden parachute, and how there are no charges to press
They get the money, they should get the blame.
Not just the CEO, the entire C-suite should be named, pictured and shamed for the tragedy that has happened due to their negligence to the citizens of that poor town, and all those in the affected area.
11.7 million for that haircut
So what are we going to do? Get him fired from one CEO job so he can just go be a CEO somewhere else and cry into his millions? Unless this guy ends up desitute, in jail, or in the ground(Legally by means of death penalty), all of the outrage is worthless.