Rail whistleblowers fired for voicing safety concerns despite efforts to end practice of retaliation

argo_yamato@lemm.ee to News@lemmy.world – 256 points –
Rail whistleblowers fired for voicing safety concerns despite efforts to end practice of retaliation
apnews.com
5

Shocking that the industry who needed the government to make it illegal for their workers to strike after forcing a deal aren't treating their workers well.

Is that actually legal?

Judging by the various lawsuits mentioned I am going to say no.

Probably one of those tehcnically not legal but you also gotta prove it beyond a reasonable doubt agianst an entity with three or four orders of magnitude more money then you'd ever make in your life.

Well not really, but the courts put the burden of evidence on the worker usually so corps often get away with it. In this case they at least had to pay damages I guess. This issue with reluctance to close lines and address safety concerns because it hurts the bottom line for investors and management is really atrocious though and has been going on for nearly 15 years now. Last summer a BNSF railroad bridge was knocked down by the river and then that same bridge traveled downstream and knocked out a second bridge. They assured us that all bridges would be inspected so that even in high flow situations they won't fall down. This year another one went in and the river didn't even get close to pushing the kind of water it pushed last year. I can only assume they didn't do a fucking thing, or their inspection criteria is woefully inadequate.