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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,

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Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of

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Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.

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Speaker 1: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade

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Speaker 1: the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent

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Speaker 1: coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about,

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Speaker 1: it just means the absolute world to have your support.

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Speaker 1: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Hi.

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Speaker 1: I'm Matt Stoler, author of monopoly focused newsletter Big and

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Speaker 1: an anti trust policy analyst. I have a great segment

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Speaker 1: for you today on this Big Breakdown. Okay, so this

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Speaker 1: one is a bit more political than normal because I'm

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Speaker 1: looking at monopolies and how they were discussed in last

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Speaker 1: week's State of the Union addressed Joe Biden, the President

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Speaker 1: mentioned anti trust and it's the first time it's been

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Speaker 1: brought up in a State of the Union speech since

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine. So I'm going to discuss what happened

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Speaker 1: at the speech, why it matters, and how Joe Biden

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Speaker 1: basically said last week that Ticketmaster sucks. Okay, so let's

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Speaker 1: get to it. We're all sort of aware that the

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Speaker 1: Democrats used to be considered vaguely in some sense, the

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Speaker 1: party of working people. But why why did they have

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Speaker 1: this impression. Well, here's a campaign flyer that a Southern Democrat,

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Speaker 1: a guy named right Patman, used in the nineteen fifties

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Speaker 1: to describe to his rural constituents why they should vote

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Speaker 1: for him and for Democrats in general. Here's what our

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Speaker 1: Democratic party has given us, it said. The idea was

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Speaker 1: Democrats deliver for you roads, electricity, telephone service, unemployment assurance,

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Speaker 1: old age benefits. Didn't have it, then you elected Democrats,

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Speaker 1: then you did. So that's what politics used to be about,

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Speaker 1: stuff normal people understood. And it was true. In nineteen forty,

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Speaker 1: thirty five percent of Americans did not have flush toilets,

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Speaker 1: includes eighty percent of residents of Mississippi. They didn't have

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Speaker 1: flush toilets. By nineteen seventy, nearly all of them did.

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Speaker 1: That is what politics meant. And this wasn't just a

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Speaker 1: Democratic party frame. Everyone bought into it. The basic notion

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Speaker 1: was that we can come together and choose how we

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Speaker 1: organize our society through politics, and politicians fight for votes

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Speaker 1: over how best to do that. Now, of course it

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Speaker 1: wasn't perfect there were lots of corruption and so on

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Speaker 1: and so forth. But that was the gist of how

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Speaker 1: people thought about politics. And for forty years, from the

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirties until the nineteen seventies, this is how voters

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Speaker 1: understood the Democratic Party. But then Ronald Reagan broke for

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Speaker 1: this frame and said, and more broadly said government and

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Speaker 1: more broadly politics isn't the solution, it's the problem. And

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Speaker 1: a subtle, unset part of that frame was that corporations

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Speaker 1: and Wall Street were the solution. Reagan won two elections

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Speaker 1: and dominated politics in the nineteen eighties. So how did

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Speaker 1: the Democratic Party respond. They didn't respond by fighting back

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Speaker 1: and say Reagan is wrong. They fought back by agreeing

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Speaker 1: with Ronald Reagan. So Bill Clinton, the first Democratic president

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Speaker 1: to take office after twelve years of Republican rule, eight

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Speaker 1: years of Reagan, in four years of George H. W. Bush,

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Speaker 1: George Bush Senior. What he did, Bill Clinton removed antitrust

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Speaker 1: from the Democratic platform, which had been in there. It

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Speaker 1: had been in the Democratic Party platform since the eighteen eighties,

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Speaker 1: and Bill Clinton took it out in nineteen ninety two,

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Speaker 1: and it was in the State of the Union speeches

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties that Bill Clinton made it clear

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Speaker 1: that Democrats were no longer the party of government, no

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Speaker 1: longer the party of getting things and doing things through politics.

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Speaker 1: He talked about not what the government can do for you,

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Speaker 1: or what politics can do for you, or how we

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Speaker 1: govern ourselves as a society. No, no, He talked about

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Speaker 1: things like welfare reform, globalization, violence and sex on TV

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Speaker 1: cultural stuff like that. He actually bragged about how he

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Speaker 1: had cut the government so it was smaller than it

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Speaker 1: was under the Kennedy administration. And this here, so I'm

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Speaker 1: going to show you is the most probably the most

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Speaker 1: famous clip or one of the most famous clips of

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Speaker 1: the Clinton administration. In the State of the Union, the

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Speaker 1: era of big government is over. Boom right there, the

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Speaker 1: era of big government is over. Listened to all that applause. Now,

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Speaker 1: Reagan went after government and unleashed Wall Street. But it

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Speaker 1: took Bill Clinton to make that frame bipartisan. Now. Barack

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Speaker 1: Obama in two thousand and eight was elected in many

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Speaker 1: ways as a repudiation of Clinton. He beat Bill Clinton's wife,

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Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton in the primary in Iowa and elsewhere, and

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Speaker 1: he recognized what Clintonism had wrought. That's how he actually won,

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Speaker 1: he promised to renegotiate NAFTA on the campaign trail, and

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Speaker 1: in Iowa he walked around and he taught, talked about

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Speaker 1: resurrecting antitrust, to go after mensanto and meat packers and

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Speaker 1: so on and so forth, and he continued to talk

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Speaker 1: this way in many ways during his presidency. So here

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Speaker 1: he is in twenty eleven talking about the pain and

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Speaker 1: devastation of offshoring, essentially the Ronald Reagan Bill Clinton legacy,

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Speaker 1: And for many of the change has been painful. I've

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Speaker 1: seen it in the shuttered windows of once booming factories

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Speaker 1: and the vacant storefronts on one's busy main streets. I've

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Speaker 1: heard it in the frustrations of Americans who've seen their

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Speaker 1: paychecks dwindle or their jobs disappear. Proud men and women

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Speaker 1: who feel like the rules have been changed in the

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Speaker 1: middle of the game, They're right. The rules have changed

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Speaker 1: in a single generation. Revolutions in technology have transformed the

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Speaker 1: way we live, work, and do business. Steel mills that

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Speaker 1: once needed a thousand workers can now do the same

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Speaker 1: work with one hundred. Today, just about any company can

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Speaker 1: set up shop, hire workers, and sell their products wherever

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Speaker 1: there's an Internet connection. The rules have changed, right, That's

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Speaker 1: what he said. Obama understood the pain, as you can

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Speaker 1: see right there. But despite his understanding of how much

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Speaker 1: pain Clinton Reagan had caused, Bush as well, he actually

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Speaker 1: adhered to this same philosophy as Clinton. So here's what

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Speaker 1: Obama put forward as his agenda to address this. In

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Speaker 1: the same speech where he talked about that offshore, we

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Speaker 1: have to make America the best place on earth to

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Speaker 1: do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit

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Speaker 1: and reform our government. That's how our people will prosper.

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Speaker 1: That's how we'll win the future. More cutting of deficits,

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Speaker 1: more pro corporate speak, more cuts to government. Now, neither

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Speaker 1: Clinton nor Obama, Reagan, anyone like that said they wanted

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Speaker 1: factories to go offshore. They just argued, and you could

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Speaker 1: see that in Obama's clip that despite two hundred years

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Speaker 1: of domestic manufacturing in America, it was inevitable that all

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Speaker 1: of our chemicals would be made in China. It was

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Speaker 1: not NAFTA or the entrance to the World Trade Organization,

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Speaker 1: or choosing lacks anti trust enforcement that changed how we live.

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Speaker 1: As Obama said, the rules have changed, not we just

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Speaker 1: made different decisions globalization and technology. These are giant, uncontrollable

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Speaker 1: forces instead of a set of policy choices made by

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Speaker 1: human beings. Don't ask me to deal with big corporations

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Speaker 1: with offshot factories. I'm just the president now. Of course,

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Speaker 1: such a philosophy was cover for private financiers and monopolists

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Speaker 1: gaining power over markets. And voters are not stupid. So

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Speaker 1: eventually the Democratic Party, had been the party of working

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Speaker 1: people became known as a group of smarmi bullshit artists

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Speaker 1: because that's what they acted like. Now today, there's a

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Speaker 1: general view in America, and this is backed up by

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Speaker 1: polling that all politicians are too friendly to big corporations.

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Speaker 1: When Joe Biden got elected, and I was not expecting

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Speaker 1: him to break from this tradition the guy first took

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Speaker 1: office as a Senator in nineteen seventy two. But of

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Speaker 1: all people, it's Biden, the weird eighty year old who

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Speaker 1: has been in DC longer than most Americans have been alive,

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Speaker 1: who seems to be trying to turn the ship around,

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Speaker 1: or at least saying he is, and in doing so,

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Speaker 1: he is breaking with the legacy of both Bill Clinton

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Speaker 1: and the man he served under as Vice President Barack

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Speaker 1: Obama and turning the Democrats towards a more populist, anti

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Speaker 1: corporate path in many ways. Following a little bit what

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Speaker 1: Trump did, now, I'll start with a clip of Biden's

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Speaker 1: State of the Union from last week, in which he

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Speaker 1: talked about how he's going to make sure we build

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Speaker 1: things in America again, and contrast this with what Bill

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Speaker 1: Clinton and Barack Obama said every community, every community in

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Speaker 1: America has access to affordable high speed internet. No parents

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Speaker 1: should have to drive by McDonald's parking lot to help

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Speaker 1: for do their foamwork online or their kids, which many

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Speaker 1: thousands were doing across the country. And when we do

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Speaker 1: these projects, and again I get criticized this, I make

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Speaker 1: no excuses for it. We're going to buy American. We're

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Speaker 1: going to buy America. Buy America has been the loss

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Speaker 1: since nineteen thirty three, but for too long past administration

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Speaker 1: is Democratic and Republican have fought to get around it.

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Speaker 1: Not anymore. Tonight, I'm announcing new standards require all construction

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Speaker 1: materials using federalist infrastructure projects to be made in America.

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Speaker 1: Number grass, drywall, fire rocked to cable and on might

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Speaker 1: watch American roads bridges, American highways are going to be

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Speaker 1: made with American products as well. That right, there is

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Speaker 1: a huge difference. Believe him or not, is what he's saying.

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Speaker 1: You know, any of the sort of rules have changed. Garbage.

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Speaker 1: There's no powerlessness, there's nothing inevitable about anything he's saying.

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Speaker 1: He is just saying, we're going to make stuff here.

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Speaker 1: The government is going to mandate that. That happened. Now,

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying you have to trust Joe Biden. Maybe

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Speaker 1: he's lying, maybe he won't follow through. I'm just saying

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Speaker 1: that the president is talking different than his predecessors did

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Speaker 1: and in an important speech, the State of the Union.

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Speaker 1: Now there are consequences. A few days later, the government

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Speaker 1: announced that all broadband grants that were, you know, as

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Speaker 1: a result of infrastructure bills that passed last Congress, would

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Speaker 1: require American construction materials, and this made telecom lobbyists very unhappy.

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Speaker 1: So there is actual follow through, and lots of neoliberal

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Speaker 1: Democrats are mad as well. So Larry Summers, who was

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Speaker 1: Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton, ran economic policy uder Barack Obama,

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Speaker 1: was upset at by American policies. So is Jason Furman,

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Speaker 1: who is Obama's chief advisor on the economy. You see,

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Speaker 1: you know, Peter Coy in the New York Times essentially

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Speaker 1: writing that up. But the thing is is Biden talked

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Speaker 1: a lot more, talked about a lot more more than

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Speaker 1: just making things here. He went after quote unquote big

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Speaker 1: Pharma by name. He actually used that term big Pharma.

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Speaker 1: It's unusual for the state of the Union. I can't

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Speaker 1: think of the last time it happened. He bragged about

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Speaker 1: capping insulin prices to thirty five dollars a month for seniors.

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Speaker 1: He proposed eliminating so called junk fees. These are fees

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Speaker 1: by banks, credit card companies, airlines companies like Ticketmaster to

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Speaker 1: sort of nickel and dime. You take a listen. Those

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Speaker 1: fees can cost you up to ninety dollars a night

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Speaker 1: at hotels that aren't even resorts. Now, if you've stayed

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Speaker 1: in a hotel or airbnb, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: These are really annoying. They're essentially cheating you. Now, the

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Speaker 1: attack on junk fees isn't fake either. Unfair. Bank overdraft

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Speaker 1: fees have dropped by forty percent because of bank regulators.

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Speaker 1: That's about five billion dollars over the last couple of years,

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Speaker 1: so there's actual file through there as well. Now, another

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Speaker 1: thing that got to mention is banning non compete agreements

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Speaker 1: that prohibit people from leaving their jobs to work for rivals.

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Speaker 1: That's something that Lena kannat the Federal Trade Commission implemented

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Speaker 1: or is trying to implement. And let's take a listen

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Speaker 1: about how Joe Biden talked about this. Thirty million workers

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Speaker 1: have to sign non compete agreements for the jobs they take.

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Speaker 1: Thirty million, so a cashier at a burger place can't

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Speaker 1: walk across town and take the same job at another

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Speaker 1: burger place and make a few bucks more. It just changed,

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Speaker 1: But they just changed it because we exposed it. That

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Speaker 1: was part of the deal. Guys, look it up, but

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Speaker 1: not anymore for banning knows agreements, so companies have to

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Speaker 1: compete for workers and pay them what they're worth. I

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Speaker 1: did not expect Joe Biden to be the guy doing that,

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Speaker 1: but he is. That's the President of the United States

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Speaker 1: talking to Congress and the country saying we're going to

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Speaker 1: ban non compete agreements. He also talked about competition and

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Speaker 1: hearing aids, which are now cheaper because of his policies.

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Speaker 1: He's talked about unionization laws, suggested a grouping a stock

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Speaker 1: attacks on stock buybacks. He called for stronger rules against

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Speaker 1: big tech. What didn't he say though? There was no

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Speaker 1: apology for government, and the villain was big business and

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Speaker 1: monopoly from nearly start to finish. There's no Clinton or

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Speaker 1: Obama talk here. Now you can tell what happened with

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Speaker 1: the speech because of who got angry afterwards. Who got

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Speaker 1: angry lobbyists, airline lobbyists, bank lobbyists, Wall Street financiers, and

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Speaker 1: so on and so forth. They don't want to have

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Speaker 1: to buy American or stop charging junk fees, and they

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Speaker 1: want to engage in stock buybacks. There's a hilarious clips

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Speaker 1: of the head of the Consumer Bankers Association talking about

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Speaker 1: hard working Americans who want their overdraft fees. It's just

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Speaker 1: this is who was upset. Now again, I'm not saying

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Speaker 1: you should trust Joe Biden or the Democrats. He may fail,

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Speaker 1: he may not mean it, he may change his mind.

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Speaker 1: There are plenty of people in Congress who are Democrats

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Speaker 1: who may not go along. He has some terrible cabinet

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Speaker 1: members like Pete Budajetge, Tom vilseek is not falling through

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Speaker 1: at the USTA, and there are plenty of reasons to

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Speaker 1: be skeptical that go way beyond that. But what I'm

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Speaker 1: saying is that what Joe Biden introduced with that State

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Speaker 1: of the Union was a different form of politics. He

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Speaker 1: changed the way that a Democratic president talks about political economy,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, his speech kind of looked like this,

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Speaker 1: here is what our Democratic party has given us. Now,

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Speaker 1: if this flyer existed today, it might say ticketmaster sucks,

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Speaker 1: and it would certainly not sound like this clip. The

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Speaker 1: era of big government is over. Now. It's a little

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Speaker 1: too early to tell what Biden's State of the Union

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Speaker 1: really means. He has a track record. There is a

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Speaker 1: bunch like mergers have dropped by seventy six percent this

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Speaker 1: year alone, but he also did the railroad strike problem.

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Speaker 1: It's we're not totally sure how far he's gonna take this,

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Speaker 1: but at least what he says comes off very different

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Speaker 1: than any Democratic leader that I've ever heard, and that

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Speaker 1: is something to notice. Thanks for watching this big breakdown

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Speaker 1: on the Breaking Points channel. If you'd like to know

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Speaker 1: more about big business and how our economy really works,

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Speaker 1: you can sign up below for my Market power focused

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Speaker 1: newsletter Big in the description, thanks and have a good one.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, Miams James Lee, Welcome to another segment of

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Speaker 1: fifty one to forty nine on Breaking Points, and today

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Speaker 1: I've got a great segment for you about how Big

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Speaker 1: Pharma Worldwide stands nearly unchallenged in their ability to dictate

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Speaker 1: government health policies to ensure that their own financial interests

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Speaker 1: always supersede all other considerations. I say nearly unchallenged for

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Speaker 1: a reason. He has it upted on the vaccine front

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Speaker 1: and disconfirmed that we will not be a buying peiser

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Speaker 1: or modernal COVID shots. Why because India's confirmed that our

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Speaker 1: domestic output of more affordable and easiers to store vaccines

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Speaker 1: has jumped, it's increased. This essentially means that the two

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Speaker 1: globally popular vaccines which they make us a pledge not

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Speaker 1: to sell to private parties during the pandemic will not

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Speaker 1: be available in India. The story isn't new. I think

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Speaker 1: it kind of flew under the radar for the most part,

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Speaker 1: but it is one hundred percent worth diving into in

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Speaker 1: my opinion, because don't you find it at least just

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Speaker 1: a little bit odd that the second most populous country

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Speaker 1: in the world did not approve the sale of either

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Speaker 1: the Peiser or moderna mRNA COVID nineteen vaccines. Both vaccines

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Speaker 1: work on the same technology. India wants them two, but

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Speaker 1: on its own terms. We are currently discussing with Indian

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Speaker 1: government and expeding to the approval pathway to make our

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Speaker 1: piser buyotech vaccine available for use in the country. But

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Speaker 1: look at their demands. FISA once indemnity, a legal exemption

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Speaker 1: from future lawsuits over their vaccines. Countries like the United

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Speaker 1: States and Britain have signed such clauses. It basically means

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Speaker 1: that if the vaccine make is sued in India, it

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Speaker 1: will be the government's problem, not the companies. India has

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Speaker 1: not given such indemnity to any vaccine producer. Why should

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Speaker 1: FIZ it be the exception? Great question? Why should they

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Speaker 1: be the exception? Why should they be afforded one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent of the financial upside of selling billions of doses

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Speaker 1: of their product but take none of the risk. I

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Speaker 1: guess that's what I would do if I was a

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Speaker 1: multinational biopharma manufacturer. But I can't exactly just say that

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Speaker 1: out loud, though I think it's best if we conjure

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Speaker 1: something else up. This is from a CNBC article back

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty. Quote. The legal immunity granted to pharmaceutical

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Speaker 1: companies doesn't just guard them against lawsuits. It helps lower

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Speaker 1: the cost of the immunizations. The government doesn't want people

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Speaker 1: suing the companies making the COVID vaccine because then the

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Speaker 1: manufacturers would probably charge the government a higher price per

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Speaker 1: person per dose. Anybody by that rationale, Oh, it's for us. Well,

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Speaker 1: According to the New York Times, the US did not

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Speaker 1: pay less for the COVID nineteen vaccine. In fact, it

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Speaker 1: was reported that we paid more than many other countries.

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Speaker 1: All right, whatever they charged, what they charged, because at

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Speaker 1: the time we needed the vaccines, and they also, you know,

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Speaker 1: I guess it was somewhat reasonable that they didn't want

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Speaker 1: to be liable if anything went wrong because the times

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Speaker 1: were so unprecedented quote unquote. This next part is from

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Speaker 1: Reuter's quote. Unlike other companies conducting small studies in India

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Speaker 1: for foreign developed vaccines, Pfizer had sought an exception, citing

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Speaker 1: approvals it had received elsewhere based on trials done in

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Speaker 1: countries such as the United States and Germany. Indian health

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Speaker 1: officials say they generally asked for so called bridging trials

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Speaker 1: to determine if a vaccine is safe and generates an

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Speaker 1: immune response in its citizens. I don't know what I

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Speaker 1: was thinking at the time, but looking back, I think

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Speaker 1: this is kind of incredible. No, the hubris pvisor Moderna.

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Speaker 1: They demanded not only indemnity, meaning they assume no legal

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Speaker 1: responsibility or risk for their product, but they also refuse

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Speaker 1: to do local clinical trials to ensure the safety and

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Speaker 1: efficacy of their product. Is it not a little bit

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Speaker 1: too transparent that all they care about is selling the product,

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Speaker 1: making money, and everything else is kind of secondary. Kudos

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Speaker 1: to India, I guess, for making such reasonable requests, but

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Speaker 1: it does kind of leave me wondering how in the

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Speaker 1: world did they get everybody else on board with this,

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Speaker 1: once again hindsight deadly pandemic. They had the so called antidote,

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Speaker 1: I guess, so whatever they say goes. I want to

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Speaker 1: ask you also about a very important issue of vaccine hesitancy.

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Speaker 1: Even folks who get most of their vaccines normally might

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Speaker 1: be hesitating about these vaccines because they were developed so quickly.

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Speaker 1: What do you tell those folks who might be saying, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna wait a few months before I get this one.

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Speaker 1: This is a vaccine that was developed without cutting corners

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Speaker 1: from a company with one hundred and seventy one years

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Speaker 1: of credentials. This is a vaccine that was developed in

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Speaker 1: the spotlight and the daylight, with all the data being

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Speaker 1: put in servers. And this is a vaccine that is

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Speaker 1: getting approved by all authorities in the world. So that

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Speaker 1: should say something to them. What doesn't say one hundred

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Speaker 1: and seventy one years of credentials with plenty of scandals

342
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Speaker 1: throughout left out that part and not all the data

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Speaker 1: was made available to the public. And also a little

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Speaker 1: bit of circular logic there, why are these vaccines safe

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Speaker 1: and effective? Well, because they've been approved by all the

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Speaker 1: authorities in the world. How are they approved, Well, they

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Speaker 1: were approved because we said that they were safe and effective.

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Speaker 1: I'll tell you that kind of logic only checks out

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Speaker 1: because more than two thirds of Congress cashed a pharma

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Speaker 1: campaign check in twenty twenty. I've reported that statistic numerous times,

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Speaker 1: but it still astounds me to this day the kind

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Speaker 1: of grip big pharma has over US lawmakers. On top

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Speaker 1: of that, the pharmaceutical industry also finances about seventy five

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Speaker 1: percent of the FDA's Drug division. They own the lawmakers,

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Speaker 1: they own the regulators. You tell me if there can

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Speaker 1: be any other outcome other than carte blanche for big

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Speaker 1: pharma in the US. In Europe, the political and regulatory

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Speaker 1: landscape is a bit more challenging for big pharma to navigate.

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Speaker 1: So perhaps not all too surprising that it was revealed

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Speaker 1: by The New York Times that the one point eight

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Speaker 1: billion dollar deal between Peiser and the EU was sealed

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Speaker 1: with private texts and calls between the President of the

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Speaker 1: European Commission Ursula vonder Lehan and Peiser CEO Albert Borla.

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Speaker 1: If the democratic landscape is two Cumber seven, then let's

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Speaker 1: just not due to Mocker. It's two years later and

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Speaker 1: still nobody knows what was said or the details of

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Speaker 1: how the deal got done. Quote the European Court of

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Speaker 1: Auditors wants to know how the block clinched its biggest

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Speaker 1: COVID nineteen vaccine contract and whether there was anything untoward

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Speaker 1: in text messages between European Commission President Ursula vonder Lehan

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Speaker 1: and Pfiser chief Albert Borla. So far, However, the EU

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Speaker 1: Budget Watchdog's probe has been met with silence Pfizer. They

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Speaker 1: keep saying, why don't you trust us, Why don't you

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Speaker 1: trust science? Well, maybe it's got something to do with

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Speaker 1: all of these backroom deals, the lack of accountability, the

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Speaker 1: refusal to take any responsibility for the product, and also

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Speaker 1: not taking any questions from elective representatives or the media.

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Speaker 1: Things of that nature. Is maybe why we don't trust

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Speaker 1: big pharma. Maybe if you do some of those things,

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Speaker 1: the public will trust you more. Now, countries with less

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Speaker 1: bargaining power than the EU or the US, even more

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Speaker 1: egregious exchange just took place. This headline tells it all

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Speaker 1: held to ransom. Peiser plays hardball in COVID nineteen vaccine

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Speaker 1: negotiations with Latin American countries. Quote. Pfiser has been accused

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Speaker 1: of bullying Latin American governments during negotiations to acquire its

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Speaker 1: COVID nineteen vaccine, and the company has asked some countries

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Speaker 1: to put up sovereign assets such as embassy buildings and

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Speaker 1: military bases, as a guarantee against the cost of any

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Speaker 1: future legal cases. According to an investigation by the UK

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Speaker 1: based Bureau of investigative journalism. For the sake of fair reporting.

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Speaker 1: I must also add that Pfeiser declined to comment on

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Speaker 1: the allegations about its demands and negotiations, citing quote, privacy

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Speaker 1: and confidentiality, mob like behavior, demanding embassies and military bases.

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Speaker 1: That's a MANI fund country he got. There be a

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Speaker 1: real shame if something were to happen to it. Richer

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Speaker 1: and more powerful than ever, underpinned by its influence networks,

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Speaker 1: the pharmaceutical industry stands unchallenged in its ability to dictate

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Speaker 1: government health policies. The industry's power is comparable to that

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Speaker 1: of a state. The pharmaceutical industry so rich and so

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Speaker 1: powerful its lobbying affects Congress unchallenged in its ability to

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Speaker 1: dictate government health policies, so rich that their power is

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Speaker 1: comparable to that of a sovereign state. They have too

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Speaker 1: much power in the US. They own Congress, they own

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Speaker 1: the media, and they want to own you. If this

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Speaker 1: is something that you don't want, it's time to prioritize

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Speaker 1: this issue. One common critique that I get all the

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Speaker 1: time is that I spent too much time identifying the

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Speaker 1: problem but not enough on the solution. Well, I think

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Speaker 1: here's the first step to solving this problem. No more

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Speaker 1: voting for people who take big pharma money. Automatic disqualification.

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Speaker 1: I mean, how could they possibly do a good job

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Speaker 1: representing you and I if their boss is Big Pharma.

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Speaker 1: Not possible. These companies, they're designed to maximize profit, and

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Speaker 1: the people who work within that ecosystem will ensure that

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Speaker 1: it happens. So we can wax poetic all day long

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Speaker 1: about taking on the greed of big pharma, as many

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Speaker 1: presidents and members of Congress have done over the years,

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Speaker 1: but all of that will remain mostly and moral posturing,

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Speaker 1: purely theoretical until we act to remove the blatant conflict

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Speaker 1: of interest that pervades our government and big business. That

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Speaker 1: is all for me this time. I hope you found

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Speaker 1: today's segment about just how powerful big pharma is to

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Speaker 1: be helpful, I make a ton more videos like this

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Speaker 1: breaking down these kinds of topics on my YouTube channel

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Speaker 1: fifty one to forty nine with James Lee. I would

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Speaker 1: encourage you to check it out and subscribe. Link will

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Speaker 1: be in the description below. Of course, keep on tuning

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Speaker 1: into breaking points, and thank you so much for your

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Speaker 1: time today. Hi, I'm Maximilian Alvarez. I'm the editor in

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00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:59,480
Speaker 1: chief of the Real News Network and host of the

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00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 1: podcast Working People and This is the Art of Class War.

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Speaker 1: On Breaking Points, it's been nearly two weeks since the

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00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 1: catastrophic derailment of a Norfolk Southern train in northeast Ohio

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00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:16,520
Speaker 1: thrust the residence of East Palestine in the surrounding area

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00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:22,280
Speaker 1: into a NonStop, waking nightmare. As we all know by now,

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00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 1: and as Breaking Points has reported, the freight locomotive derailed

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00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 1: on February third, prompting an emergency response that involved the

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00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:35,879
Speaker 1: immediate evacuation of the town and the controlled release and

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00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 1: burning of the toxic substance vinyl chloride, which was being

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00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 1: carried in five of the train's one hundred and fifty cars.

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Speaker 1: While the controlled release of the vinyl chloride may have

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00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:53,119
Speaker 1: been necessary to prevent the cars containing the substance from exploding,

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00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 1: the fallout appears to be something straight out of a

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00:26:56,840 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 1: horror movie, with the controlled burning sie spewing hydrogen chloride

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00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:06,919
Speaker 1: and phoster gene into the air, a massive black death

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00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 1: cloud covering the region, home recorded videos of dead animals

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00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:17,359
Speaker 1: and fish throughout the area, and the Environmental Protection agency

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00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 1: reporting that more toxic chemicals on the derailed train have

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00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:26,880
Speaker 1: leaked out and been detected in the soil and surrounding waterways.

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00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 1: It's going to take weeks, months, if not years, to

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Speaker 1: fully appraise the damage of this train derailment on the population,

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00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 1: on the rail workers, and on the first responders, and

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00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 1: on the surrounding environment. But I suspect, and I think

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00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 1: we are all right to suspect, that we are watching

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00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:54,120
Speaker 1: in real time the unfolding of a disaster that our

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00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:59,680
Speaker 1: generation and future generations will know by name. But while

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00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:02,879
Speaker 1: where it spokespeople and many in the media try to

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00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 1: paint this tragedy as some freak accident, we know better.

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00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:13,119
Speaker 1: We know better because we have been listening to railroad

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00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:17,960
Speaker 1: workers for over a year now on Breaking Points on

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00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:21,919
Speaker 1: the Real News Network for my podcast Working People, I

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00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:26,440
Speaker 1: have spoken in depth with railroad worker after railroad worker

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00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 1: who have all been warning that Wall Street's takeover of

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00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:35,480
Speaker 1: the rail industry has been destroying the supply chain for

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00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:39,920
Speaker 1: the sake of record profits, driving record numbers of workers

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00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 1: out of the industry, and driving the workers who remain

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00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 1: into the ground, cutting corners and cutting operating costs every

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00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 1: chance they get year after year, while stock buybacks, executive salaries,

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00:28:55,320 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 1: and shareholder dividends continue to skyrocket. Workers have been saying

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00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:05,920
Speaker 1: to anyone who will listen, that all of these systemic issues,

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00:29:06,400 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 1: the same issues that rail companies, President Joe Biden and

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00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 1: Congress refused to address during the high stakes contract negotiations

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00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 1: that came to a head last year, have put all

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00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:26,040
Speaker 1: of us at risk of more accidents, more derailments, more disasters.

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Speaker 1: In fact, we're going to play a clip for you

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Speaker 1: now from an interview that I published on my podcast

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00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 1: Working People back in July of last year, where I

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00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:39,960
Speaker 1: spoke with Jay, a long time trained dispatcher and a

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00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 1: qualified conductor who was licensed to operate locomotives at just

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00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 1: nineteen years old. In this interview, Jade describes a hypothetical

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00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:54,719
Speaker 1: situation where a train carrying toxic substances derails near a

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00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:59,680
Speaker 1: populous town, and the parallels between what he described to

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00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:03,200
Speaker 1: me back in July and what we are watching unfold

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00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:08,120
Speaker 1: in East Palestine now are like X files level creepy.

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00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:12,320
Speaker 1: Take a listen, let me put together a scenario for

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00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 1: everybody who's listening. Let's let's talk about these train tracks

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00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 1: that run through your town. There's people that are running

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00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 1: that train, people that have families just like you do. You,

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00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 1: people that have kids, people that have wives and husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends,

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00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 1: aunts and uncles, so on and so forth, you know.

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00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 1: And we're going to go to the local ball field

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00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:33,680
Speaker 1: in town. We're going to take our little league game

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00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 1: out there. And we got you know, parents everywhere. Everybody's

494
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 1: cheering and clapping, yelling and holler and go, go, go,

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00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 1: you know, do it, you know, run, run the whole

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00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:45,560
Speaker 1: nine yards. This is this is America, right, and here

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00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 1: comes the train, all right, and it's just you just

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00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 1: expected to pass through town like it normally. Does you

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00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:53,479
Speaker 1: hear the kliang in of the crossing bells, all of that,

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00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:57,560
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you hear this catastraphic metal twisting,

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00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 1: the sound and just this horrible sound wreckage that you've

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00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 1: never heard before. And the train has derailed. We've piled

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00:31:07,440 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 1: up fifty or sixty cars, and unbeknounced to anybody, we've

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00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:14,560
Speaker 1: punched a hole in a chlorine car. We don't know

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00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 1: it yet, but we've punched a hole in a chlorine car.

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00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 1: So as a train dispatcher, I'm the guy in the

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00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:22,480
Speaker 1: office I'm going to be one of your first responders

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00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:24,959
Speaker 1: if something like that happens. I'm the guy that's going

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00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:27,720
Speaker 1: to orchestrate the evacuation. I'm the guy that's going to

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00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:30,239
Speaker 1: do all of the hazmat stuff, you know. I'm the

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00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:32,840
Speaker 1: one that's going to be the people that's going to

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00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 1: mobilize the response to get you out of there. But

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00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:39,720
Speaker 1: there's one thing I need. I'm seven hundred miles away

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00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 1: in an office in another state. I can't tell that

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00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:46,120
Speaker 1: that trains derailed. All I know is PTC puts up

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00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:49,400
Speaker 1: a thing on my screen and says undesired emergency brake application.

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00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:51,960
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, okay, that happens all the time.

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00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 1: More often than not there's not a derailment. But guess

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00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:57,920
Speaker 1: what today there is now I don't know that. So

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00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 1: the crew calls me and says, hey, Dispact, we've got

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00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 1: the trains in emergency and we didn't like what we

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00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:07,360
Speaker 1: felt back there that we think something's wrong. I say, okay,

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00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:09,760
Speaker 1: put to the conductor underground and send him for a walk.

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00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:13,080
Speaker 1: So he gets underground and within a few minutes he

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00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 1: calls me on the radio and says, Dispactor, we got

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00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 1: a hell of a mess back here and I smell chlorine,

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00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay, we're going to mobilize the response.

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00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 1: Now we got this little league game just a mile

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00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:26,719
Speaker 1: from the tracks to this field. And he tells me

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00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:30,760
Speaker 1: he smells chlorine. So I'm like, tell me on your

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00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 1: wheel report, on the paperwork that you have in front

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00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:36,160
Speaker 1: of you, what is the last car that you can

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00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 1: see that you think is upright and on the track.

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00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:41,080
Speaker 1: He gives me a number, and I start looking at

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00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:43,160
Speaker 1: the fall on my end and I say, oh my god,

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00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:46,280
Speaker 1: we've got ten chlorine cars in there, Anne Hyder's Semonia car,

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00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:50,440
Speaker 1: four loads of propane and something else. Now the railroads

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00:32:50,480 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 1: come in and they say we're going to put single

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00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 1: single man cruise in because you know PTC is going

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00:32:56,200 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 1: to prevent that. Well, guess what that drealment as a

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00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:03,360
Speaker 1: result of a broken rail which PTC won't prevent, or

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00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 1: a broken wheel that disintegrated because the railroads have abolished

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00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:09,280
Speaker 1: all of the mechanical inspectors that used to check train

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00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 1: car wheels before they were permitted to leave the terminal.

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00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:14,560
Speaker 1: And we're going to frame this as what could happen,

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00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 1: and people, if you're listening, listen to what I'm saying

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00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 1: to you. This is your home, this is your town,

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00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 1: These are your kids, your people or your friends, your family,

549
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 1: people you care about. You have a vested interest in this,

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00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 1: whether you realize it or not. If you haven't already,

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00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 1: I highly highly recommend that you listen to the multiple

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00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 1: full podcast episodes that I got to record with Jay

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00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:44,640
Speaker 1: on working people, along with all the other interviews with

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00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: rail workers that I recorded and published on my podcast

555
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:52,840
Speaker 1: at the Real News, and hear on Breaking Points, because

556
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 1: you will hear for yourself from people who actually know

557
00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:02,560
Speaker 1: this industry inside and out, how and why the nightmare

558
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:08,440
Speaker 1: and East Palestine was so depressingly predictable, to say nothing

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00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 1: of the absurd number of trains that are derailing around

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00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:18,080
Speaker 1: the country practically every week. I was regrettably unable to

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00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:20,919
Speaker 1: make it down to the Breaking Points studio this week

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00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:26,360
Speaker 1: to record this interview, but for our latest installment let

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00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:31,319
Speaker 1: Me start that again, I was regrettably unable to make

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00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:34,319
Speaker 1: it down to the Breaking Points studio this week, but

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00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:37,479
Speaker 1: for our latest installment of the Art of Class War,

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00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 1: I recorded the following interview with Jay on Monday, February

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00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:47,280
Speaker 1: thirteenth to get an insider's perspective on the Norfolk Southern

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00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:52,080
Speaker 1: train derailment in East Palestine. The fallout from this catastrophic

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00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:57,120
Speaker 1: derailment and the larger Wall Street led changes to the

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00:34:57,200 --> 00:35:00,440
Speaker 1: industry that have put all of us at risk and

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00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 1: made catastrophes like this more and more likely. Well, Jay,

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00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us today on Breaking Points, Man,

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00:35:11,080 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 1: I really really appreciate it. Obviously, I wish that we

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00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:19,879
Speaker 1: were reconnecting under less horrifying circumstances, but you know, this

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00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:22,600
Speaker 1: is the situation that we're in and I'm very grateful

576
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 1: to you for taking the time to chat with us today.

577
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:28,799
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it, man, absolutely, Max. It's good to

578
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:32,239
Speaker 1: be back, and I'm honored to be and of course

579
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 1: with you, and then to be on breaking Points on

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00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 1: top of it. I'm hopeful that we're able to put

581
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:40,880
Speaker 1: some perspective on this for some people, and you know,

582
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:46,640
Speaker 1: give them the industry insider view of what we see

583
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 1: versus what they see, what the news media says, versus

584
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:52,880
Speaker 1: what you know. The the bootstone the ground are seeing

585
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 1: you every day, and we have quite a bit to

586
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 1: talk about, actually, so I'm excited for that. Yeah, So

587
00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 1: we got we got a lot to unpack. And I

588
00:36:00,239 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 1: know normally you and I when we record podcasts, we

589
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:05,759
Speaker 1: got one, two even three hours to dig into that.

590
00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:08,279
Speaker 1: So we're going to try to condense this for the

591
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:10,960
Speaker 1: great breaking points viewers and listeners as much as we

592
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:13,359
Speaker 1: can squeeze as much as we can in the next

593
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:17,359
Speaker 1: twenty or twenty five minutes. But as you said, you know,

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00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:22,799
Speaker 1: like we recorded multiple podcasts over the course of the

595
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 1: past year while all the drama was unfolding during the

596
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:31,720
Speaker 1: high stakes contract negotiations between the Class one freight rail

597
00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:36,280
Speaker 1: carriers i e. The companies and the twelve unions representing

598
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 1: over one hundred and fifteen thousand workers on the nation's

599
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: freight rail system. And we talked a lot, you know,

600
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:47,799
Speaker 1: about the sort of systemic issues that workers were really

601
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:51,400
Speaker 1: kind of taking issue with during the contract negotiations, the

602
00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:54,400
Speaker 1: things that the rail companies have been doing to turn

603
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 1: a once good job into a miserable experience, to increase,

604
00:36:58,719 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 1: in fact, the likelihod of derailments and even catastrophic derailments

605
00:37:03,680 --> 00:37:06,880
Speaker 1: like the ones that we're seeing right now. And so

606
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:09,600
Speaker 1: I wanted to kind of pick up on what you

607
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 1: said because I agree with you, like you know there

608
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:15,719
Speaker 1: has been you know, sustained coverage on this, including here

609
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:19,279
Speaker 1: on Breaking Points and great reporting partners like the Lever,

610
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:23,440
Speaker 1: but I do feel like there there has been, you know, overall,

611
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 1: a lack of worker voices like yours, with all your

612
00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:31,440
Speaker 1: recrued years of experience and expertise. And as you mentioned

613
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:34,120
Speaker 1: in the clip that I played during the intro, you know,

614
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:36,920
Speaker 1: you're you're the guy in the dispatch office who's like

615
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:40,400
Speaker 1: responding to these calls that I know you hope you

616
00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 1: never get. But if and when a disaster and emergency

617
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 1: like this happens, you know, you're the guy on the

618
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:49,759
Speaker 1: horn talking to the folks on the train, coordinating the

619
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:53,880
Speaker 1: emergency response. You know, and I know that it's just

620
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:58,320
Speaker 1: a nightmare scenario, but yeah, I wanted to give people

621
00:37:58,440 --> 00:38:02,799
Speaker 1: access to your perspective and your expertise and ask if

622
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:05,359
Speaker 1: you just if you could just sort of walk us

623
00:38:05,400 --> 00:38:10,759
Speaker 1: through this, you know, horrific situation in East Palestine with

624
00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:16,279
Speaker 1: the Norfolk Southern Trail train derailment, Like what are you

625
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 1: seeing like when you review the facts that we know

626
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:23,040
Speaker 1: as of yet, you know about what led to this catastrophe,

627
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:25,799
Speaker 1: what it looks like and what this kind of thing

628
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 1: looks like on the ground for the people like yourself,

629
00:38:29,239 --> 00:38:32,360
Speaker 1: like the first responders who are involved. And the last

630
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:34,040
Speaker 1: thing I'll say, just because I want to give a

631
00:38:34,160 --> 00:38:37,160
Speaker 1: very clear disclaimer up front, I'm not going to ask

632
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:41,279
Speaker 1: Jay to, you know, speculate on things that we don't

633
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:44,000
Speaker 1: currently know. There's a lot of information that's going to

634
00:38:44,040 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 1: trickle out about this situation, what caused it, how bad

635
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:50,520
Speaker 1: the fallout is. There's gonna be stuff we don't know

636
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:53,799
Speaker 1: for weeks, months, or even years right now. So I

637
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:56,359
Speaker 1: don't want to ask you to, you know, I don't

638
00:38:56,360 --> 00:38:58,040
Speaker 1: want to put you in a in an awkward position

639
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:00,000
Speaker 1: or talk about anything that's going to get you in trouble.

640
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:02,920
Speaker 1: But just with all of that knowledge and experience that

641
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: you have, tell us what you're seeing when you look

642
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 1: at the situation in East Palestine. Well, one thing I

643
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:12,680
Speaker 1: think about, Max, when I look at a situation like

644
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:15,360
Speaker 1: this is the first and foremost my thoughts and my

645
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 1: heart goes out to the people that are involved. Sometimes

646
00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:21,399
Speaker 1: it's easy to lose track of the fact that there's

647
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 1: a train crew on that train. There are there's an

648
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:26,440
Speaker 1: engineer and a conductor at least currently we know in

649
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 1: this particular case that it was a conductor trainee was

650
00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 1: also board. We know the townsfolk, you know, they live

651
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:34,720
Speaker 1: there all their lives. I mean some of these people,

652
00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:37,360
Speaker 1: they've built their homes there, they've raised their families there,

653
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:40,360
Speaker 1: and for something like this to happen in your backyard

654
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:44,160
Speaker 1: is just terrifying. It would be. I mean, I can't

655
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:46,439
Speaker 1: even liken it to anything because I hope and pray

656
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:49,400
Speaker 1: I never experienced it. But for them, I feel badly

657
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:51,799
Speaker 1: that they've been through this and as they return home,

658
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:54,799
Speaker 1: you know, their homes are smelling like smoke, I mean,

659
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 1: nasty things. It's gross, and you're wondering how you're going

660
00:39:57,920 --> 00:39:59,759
Speaker 1: to pay for that. Who's going to address it? But

661
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:02,920
Speaker 1: when we say, you know, what does this look like

662
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 1: on the ground to an employee, I have to think

663
00:40:06,760 --> 00:40:10,920
Speaker 1: to myself, what about the last year? So if we

664
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:14,000
Speaker 1: go back over the past year, we saw the union

665
00:40:14,080 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 1: issues with the potential strike looming. We saw on April

666
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:23,360
Speaker 1: twenty sixth and April twenty seventh, we saw a STB

667
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:26,880
Speaker 1: hearing that was held where the Surface Transportation Board grilled

668
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:31,680
Speaker 1: railroad executives relentlessly about their cuts to the workforce, their

669
00:40:31,760 --> 00:40:36,000
Speaker 1: reductions in staff by thirty percent. And we have to

670
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:39,399
Speaker 1: consider where those reductions have been made. They've been made

671
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:42,320
Speaker 1: in maintenance of way, They've been made to the car department,

672
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:46,560
Speaker 1: They've been made to critical staff that make sure that

673
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 1: stuff like this doesn't happen. And keep in mind the

674
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:54,560
Speaker 1: goal of any situation, any industry you're in, it doesn't

675
00:40:54,600 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 1: matter what it is. You want to move the product.

676
00:40:57,200 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 1: You want to move it safely, and you want to

677
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:01,360
Speaker 1: move it quickly. That's the case where you make the

678
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:03,880
Speaker 1: most money. Right, So every business is a business to

679
00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 1: make money. But when I think about this, I think

680
00:41:06,280 --> 00:41:09,160
Speaker 1: about this. You know the historic cuts that the railroads

681
00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 1: have been presently and previously making. What's the goal there?

682
00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 1: It's to appease Wall Street. Wall Street are the ones

683
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:19,400
Speaker 1: pulling the strings. Now, if we look back over the

684
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 1: last say roughly ten years across the rail industry as

685
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:28,480
Speaker 1: a whole, you may actually remember Matt Burkhardt gave testimony

686
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 1: in front of the Surface Transportation boarder April twenty sixth.

687
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:36,799
Speaker 1: He's a former manager as a high level manager for BNSF,

688
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: currently a yard master and general chairman for the local union.

689
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:42,479
Speaker 1: He talked about cars falling off of a bridge onto

690
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:45,800
Speaker 1: a well known hiking trail. He talked about train lengths.

691
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:49,960
Speaker 1: They're too big, they don't fit anywhere. So when we

692
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 1: think about this over the past ten years, let's rewind

693
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:57,359
Speaker 1: back to say, twenty ten to twenty fourteen, it was

694
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: really unprecedented to hear of the number of mainline aroundments

695
00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:04,279
Speaker 1: that we're hearing of now. We had them. You know,

696
00:42:04,280 --> 00:42:06,359
Speaker 1: we had Castleton, North Dakota with the oil trains. There

697
00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:10,080
Speaker 1: were a few of those. We had Locke Megantic, excuse me,

698
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:13,279
Speaker 1: which was catastrophic. I mean, you want to talk about

699
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:16,919
Speaker 1: hell coming to earth it did, and Lock Megantic, And

700
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:21,200
Speaker 1: we have to consider as we've continued down that path,

701
00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 1: we didn't see this kind of stuff happened very often.

702
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:26,799
Speaker 1: We're trained state on the tracks. Everything was fine, and

703
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 1: then Hunter Harrison comes around. So twenty eighteen and all

704
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 1: of a sudden we see PSR. Well, PSR is all

705
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:37,719
Speaker 1: about cut cut, cut profits first, you know, shareholder value

706
00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:40,120
Speaker 1: and on air quoting. You can't see me, but I'm

707
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:43,279
Speaker 1: air quoting. I can I can hear the air quotes. Right,

708
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 1: It's like and this is this is precision scheduled railroading,

709
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 1: Like this is the industry name like for all these

710
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:56,120
Speaker 1: kinds of changes that Jay is describing. Yes, and you

711
00:42:56,239 --> 00:42:59,000
Speaker 1: have to look at that and look at it very objectively,

712
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:01,120
Speaker 1: be very careful about what you think of it. But

713
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 1: let's be honest, Barnum and Bailey ran a better circus

714
00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 1: with fewer clowns. They share left it up to them.

715
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:11,040
Speaker 1: But when you think about those STV hearings, we hear

716
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:14,000
Speaker 1: the railroad or the railroads being scolded and scorned by

717
00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 1: the STV. And why were they sold in the scorn?

718
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:22,120
Speaker 1: You know, car inspectors serve as a preventative control. That's

719
00:43:22,200 --> 00:43:26,520
Speaker 1: the position that they take. We used to have people

720
00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:29,320
Speaker 1: all over the company that were railroad employees. They weren't

721
00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:32,759
Speaker 1: contract workers. They were employed by the railroad directly. They

722
00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:35,800
Speaker 1: were at every yard and they would be on top of, underneath,

723
00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:38,359
Speaker 1: in between, inside, to the left, to the right. I mean,

724
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:41,600
Speaker 1: they'd crawl all over these cars and they would look

725
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:45,040
Speaker 1: for defects. They had bearings, safety appliances that were loose

726
00:43:45,120 --> 00:43:51,200
Speaker 1: or broken, sharp wheel flanges, broken wheels, all of these

727
00:43:51,239 --> 00:43:53,400
Speaker 1: types of things which could cause it to run it.

728
00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:59,359
Speaker 1: And back in the day when workers felt valued by

729
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:04,200
Speaker 1: their corporationations, that played a major role in discretionary effort.

730
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:07,920
Speaker 1: So we know that that's a critical factor in anything

731
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:12,440
Speaker 1: as discretionary effort. Employers need it, they can't require it,

732
00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:15,600
Speaker 1: and they have no way to measure it. So in

733
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:18,799
Speaker 1: recent years, from twenty eighteen on, when this PSR thing

734
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:21,040
Speaker 1: came about, what did we do? We started attacking our

735
00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 1: workforce as a as an industry. The railroad companies started

736
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:27,600
Speaker 1: attacking and we don't need you. We have record profits.

737
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:29,120
Speaker 1: You know we're going to cut this. We're going to

738
00:44:29,160 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 1: cut that. Your job's going with it. Oh by the way, yeah, Friday,

739
00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:34,320
Speaker 1: you don't need to show up to work because you

740
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:37,920
Speaker 1: don't have a job anymore. And they've abolished this in

741
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:41,560
Speaker 1: the mechanical department, diesel shops, all of it. So let's

742
00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:44,560
Speaker 1: think about this train that's that's racing along the track right.

743
00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:48,439
Speaker 1: There are wayside detectors out there. Every railroad has them.

744
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:52,719
Speaker 1: The spacing between them varies property to property, but a

745
00:44:52,760 --> 00:44:58,719
Speaker 1: wayside detector is a detective control. So car inspector's preventative

746
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:01,680
Speaker 1: i EU go to the dentisty get your teeth cleaned

747
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 1: twice a year as a preventative measure to prevent cavities gingivitis,

748
00:45:05,560 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 1: et cetera. Right, Well, that's the role of the car

749
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:11,399
Speaker 1: inspector to prevent the accident from happening in the first place.

750
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:13,120
Speaker 1: He or she looks at the bearing and says, I

751
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:15,239
Speaker 1: don't like the way that bearing looks. I'm going to

752
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:17,919
Speaker 1: shop this car. I don't like the way that wheel looks.

753
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:19,360
Speaker 1: I think we've got an issue here. We're going to

754
00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:21,319
Speaker 1: shop this car. We're we're gonna send them to the

755
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:24,640
Speaker 1: shop for inspection, for further scrutiny to see if they're

756
00:45:24,680 --> 00:45:26,959
Speaker 1: safe for the rails, and if they're not, we're gonna

757
00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:29,320
Speaker 1: go ahead and repair them. Now, we look at the

758
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:34,920
Speaker 1: difference on detective controls, So we're going to kind of

759
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 1: move over from what does it look like on the ground.

760
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:38,840
Speaker 1: We talked about the cuts, We talked about what the

761
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:41,840
Speaker 1: railroads are doing. We refer to the STB hearings. I

762
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:43,640
Speaker 1: would encourage you, if you've not seen it, guys, go

763
00:45:43,719 --> 00:45:46,960
Speaker 1: watch them. There's some pretty heated testimony in there that

764
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:48,960
Speaker 1: will really give you a lot of perspectives. I would

765
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:51,799
Speaker 1: encourage you to do that well, And just to like

766
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:56,440
Speaker 1: add one more footnote there. I remember screaming about this.

767
00:45:56,560 --> 00:46:00,840
Speaker 1: I think on a previous breaking points segment that Surface

768
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:05,200
Speaker 1: Transportation Board Martin Oberman like said that the estimated that

769
00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 1: the rail carriers have spent I recall correctly is around

770
00:46:09,080 --> 00:46:14,240
Speaker 1: forty billion dollars more on stock buybacks than on rail

771
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:17,840
Speaker 1: maintenance in like the past ten years, right, So that

772
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:21,720
Speaker 1: like the money to maintain these tracks and these cars

773
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:25,400
Speaker 1: and to ensure all that kind of quality and safety,

774
00:46:26,880 --> 00:46:29,279
Speaker 1: the quality assurance and safety measures that need to be

775
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 1: put in place so that we don't see, you know,

776
00:46:31,520 --> 00:46:36,040
Speaker 1: horrific catastrophic derailments like the one we're watching in East

777
00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:40,200
Speaker 1: Palace time. Those are like, you know, an afterthought compared

778
00:46:40,239 --> 00:46:46,920
Speaker 1: to stuffing the pockets of Wall Street investors and rail executives. Absolutely,

779
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 1: I mean, look at what we've seen, look at the

780
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:52,160
Speaker 1: derailments that didn't happen versus the ones that are happening,

781
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:55,960
Speaker 1: primarily in the last four years. I mean, they've been

782
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:59,240
Speaker 1: piled up on Horseshoe Curve multiple times. That's a national landmark.

783
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:01,440
Speaker 1: It's recorded twenty four to seven, is streamed of the

784
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:04,320
Speaker 1: Internet Internet by Virtual rail Fan. You can watch trains

785
00:47:04,320 --> 00:47:07,399
Speaker 1: all day long, and we watched them pull them up. Oop.

786
00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:11,440
Speaker 1: That's a bad thing. We don't like that, right. So

787
00:47:12,880 --> 00:47:16,920
Speaker 1: the podcast that we did back in July was early similar.

788
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:19,799
Speaker 1: I mean I laid out an event very similar to this.

789
00:47:19,880 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 1: In this particular case, it was a single man crew

790
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:26,279
Speaker 1: and it was chlorine now vinyl chloride, which is what

791
00:47:26,280 --> 00:47:29,920
Speaker 1: we know was built in this accident. If it happens

792
00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:33,360
Speaker 1: to ignite, is probably the best case scenario, the best

793
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:35,399
Speaker 1: case of the worst cases. And why do I say

794
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:38,600
Speaker 1: that one You can't see it if it doesn't burn,

795
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:41,000
Speaker 1: so you're going to have a hard time detecking if

796
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:44,040
Speaker 1: there's anything wrong until you're exposed, and that's where the

797
00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:46,680
Speaker 1: danger really comes in because you have limited time to

798
00:47:46,680 --> 00:47:49,640
Speaker 1: be exposed to it before it does serious damage. So,

799
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:54,920
Speaker 1: looking at the situation, the train derailed just outside of town, Thankfully,

800
00:47:55,440 --> 00:47:57,640
Speaker 1: had it been in town and burst into flames like that,

801
00:47:57,680 --> 00:47:59,919
Speaker 1: there would have likely been collateral damage into the force

802
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:02,759
Speaker 1: and the form of other homes and buildings being set

803
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:06,520
Speaker 1: ablaze by the radiant heat from that fire. Then we

804
00:48:06,640 --> 00:48:08,439
Speaker 1: have to look at the fact, Okay, it was close

805
00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:11,000
Speaker 1: enough to a populated area that the police are going

806
00:48:11,040 --> 00:48:14,959
Speaker 1: to notify the railroad right away. There's infrastructure to get there,

807
00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:18,960
Speaker 1: so fire departments from three States responded, and that's all

808
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:20,520
Speaker 1: well and good. Now we get out there and it's

809
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:23,960
Speaker 1: four degrees in the pump trucks freeze up. Well, we

810
00:48:24,560 --> 00:48:27,840
Speaker 1: now we have an even bigger problem. So we literally

811
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:31,920
Speaker 1: had a perfect disaster here. Thankfully there was no loss

812
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 1: of life. But if we move on to the mainstream

813
00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:37,719
Speaker 1: media question, you know, the narrative is that there's a

814
00:48:37,719 --> 00:48:41,960
Speaker 1: technical failure, and you know why were railroaders like myself

815
00:48:41,960 --> 00:48:46,839
Speaker 1: and others predicting this? Well, the technical failure. The NTSB

816
00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:50,439
Speaker 1: made note of some video that they had received of

817
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:54,040
Speaker 1: what they believe was this particular train passing through New Watertown, Ohio,

818
00:48:54,120 --> 00:48:57,680
Speaker 1: about thirteen miles before the derailment. Is my understanding, with

819
00:48:57,840 --> 00:49:03,160
Speaker 1: an obvious situation developing, there's fire surrounding what appears to

820
00:49:03,160 --> 00:49:04,879
Speaker 1: be the bearing in the car. It's not the best

821
00:49:05,000 --> 00:49:08,479
Speaker 1: video quality and it's dark, so you can't really zoom

822
00:49:08,520 --> 00:49:10,680
Speaker 1: in and see that, but based on my experience, it

823
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:13,359
Speaker 1: looks to me like we have a bearing issue that's

824
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:16,880
Speaker 1: going on there. So a real car bearing is a

825
00:49:16,960 --> 00:49:19,840
Speaker 1: roller bearing. Now it's no longer a pile of rereezy

826
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:21,880
Speaker 1: rag stuffed in the end of an axle. It's actually

827
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:24,040
Speaker 1: a roller bearing, and that's a seal bearing with grease

828
00:49:24,080 --> 00:49:26,640
Speaker 1: and stuff in them, and periodically they go bad. And

829
00:49:26,680 --> 00:49:30,239
Speaker 1: when they do, this is where your wayside detectors come in.

830
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:33,279
Speaker 1: So you fire all your car inspectors, you hire contractors

831
00:49:33,280 --> 00:49:38,360
Speaker 1: in right, and we have to think about knowledge versus wisdom.

832
00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:42,040
Speaker 1: So you get rid of all your experienced people. You're

833
00:49:42,040 --> 00:49:44,399
Speaker 1: losing twenty year men and women walking out the door

834
00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:47,200
Speaker 1: and saying I'm done, I can't do this anymore, and

835
00:49:47,239 --> 00:49:51,200
Speaker 1: you bring these new people in. Well, knowledge versus wisdom

836
00:49:51,320 --> 00:49:54,600
Speaker 1: is what. Knowledge means you possess knowledge about a subject.

837
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:58,600
Speaker 1: Wisdom means you have perspective on a subject. So the

838
00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:00,520
Speaker 1: twenty year person walking out the door or takes the

839
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:03,799
Speaker 1: perspective with them. The new person coming in. Sure they're

840
00:50:04,120 --> 00:50:07,920
Speaker 1: quote qualified end to air quote, but they lack the perspective.

841
00:50:08,560 --> 00:50:11,560
Speaker 1: So when you think about what the detector does, you know,

842
00:50:11,560 --> 00:50:13,319
Speaker 1: you bring these new car inspectors in. They look at

843
00:50:13,360 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 1: something and I don't think anything's wrong with it. Send

844
00:50:15,680 --> 00:50:17,560
Speaker 1: it out on the railroad. The trains wizened by the

845
00:50:17,600 --> 00:50:20,320
Speaker 1: detector and it says, okay, you know all the bearings

846
00:50:20,360 --> 00:50:24,000
Speaker 1: on the train primarily or within say twenty degrees of

847
00:50:24,040 --> 00:50:26,759
Speaker 1: ambient air temperature, whatever that is, and then boom, one

848
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:28,640
Speaker 1: bearing goes over top, and that one's one hundred and

849
00:50:28,680 --> 00:50:32,080
Speaker 1: three degrees above. That's going to initiate a flag at

850
00:50:32,160 --> 00:50:34,600
Speaker 1: least it should. Now what are we going to do

851
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:38,560
Speaker 1: with that information? We take this information then, which is

852
00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:42,560
Speaker 1: now intelligible information, and we present it to a human being.

853
00:50:43,239 --> 00:50:45,839
Speaker 1: All right, what does the human being do? We now

854
00:50:45,920 --> 00:50:50,839
Speaker 1: look at this from a intelligent perspective and we say,

855
00:50:50,840 --> 00:50:53,320
Speaker 1: what do we think we have here? Is this something

856
00:50:53,360 --> 00:50:56,439
Speaker 1: that requires action? In this case, the answer would be yes.

857
00:50:57,040 --> 00:50:59,359
Speaker 1: All the other bearings are within forty degrees of each other.

858
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:01,759
Speaker 1: We have one here that that's popping a flag on

859
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:03,600
Speaker 1: us for one hundred and three degrees above ambience. So

860
00:51:03,640 --> 00:51:06,280
Speaker 1: we're going to stop the train and inspect it. Well,

861
00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:09,359
Speaker 1: that's all well and good, but we've cut everybody. So

862
00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:12,520
Speaker 1: all of these detectors all across the railroad could potentially

863
00:51:12,560 --> 00:51:16,000
Speaker 1: be sending data into one person and you have to

864
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:18,520
Speaker 1: wait for one person to read that. Well, if the

865
00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:20,840
Speaker 1: train's traveling at sixteen miles an hour, they're doing a

866
00:51:20,880 --> 00:51:23,400
Speaker 1: mile a minute. If it takes up eighteen minutes to

867
00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:27,280
Speaker 1: get to that particular message that train's going eighteen miles.

868
00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:32,359
Speaker 1: So when you think about detective controls, let's think of

869
00:51:32,360 --> 00:51:36,360
Speaker 1: some examples in history where detective controls were used. So

870
00:51:36,480 --> 00:51:38,960
Speaker 1: let's go back to nineteen twelve. We're going to think

871
00:51:38,960 --> 00:51:42,239
Speaker 1: about the Titanic. Who doesn't know the story of the Titanic, right, Like,

872
00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:47,440
Speaker 1: there's nobody that doesn't know that. So Captain Smith was

873
00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:51,080
Speaker 1: interviewed prior to the maiden voyage of the Titanic, and

874
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:52,759
Speaker 1: he was asked, you know, what he thought about an

875
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 1: unsinkable ship and why they didn't have enough life boats

876
00:51:55,160 --> 00:51:58,400
Speaker 1: for everybody, And his answer was something to the effect

877
00:51:58,480 --> 00:52:04,080
Speaker 1: of maritime technology had advanced to the point where they

878
00:52:04,120 --> 00:52:08,360
Speaker 1: didn't see any accident being possible that could result in

879
00:52:08,400 --> 00:52:12,000
Speaker 1: a ship foundering prior to the arrival of another ship

880
00:52:12,040 --> 00:52:16,440
Speaker 1: to take everybody off. So we don't have radar at

881
00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:18,800
Speaker 1: the time, we don't have twenty four hour Mann radios

882
00:52:18,840 --> 00:52:20,880
Speaker 1: at the time. All of the stuff we know today,

883
00:52:21,160 --> 00:52:23,520
Speaker 1: much of it came as a result of what happened there.

884
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:26,040
Speaker 1: So we have two men in a crow's nest way

885
00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:29,080
Speaker 1: above the deck looking out in front of the ship. Right,

886
00:52:29,120 --> 00:52:33,240
Speaker 1: that's their job. They are now serving as a detective control.

887
00:52:33,680 --> 00:52:36,799
Speaker 1: So here goes the Titanic careening across the ocean right

888
00:52:36,880 --> 00:52:38,880
Speaker 1: where we're at almost full steam, and the engines are

889
00:52:38,880 --> 00:52:41,080
Speaker 1: down there pound in a way, the furnaces are blazing,

890
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 1: hot black smoke pouring out of the stacks, and Titanic

891
00:52:46,040 --> 00:52:50,560
Speaker 1: sails farther south than she normally would well. Unfortunately, in

892
00:52:50,640 --> 00:52:53,840
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, we have an ocean that's still as a

893
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:58,160
Speaker 1: mill pond, as they say, we have an unusually cold

894
00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:02,040
Speaker 1: Labrador current which is kind traded unusually far south for

895
00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:05,360
Speaker 1: that time of year, and we literally run into a

896
00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:07,759
Speaker 1: perfect storm, kind of like what happened in East Palestine,

897
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:10,760
Speaker 1: kind of like what happened in Graniteville and Paulsboro, New Jersey.

898
00:53:12,640 --> 00:53:15,319
Speaker 1: The ship sails into this cold water, and what does

899
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:19,080
Speaker 1: it do. The cold water chills the atmosphere for tens,

900
00:53:19,120 --> 00:53:22,040
Speaker 1: if not several hundred feet above the surface of the ocean.

901
00:53:22,640 --> 00:53:26,080
Speaker 1: So in so doing, we create a temperature version. The

902
00:53:26,120 --> 00:53:29,800
Speaker 1: temperature version pulls the horizon up and cloaks the iceberg

903
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:32,759
Speaker 1: in blackness. There's no stars, there's nothing, you can't see it.

904
00:53:32,800 --> 00:53:35,680
Speaker 1: There's no silhouette anymore, because your horizon's curled up due

905
00:53:35,680 --> 00:53:39,480
Speaker 1: to that temperature, So the Crow's nest. These two guys

906
00:53:39,520 --> 00:53:42,480
Speaker 1: are up there looking. They can't see anything. Something that

907
00:53:42,520 --> 00:53:45,240
Speaker 1: should be visible for ten miles is now not visible

908
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:48,440
Speaker 1: except for a few thousand yards potentially. And out of

909
00:53:48,440 --> 00:53:51,160
Speaker 1: the blackness as the ship seems forward comes this black

910
00:53:51,239 --> 00:53:54,800
Speaker 1: mass of ice. They're horrified. They ring the bell three times.

911
00:53:55,080 --> 00:53:57,000
Speaker 1: They pick up the phone and they call the bridge.

912
00:53:57,000 --> 00:53:59,520
Speaker 1: What are they doing. They have no steering wheel and

913
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:03,160
Speaker 1: they have no engine telegraph. They are going to provide

914
00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:07,040
Speaker 1: intelligible information to the crew on the bridge, which will

915
00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:10,000
Speaker 1: then be acted upon. We know how the story ended.

916
00:54:10,040 --> 00:54:12,400
Speaker 1: They tried to turn, they tried to reverse, It didn't happen.

917
00:54:12,600 --> 00:54:14,959
Speaker 1: Titanic k at the iceberg and fifteen hundred plus lives

918
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:20,960
Speaker 1: were lost. So we think about detective controls across the railroad.

919
00:54:21,280 --> 00:54:23,719
Speaker 1: We think about the Crow's Nest example I just gave.

920
00:54:24,680 --> 00:54:29,160
Speaker 1: If you look at what you do in this respect,

921
00:54:29,200 --> 00:54:33,279
Speaker 1: you know it takes a human to relay information which

922
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:36,640
Speaker 1: goes to another human that then ideally results in an

923
00:54:36,680 --> 00:54:41,279
Speaker 1: action that hopefully prevents what we saw. So it's been

924
00:54:41,360 --> 00:54:45,520
Speaker 1: said by the NTSB that moments before the derailment, another

925
00:54:45,560 --> 00:54:49,080
Speaker 1: wayside detector alerted for a critical learn So again our

926
00:54:49,120 --> 00:54:53,319
Speaker 1: detective control says, hey, I see something critical, stop the train,

927
00:54:53,400 --> 00:54:56,120
Speaker 1: and it sounds like they didn't have time. This will

928
00:54:56,120 --> 00:54:58,040
Speaker 1: all come out in the investigation. It'll be weeks for

929
00:54:58,040 --> 00:55:00,279
Speaker 1: the preliminary report, in months for the final for you

930
00:55:01,440 --> 00:55:06,520
Speaker 1: excuse me, But when you think about it, communication is

931
00:55:06,560 --> 00:55:09,840
Speaker 1: both the root cause and the solution to most of

932
00:55:09,880 --> 00:55:14,960
Speaker 1: our problems. So if you look at the industry as

933
00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:19,840
Speaker 1: a whole, as we reduce people and we reduce interactions

934
00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:24,319
Speaker 1: of people who possess wisdom versus knowledge, what do we

935
00:55:24,360 --> 00:55:28,880
Speaker 1: do to ourselves. We're breaking down the preventative control measures

936
00:55:29,280 --> 00:55:32,560
Speaker 1: and we're trying to rely on detective control measures to

937
00:55:32,640 --> 00:55:35,239
Speaker 1: prevent what should have otherwise been found by human being.

938
00:55:38,280 --> 00:55:40,440
Speaker 1: What does that say? I mean, where are we as

939
00:55:40,480 --> 00:55:43,680
Speaker 1: a country when we're allowing corporations to dictate to the

940
00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:47,360
Speaker 1: regulatory bodies what they will and won't do you know

941
00:55:47,400 --> 00:55:52,520
Speaker 1: the surface transport or what happens? Well, apparently this is

942
00:55:52,560 --> 00:55:55,680
Speaker 1: what fucking happens, right, So pardon my French, everybody, But

943
00:55:55,920 --> 00:56:00,720
Speaker 1: like you guys know, like that I my college viewer

944
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:04,239
Speaker 1: at the Real News, Like we've been covering the crisis

945
00:56:04,320 --> 00:56:08,040
Speaker 1: the long brewing crisis on the nation's railroad system for

946
00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:12,279
Speaker 1: over a year now, right, and I've been talking endlessly

947
00:56:12,440 --> 00:56:15,439
Speaker 1: and publishing, you know, hours and hours of interviews with

948
00:56:15,880 --> 00:56:20,160
Speaker 1: rail workers like Jay, like Matt Parker, like Marrilee Taylor,

949
00:56:20,480 --> 00:56:24,080
Speaker 1: like Michael Paul Lindsey. Right, I mean, like all these

950
00:56:24,080 --> 00:56:27,160
Speaker 1: folks with so much knowledge that I am begging you

951
00:56:27,680 --> 00:56:31,560
Speaker 1: to listen to because we're going to keep ending up

952
00:56:31,600 --> 00:56:34,560
Speaker 1: in situations like this, which is what workers like Jay

953
00:56:34,560 --> 00:56:36,839
Speaker 1: and others have been telling me, right, Because I think

954
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:39,759
Speaker 1: like that that's the part where I'm really losing my

955
00:56:39,840 --> 00:56:41,239
Speaker 1: mind here, man, And I know I've got to let

956
00:56:41,280 --> 00:56:43,359
Speaker 1: you go in a second, so just to kind of

957
00:56:43,400 --> 00:56:47,399
Speaker 1: like round this thought out, you know, because I think

958
00:56:47,400 --> 00:56:51,000
Speaker 1: there's a real, like, you know, there's a really sad

959
00:56:51,160 --> 00:56:53,799
Speaker 1: metaphor here in the way that we're talking about East

960
00:56:53,840 --> 00:56:59,760
Speaker 1: Palestine and the Norfolk Southern derailment that we're watching unfold,

961
00:57:00,480 --> 00:57:04,239
Speaker 1: and the larger kind of crisis that we were reporting

962
00:57:04,280 --> 00:57:07,960
Speaker 1: on all last year. While the contract negotiations between the

963
00:57:08,040 --> 00:57:11,240
Speaker 1: rail carriers and the and the unions representing rail workers

964
00:57:11,239 --> 00:57:16,400
Speaker 1: were unfolding, Biden's Presidential Emergency Board got involved, you know,

965
00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:21,400
Speaker 1: YadA YadA, YadA. When I watched the mainstream media coverage

966
00:57:21,440 --> 00:57:25,400
Speaker 1: of the derailment in East Palestine and the fallout of it,

967
00:57:25,880 --> 00:57:28,440
Speaker 1: you know, like you said, they tend to focus on

968
00:57:28,680 --> 00:57:32,040
Speaker 1: like a technical failure, and of course there are more

969
00:57:32,120 --> 00:57:35,080
Speaker 1: facets to that story that we will know in the

970
00:57:35,080 --> 00:57:38,000
Speaker 1: weeks and months that come after this. I know that

971
00:57:38,480 --> 00:57:41,880
Speaker 1: Breaking Points and the Lever have both reported that, you know,

972
00:57:42,080 --> 00:57:44,320
Speaker 1: they have linked this back to, like say, the fact

973
00:57:44,360 --> 00:57:48,840
Speaker 1: that Norfolk, Southern and other rail carriers successfully lobbied the

974
00:57:48,880 --> 00:57:53,440
Speaker 1: Trump government and successfully like pushed the Obama government to

975
00:57:53,520 --> 00:57:57,040
Speaker 1: back down. But they essentially like you know, got you know,

976
00:57:57,120 --> 00:58:02,360
Speaker 1: safety regulations wiped off the let when they were the

977
00:58:02,400 --> 00:58:07,480
Speaker 1: government was pushing for these companies to implement electric braking systems.

978
00:58:07,920 --> 00:58:11,800
Speaker 1: The current speculation is that if those breaking systems were installed,

979
00:58:12,200 --> 00:58:14,600
Speaker 1: maybe you know, this derailment wouldn't have been as bad

980
00:58:14,600 --> 00:58:17,800
Speaker 1: as it was. Again, we don't necessarily know that right now,

981
00:58:18,240 --> 00:58:21,240
Speaker 1: but it is an important part of this story. But

982
00:58:21,360 --> 00:58:25,720
Speaker 1: what I'm pointing to, what is what Jay just really described, right,

983
00:58:26,160 --> 00:58:29,000
Speaker 1: is that like when we talk about the derailment in

984
00:58:29,080 --> 00:58:31,800
Speaker 1: East Palestine right now, we talk about the fact that

985
00:58:32,280 --> 00:58:36,720
Speaker 1: this train carrying like these incredibly hazardous substances, mainly vinyl

986
00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:41,640
Speaker 1: chloride that, as you mentioned, is very flammable. They punctured,

987
00:58:41,680 --> 00:58:47,040
Speaker 1: the emergency response team punctured those railcars. They emptied that

988
00:58:47,760 --> 00:58:51,160
Speaker 1: toxic or hazard or substance into like a trench. They

989
00:58:51,200 --> 00:58:53,760
Speaker 1: lit it on fire, hence the massive fireball that we've

990
00:58:53,760 --> 00:58:56,680
Speaker 1: all seen videos and pictures of. Hence you know, like

991
00:58:56,720 --> 00:59:00,480
Speaker 1: all the craps spewing into the air from that, YadA YadA, YadA.

992
00:59:00,680 --> 00:59:03,800
Speaker 1: And obviously that's a horrifying image. And so when folks

993
00:59:03,880 --> 00:59:07,400
Speaker 1: see that, like myself, they think, well, like that's not good.

994
00:59:08,120 --> 00:59:12,840
Speaker 1: But the governor in Ohio, the mainstream media, you know,

995
00:59:12,960 --> 00:59:17,240
Speaker 1: the rail carriers themselves are saying, yeah, but this was necessary.

996
00:59:17,680 --> 00:59:21,520
Speaker 1: This was like the best of the worst scenarios, because

997
00:59:21,520 --> 00:59:25,040
Speaker 1: if we didn't release that you know, vinyl chloride, if

998
00:59:25,040 --> 00:59:28,120
Speaker 1: we didn't burn it off, then those cars could have exploded.

999
00:59:28,840 --> 00:59:30,960
Speaker 1: That would have been a worse option. There would have

1000
00:59:30,960 --> 00:59:34,200
Speaker 1: been shrapnel going all over the place. Like I get that,

1001
00:59:34,560 --> 00:59:37,840
Speaker 1: you know, burning the vinyl chloride on a train that

1002
00:59:37,920 --> 00:59:41,400
Speaker 1: had already derailed is the right thing to do in

1003
00:59:41,440 --> 00:59:45,440
Speaker 1: that situation. Just but like we're talking about it the

1004
00:59:45,480 --> 00:59:49,800
Speaker 1: same way that the media was talking about Biden and Congress,

1005
00:59:49,840 --> 00:59:54,480
Speaker 1: you know, just forcing rail workers like yourself to accept

1006
00:59:54,520 --> 00:59:59,120
Speaker 1: a contract near the end of last year, instead of

1007
00:59:59,120 --> 01:00:01,920
Speaker 1: allowing workers to go on strike, instead of allowing the

1008
01:00:01,960 --> 01:00:05,720
Speaker 1: negotiations to continue, And so the media was celebrating this

1009
01:00:05,760 --> 01:00:08,200
Speaker 1: as like, oh, we averted a catastrophe. Right. If a

1010
01:00:08,280 --> 01:00:12,680
Speaker 1: rail strike or a lockout happened, Christmas would have been canceled,

1011
01:00:12,720 --> 01:00:15,040
Speaker 1: it would have been total chaos, would have cost the

1012
01:00:15,120 --> 01:00:17,800
Speaker 1: US economy two billion dollars a day, YadA, YadA, YadA.

1013
01:00:17,840 --> 01:00:20,400
Speaker 1: So we talk about and we pat ourselves on the

1014
01:00:20,440 --> 01:00:25,000
Speaker 1: back for averting like the immediate catastrophe, and then we

1015
01:00:25,120 --> 01:00:29,480
Speaker 1: do nothing to address the underlying issues that are making

1016
01:00:29,560 --> 01:00:34,000
Speaker 1: catastrophes like this more likely, and that in fact, they

1017
01:00:34,040 --> 01:00:38,400
Speaker 1: are happening all around us, Like Norfolk Southern itself, this

1018
01:00:38,520 --> 01:00:42,800
Speaker 1: particular company had like two trained derailments, like the very

1019
01:00:42,920 --> 01:00:46,440
Speaker 1: week that Biden and Congress forced workers to accept a

1020
01:00:46,480 --> 01:00:50,240
Speaker 1: contract back in November early December, right, I mean, like

1021
01:00:50,280 --> 01:00:53,320
Speaker 1: these derailments, as Jay described in that first podcast, to me,

1022
01:00:53,440 --> 01:00:57,240
Speaker 1: like they're happening all over the place, Like thankfully we

1023
01:00:57,280 --> 01:01:00,200
Speaker 1: haven't had one that's this catastrophic, like of late, but

1024
01:01:00,280 --> 01:01:03,560
Speaker 1: here it is. And yet you know what, what are

1025
01:01:03,600 --> 01:01:05,560
Speaker 1: these companies going to learn? What are they gonna do?

1026
01:01:05,640 --> 01:01:08,800
Speaker 1: What incentive is there for them to do anything different?

1027
01:01:08,920 --> 01:01:12,560
Speaker 1: After scab Joe Biden and Congress just gave them everything

1028
01:01:12,600 --> 01:01:15,800
Speaker 1: that they want and crust workers back into subservience. What

1029
01:01:15,880 --> 01:01:18,760
Speaker 1: did we see? We saw these companies giving themselves more

1030
01:01:18,760 --> 01:01:23,360
Speaker 1: stock buybacks, paying out more shareholder dividends, making more profits.

1031
01:01:23,640 --> 01:01:26,280
Speaker 1: You know, like they're gonna like again, I feel like

1032
01:01:26,320 --> 01:01:31,600
Speaker 1: I'm losing my mind here day match your one hundred

1033
01:01:31,600 --> 01:01:36,600
Speaker 1: percent right. It's it's maddening. It's sickening if you work

1034
01:01:36,600 --> 01:01:39,640
Speaker 1: in the industry. One thing I think about when I

1035
01:01:39,680 --> 01:01:41,640
Speaker 1: work with all of my men and women in the

1036
01:01:41,680 --> 01:01:45,920
Speaker 1: field is my success is a direct result of the

1037
01:01:45,960 --> 01:01:48,960
Speaker 1: relationships that I have with these people. Whether they're in

1038
01:01:49,000 --> 01:01:52,800
Speaker 1: maintenance of way, whether they're training engine crews. They trust me.

1039
01:01:53,320 --> 01:01:56,840
Speaker 1: There's a degree of emotional intelligence there that I possess.

1040
01:01:56,920 --> 01:01:59,360
Speaker 1: When I speak to those guys, they know when I'm happy,

1041
01:01:59,400 --> 01:02:01,480
Speaker 1: when I'm upset. I mean, I wear my emotions on

1042
01:02:01,560 --> 01:02:03,680
Speaker 1: my sleeve. They can sense it, they can feel it.

1043
01:02:03,680 --> 01:02:07,840
Speaker 1: It's palpable, you know. So if you why have other

1044
01:02:07,920 --> 01:02:10,520
Speaker 1: railroaders been talking about this, well, we're in it every

1045
01:02:10,600 --> 01:02:13,240
Speaker 1: day when I walk in the office. I don't expect

1046
01:02:13,240 --> 01:02:15,760
Speaker 1: this to happen. I don't want it to happen. I

1047
01:02:15,760 --> 01:02:18,480
Speaker 1: don't want to deal with it. I don't want the

1048
01:02:18,480 --> 01:02:21,040
Speaker 1: possibility of a loss of life. If you see that

1049
01:02:21,120 --> 01:02:23,280
Speaker 1: nine to one one tone come across the radio for

1050
01:02:23,320 --> 01:02:25,840
Speaker 1: a drink dispatcher, there's usually two things that happened. One

1051
01:02:25,880 --> 01:02:28,400
Speaker 1: we hit a vehicle at a crossing that has the

1052
01:02:28,440 --> 01:02:31,600
Speaker 1: potential to involve casualties or fatalities, or two we have

1053
01:02:31,680 --> 01:02:34,360
Speaker 1: a drawnment. It's generally the only two times I'm going

1054
01:02:34,400 --> 01:02:36,920
Speaker 1: to get a nine to one one tone, or maybe

1055
01:02:37,000 --> 01:02:41,520
Speaker 1: a medical emergency which could happen. So we've been talking

1056
01:02:41,520 --> 01:02:43,600
Speaker 1: about this stuff in the industry for quite some time,

1057
01:02:43,640 --> 01:02:45,880
Speaker 1: and people were looking at these cars saying they don't

1058
01:02:45,880 --> 01:02:48,840
Speaker 1: belong that here. How did this damn thing get here?

1059
01:02:48,880 --> 01:02:52,000
Speaker 1: Look at this like it doesn't. The wheels are in

1060
01:02:52,040 --> 01:02:55,200
Speaker 1: bad shape, the brakes or the brake pads are worn,

1061
01:02:55,280 --> 01:02:59,560
Speaker 1: brakeshoes are worn down. You know, beyond specification, we've got

1062
01:03:00,040 --> 01:03:04,160
Speaker 1: more metal and broken safety appliances on these supertrains. You

1063
01:03:04,240 --> 01:03:08,080
Speaker 1: have to consider the forces in the train think about

1064
01:03:08,080 --> 01:03:11,200
Speaker 1: the power locomotive can put down down near two hundred

1065
01:03:11,320 --> 01:03:15,600
Speaker 1: thousand pounds of tractive effort, and your train is fifteen

1066
01:03:15,760 --> 01:03:18,880
Speaker 1: thousand feet long. I mean, you're in one town with

1067
01:03:18,960 --> 01:03:21,439
Speaker 1: the engines, and your assender's in the next town over,

1068
01:03:24,120 --> 01:03:26,320
Speaker 1: and here you go fifty some miles an hour, and

1069
01:03:26,320 --> 01:03:28,880
Speaker 1: you're trying to keep track of all of this. You've

1070
01:03:28,920 --> 01:03:31,120
Speaker 1: got these slow orders and these speed restrictions, and you've

1071
01:03:31,120 --> 01:03:34,320
Speaker 1: got the ptccene screen screaming in your face and trip

1072
01:03:34,360 --> 01:03:37,880
Speaker 1: optimizer screaming in your face. And then you have a

1073
01:03:37,880 --> 01:03:42,600
Speaker 1: new conductor that has no idea what's going on because

1074
01:03:42,640 --> 01:03:46,600
Speaker 1: the training is so bad. All of this is culminating

1075
01:03:46,680 --> 01:03:49,120
Speaker 1: to literally create the perfect storm. And you have to

1076
01:03:49,160 --> 01:03:52,480
Speaker 1: consider other chemicals. Not every chemical that's dangerous as in

1077
01:03:52,600 --> 01:03:56,200
Speaker 1: liquid form. There's chemicals out there, for example, that are

1078
01:03:56,240 --> 01:03:58,600
Speaker 1: hauled and covered hoppers. And this is where the conductor

1079
01:03:58,640 --> 01:04:02,160
Speaker 1: is so critical, because here's she possesses that paperwork to

1080
01:04:02,280 --> 01:04:06,160
Speaker 1: give to first responders. There's certain chemicals, for example, like

1081
01:04:06,200 --> 01:04:11,800
Speaker 1: sodium hydride, which reacts explosively with water. There's potassium metals

1082
01:04:11,880 --> 01:04:16,920
Speaker 1: which forms hydrogen gas. Well, hydrogen gas is explosive, so

1083
01:04:17,640 --> 01:04:21,360
Speaker 1: if you have a situation where a real accident happens

1084
01:04:21,400 --> 01:04:23,640
Speaker 1: and you end up with a fire, and you have

1085
01:04:23,760 --> 01:04:26,760
Speaker 1: cars close by that contain some of these chemicals like

1086
01:04:26,800 --> 01:04:31,080
Speaker 1: potassium hydride, which also releases hydrogen gas. You could end

1087
01:04:31,120 --> 01:04:33,400
Speaker 1: up with a real situation if you take fire hoses

1088
01:04:33,400 --> 01:04:35,800
Speaker 1: out there and start spraying. I mean, now you get

1089
01:04:35,800 --> 01:04:37,920
Speaker 1: a really big fire. Not only do you have the

1090
01:04:37,960 --> 01:04:41,560
Speaker 1: existing fire, but you spray this powdered substance with water

1091
01:04:41,600 --> 01:04:44,240
Speaker 1: and cabone it goes up. Hey, you got a really

1092
01:04:44,280 --> 01:04:48,600
Speaker 1: big problem. So as these cuts continue to happen, as

1093
01:04:48,640 --> 01:04:51,640
Speaker 1: record profits continue to be the focus, what do you

1094
01:04:51,720 --> 01:04:54,160
Speaker 1: do to people's mentality when you tell them they're no

1095
01:04:54,240 --> 01:04:57,360
Speaker 1: longer valued. We don't need you. Technology is going to

1096
01:04:57,400 --> 01:05:01,400
Speaker 1: replace you. We don't need your job important. Nothing you

1097
01:05:01,480 --> 01:05:04,400
Speaker 1: do is of value. You don't contribute to company profits.

1098
01:05:04,560 --> 01:05:07,520
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah. What does that do to somebody? At

1099
01:05:07,520 --> 01:05:11,920
Speaker 1: what point? I mean, that's like a mind work. You

1100
01:05:11,960 --> 01:05:15,280
Speaker 1: don't have any incentive at that point to engage in

1101
01:05:15,400 --> 01:05:19,600
Speaker 1: applying discretionary effort. And that goes right back to what

1102
01:05:19,640 --> 01:05:22,720
Speaker 1: I said in the beginning, the discretionary effort that an

1103
01:05:22,720 --> 01:05:27,640
Speaker 1: employee that it exerts into the workplace is required by

1104
01:05:27,640 --> 01:05:31,600
Speaker 1: the company for its success. They can't make you do it,

1105
01:05:31,760 --> 01:05:34,600
Speaker 1: and they can't measure it. But if you're going down

1106
01:05:34,640 --> 01:05:36,240
Speaker 1: there and you feel valued, you're going to be a

1107
01:05:36,240 --> 01:05:38,320
Speaker 1: lot more diligent. You're going to look at things with

1108
01:05:38,400 --> 01:05:41,600
Speaker 1: a much more focused eye, and you're going to say,

1109
01:05:41,640 --> 01:05:43,400
Speaker 1: I don't like that, I'm gonna do something about it.

1110
01:05:43,560 --> 01:05:46,439
Speaker 1: But if you don't feel valued, you're just okay, good

1111
01:05:46,520 --> 01:05:49,439
Speaker 1: enough down she goes, sign off of the paper. Okay,

1112
01:05:49,480 --> 01:05:51,640
Speaker 1: it'll make it, blah blah. And this is human nature.

1113
01:05:51,880 --> 01:05:53,920
Speaker 1: This is psychology one o one. I mean, if we

1114
01:05:53,960 --> 01:05:56,440
Speaker 1: talk to a psychologist and we were to dive into that,

1115
01:05:56,520 --> 01:05:58,880
Speaker 1: they would tell you how the human psyche works. When

1116
01:05:58,920 --> 01:06:01,400
Speaker 1: people tell you this stuff, this is why I say

1117
01:06:01,480 --> 01:06:05,160
Speaker 1: management possesses a total lack of emotional intelligence. You can't

1118
01:06:05,160 --> 01:06:07,880
Speaker 1: tell people that they're not value, abolish their jobs and

1119
01:06:07,880 --> 01:06:10,640
Speaker 1: then ask them to help you, because you know what

1120
01:06:10,680 --> 01:06:12,680
Speaker 1: you're gonna get. It's a big old fat middle finger.

1121
01:06:15,920 --> 01:06:19,760
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, look where we are. This is the saddest

1122
01:06:19,760 --> 01:06:23,840
Speaker 1: part about the whole thing. I hope it changes. The

1123
01:06:23,960 --> 01:06:27,080
Speaker 1: STB hasn't done anything, the FRA hasn't done anything. Now

1124
01:06:27,080 --> 01:06:29,560
Speaker 1: we haven't heard about the two man crew ruling yet,

1125
01:06:29,720 --> 01:06:33,480
Speaker 1: so maybe this will change their opinion a little bit.

1126
01:06:33,520 --> 01:06:35,040
Speaker 1: And keep in mind, most of the time, the only

1127
01:06:35,120 --> 01:06:36,640
Speaker 1: time you're going to hear from this it's number one.

1128
01:06:36,640 --> 01:06:39,800
Speaker 1: It's political posturing. So it looks good and it feels good.

1129
01:06:39,800 --> 01:06:42,120
Speaker 1: It's all touchy feely. Okay, they're doing something because we

1130
01:06:42,160 --> 01:06:46,360
Speaker 1: saw them talking. But are you actually going to do something.

1131
01:06:46,440 --> 01:06:48,000
Speaker 1: Are you going to put your money where your mouth

1132
01:06:48,080 --> 01:06:52,520
Speaker 1: is and say that's enough, that's enough. This jeopardy is

1133
01:06:52,560 --> 01:06:56,200
Speaker 1: going to stop. You make plenty of damn money that

1134
01:06:56,560 --> 01:06:58,240
Speaker 1: they We're real in the end right here, we're going

1135
01:06:58,320 --> 01:07:00,280
Speaker 1: to slap some regulations on you. You're going to stop

1136
01:07:00,320 --> 01:07:03,240
Speaker 1: this madness. You gonna start running more reasonable trains. You're

1137
01:07:03,240 --> 01:07:06,120
Speaker 1: going to inspect them properly. I had a contract car

1138
01:07:06,160 --> 01:07:08,640
Speaker 1: inspector come out and put a portable derail in the

1139
01:07:08,720 --> 01:07:11,640
Speaker 1: middle of a mainline interlocking and I didn't know it

1140
01:07:11,680 --> 01:07:16,080
Speaker 1: was there. It could have derailed a train purposefully, because

1141
01:07:16,080 --> 01:07:20,080
Speaker 1: that's the job of that device. But you can't do that.

1142
01:07:20,240 --> 01:07:23,120
Speaker 1: You cannot come out and put that kind of stuff there.

1143
01:07:23,120 --> 01:07:25,920
Speaker 1: And this is where you go back to knowledge versus wisdom.

1144
01:07:26,040 --> 01:07:28,320
Speaker 1: I know what the derail's for, but I don't know

1145
01:07:28,320 --> 01:07:34,440
Speaker 1: where to put it, so God bless I digress. Yeah, well,

1146
01:07:34,640 --> 01:07:36,960
Speaker 1: I mean again, I could talk to you for hours, man,

1147
01:07:37,000 --> 01:07:40,040
Speaker 1: and I hope that you know, in some you know

1148
01:07:40,120 --> 01:07:43,240
Speaker 1: that that we've been able to enlighten folks a little

1149
01:07:43,240 --> 01:07:48,120
Speaker 1: bit more on how we got to this situation in

1150
01:07:48,160 --> 01:07:51,120
Speaker 1: East Palestine, Ohio. Right again, there's gonna be a lot

1151
01:07:51,200 --> 01:07:54,560
Speaker 1: about this derailment. There's going to be a lot about

1152
01:07:54,960 --> 01:07:59,720
Speaker 1: the emergency response, the evacuation. There's going to be a

1153
01:07:59,800 --> 01:08:04,600
Speaker 1: lot about the residual health and environmental effects of that

1154
01:08:04,720 --> 01:08:09,080
Speaker 1: response that sadly we're not going to know for you know,

1155
01:08:09,480 --> 01:08:13,280
Speaker 1: a while. But obviously we have to stay vigilant. We

1156
01:08:13,320 --> 01:08:15,360
Speaker 1: have to keep paying attention to this. We have to

1157
01:08:15,960 --> 01:08:19,439
Speaker 1: read those reports, you know, like from the you know,

1158
01:08:19,760 --> 01:08:23,360
Speaker 1: uh uh a Surface Transportation Board, from the National Transportation

1159
01:08:23,479 --> 01:08:26,720
Speaker 1: Safety Board, you know, like we need to follow up

1160
01:08:26,760 --> 01:08:29,400
Speaker 1: on this and not just let companies like Norfolk Southern

1161
01:08:29,720 --> 01:08:32,000
Speaker 1: you know, say, oh, our bad sorry, you know, won't

1162
01:08:32,040 --> 01:08:35,840
Speaker 1: happen again, while they literally do nothing to address the

1163
01:08:35,960 --> 01:08:40,200
Speaker 1: root causes that are putting all of us at hazard. Right,

1164
01:08:40,240 --> 01:08:41,920
Speaker 1: And that's what I just really want to drive home

1165
01:08:41,960 --> 01:08:44,160
Speaker 1: for folks. I know this segment went long. I hope

1166
01:08:44,160 --> 01:08:46,600
Speaker 1: it was useful for you, But I really hope that

1167
01:08:46,640 --> 01:08:50,120
Speaker 1: what Jay said resonates because we need to understand that

1168
01:08:50,200 --> 01:08:53,439
Speaker 1: all the stuff we were screaming about last year, you know,

1169
01:08:53,560 --> 01:08:56,519
Speaker 1: all the stuff that Biden's presidential Emergency board, and that

1170
01:08:56,640 --> 01:09:00,320
Speaker 1: the forced contract that Congress made workers accept at the

1171
01:09:00,400 --> 01:09:03,920
Speaker 1: end of last year, none of that addressed these core

1172
01:09:04,000 --> 01:09:07,639
Speaker 1: issues that Jay and other railroad workers have been talking about.

1173
01:09:08,280 --> 01:09:11,160
Speaker 1: Does not address the fact that the rail companies have

1174
01:09:11,240 --> 01:09:15,519
Speaker 1: been slashing their workforce year after year after year, piling

1175
01:09:15,560 --> 01:09:19,879
Speaker 1: more work onto fewer workers, making the trains longer and heavier,

1176
01:09:20,280 --> 01:09:23,800
Speaker 1: more unwieldy, while reducing the crew sizes down to two

1177
01:09:24,080 --> 01:09:25,960
Speaker 1: and they want to get it down to one person

1178
01:09:26,000 --> 01:09:29,240
Speaker 1: on those trains. Imagine how much worse this catastrophe in

1179
01:09:29,280 --> 01:09:32,040
Speaker 1: East Palestine would have been if the railroads had their

1180
01:09:32,080 --> 01:09:35,000
Speaker 1: way and had just one person on that train when

1181
01:09:35,000 --> 01:09:38,680
Speaker 1: it derailed. Right, And you can't just have a situation

1182
01:09:38,880 --> 01:09:41,479
Speaker 1: like that. You can't just have a situation where Wall

1183
01:09:41,479 --> 01:09:45,080
Speaker 1: Street is literally sucking all of the resources out of

1184
01:09:45,080 --> 01:09:49,200
Speaker 1: this industry instead of investing in its workforce, instead of

1185
01:09:49,240 --> 01:09:53,559
Speaker 1: investing in preventative safety measures instead of investing in track

1186
01:09:53,960 --> 01:09:57,519
Speaker 1: maintenance let alone, you know, like track electrification and other

1187
01:09:57,560 --> 01:10:00,400
Speaker 1: things like that. You can't just keep going going in

1188
01:10:00,439 --> 01:10:03,080
Speaker 1: this direction where the only thing we are doing is

1189
01:10:03,160 --> 01:10:07,080
Speaker 1: destroying one of the nations like vital supply chains for

1190
01:10:07,120 --> 01:10:10,800
Speaker 1: the sake of Wall Street profits and driving workers into

1191
01:10:10,840 --> 01:10:14,240
Speaker 1: the ground, making them feel unappreciated, treating them like crap,

1192
01:10:14,680 --> 01:10:18,400
Speaker 1: causing them to flee the industry in record numbers. You

1193
01:10:18,479 --> 01:10:21,640
Speaker 1: are going to end up with more situations like this, right,

1194
01:10:21,760 --> 01:10:24,040
Speaker 1: So we have to do something. We have to listen

1195
01:10:24,080 --> 01:10:26,760
Speaker 1: to workers like Jay. I beg of you guys. I

1196
01:10:26,800 --> 01:10:29,280
Speaker 1: know you know I'm frustrated because I spent all year

1197
01:10:29,360 --> 01:10:31,280
Speaker 1: doing this. Now imagine if you've been working in the

1198
01:10:31,360 --> 01:10:34,720
Speaker 1: rails for decades like Jay has, how frustrating this must be.

1199
01:10:34,880 --> 01:10:39,839
Speaker 1: So please stay vigilant, listen to workers, lift up voices

1200
01:10:40,200 --> 01:10:43,720
Speaker 1: of workers like Jay. And thank you so much for

1201
01:10:43,840 --> 01:10:48,280
Speaker 1: watching this segment with breaking points and Jay, longtime trained

1202
01:10:48,320 --> 01:10:52,519
Speaker 1: dispatcher trained as a locomotive engineer, thank you so much

1203
01:10:52,600 --> 01:10:54,599
Speaker 1: for taking the time to chat with us today. Man,

1204
01:10:54,720 --> 01:10:58,320
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. Absolutely. Max's great to be with you,

1205
01:10:58,400 --> 01:11:01,920
Speaker 1: and thank you everybody for listening. I hope this really

1206
01:11:01,920 --> 01:11:04,439
Speaker 1: sinks in and hits home with you. Get out there,

1207
01:11:04,680 --> 01:11:08,639
Speaker 1: get behind this cause, and do something. It's your life,

1208
01:11:08,760 --> 01:11:13,040
Speaker 1: it's your town, it's your home. You decide. Thank you

1209
01:11:13,080 --> 01:11:16,120
Speaker 1: for watching this segment with breaking points, and be sure

1210
01:11:16,160 --> 01:11:18,800
Speaker 1: to subscribe to my news outlet, The Real News. With

1211
01:11:18,960 --> 01:11:22,360
Speaker 1: links in the show description, see Assume for the next

1212
01:11:22,560 --> 01:11:26,520
Speaker 1: edition of the Art of Class War. Take care of yourselves,

1213
01:11:27,000 --> 01:11:29,960
Speaker 1: take care of each other. Solidarity Forever