At about one o’clock on Saturday, March 11, at least 40 local residents and activists gathered in Lisbon, Ohio to demand justice for East Palestine. They focused their protest on rail giant Norfolk Southern and its role in the derailing of the train on Feb. 3, 2023.
The seat of Columbiana County, Lisbon is less than 20 miles from the now infamous East Palestine. The afternoon air was cold but not biting – typical March weather here in the Mahoning Valley. But the atmosphere was tense.
People had joined together to show their anger at Norfolk Southern and determination to make them pay for damages. They held signs and distributed info about community actions to get more people involved. They also gave testimony for the news cameras.
I made my way from my home in Salem, just a 10 minute drive down State Route 45. The derailed train had first passed through our town, already on fire, on its way to its eventual wreckage site. It easily could have been my own family evacuating in February–a thought that has kept me up many nights since.
I parked and shuffled from my spot near Fox’s Pizza Den into the town square. There, protesters had already gathered, holding signs for passing traffic. “Make Norfolk Pay,” read one. “You break it, you buy it,” read another.
Railroad Workers United didn’t attend for fear of company retaliation, but sent a solidarity statement read by a DSA member. “Put power back in the hands of the workers!” cried one speaker. “Workers make the world run.”
Now often called Ohio’s Chernobyl, East Palestine previously led a quiet existence. But the town of 4,800 was thrown into disarray, and then despair, by February 3’s 150-railcar “mega-train” derailment. This industrial catastrophe doused the surrounding area with extremely hazardous chemicals. 20 railcars contained deadly compounds, including one million pounds of vinyl chloride.
Residents around the town testified (and still do) of headaches, nose bleeds, dizzy spells, nausea, rashes, difficulty breathing, sore throats, and more. Norfolk Southern and the government specified a one mile hazard zone, but people 30 to 50 miles out–or more–are being affected. According to testimonies at the solidarity action in Lisbon, Norfolk Southern’s “clinic” staff and state officials have told sick residents that these symptoms are “all in their heads.” (Yet CDC inspectors have also fallen sick with the same symptoms. So much for that!)
One protestor spoke about the potential environmental impacts across the eastern central United States. Water quality and vital species are under threat from this chemical cocktail. Local extinction for many species, such as protected hellbender salamanders, is a serious concern.
More than one protestor expressed community fears about local game, such as venison. Many hunters and other locals still rely on wild game for much of their diet. These testimonies were followed up with demands for increased SNAP benefits for the area to prevent wider ingestion of contaminated foods. One speaker declared: “We need Norfolk Southern to pay more– for all of it! Not $5 per person!” That last line being a reference to Norfolk Southern’s first pathetic attempt at a “donation” of just $25,000 in the immediate aftermath.
What is clear is this was no accident. It was the result of cold negligence for private profit. Norfolk Southern has long resisted safety regulations, such as improved braking, safer rail cars, and shorter train lengths, that would have prevented this disaster. Then, during a truly apocalyptic disaster, the company rushed to get trains running again. Residents, who had been made to evacuate under threat of force, were then prematurely called back so that Norfolk Southern could resume rail shipments. The company deleted almost all of the train’s onboard footage of the derailment. Norfolk Southern has been altering the rails to cover their tracks since. They still refuse to release chemical testing data and outside researchers must do the job independently.
Norfolk Southern and the U.S. government jumped the gun in order to resume their earth-wrecking profit racket. The safety of local residents and wildlife came in a distant second to corporate greed and government corruption.
Another speaker who has been doing corporate research on Norfolk Southern noted that the company is poisoning towns across the United States. Towns have been covered in coal dust because coal is shipped in uncovered carts. Towns are losing their potable water as a result of the pollution. Norfolk Southern releases PR statements full of promises they won’t leave East Palestine behind but the company has already devastated many other communities. “Our fight here helps these other places and communities, too,” the speaker noted.
Nothing has changed since. Just days after the tracks were cleared, my wife reported counting at least 130 cars as a train passed the tracks half a mile from our home. I have begun counting, too, and they have all been similarly overloaded. Trains have derailed in Sandusky and Pittsburgh. The danger has not passed. The company and the government clearly do not care.
Property values have bottomed out, leading to calls for Norfolk Southern to compensate locals with billions of dollars in damages. The Ohio Peace Council has put out a petition calling for Norfolk Southern to buy properties from anyone who wants to move. (Yours truly has signed it, and I encourage you to sign it, too.) Costs to residents continue to mount in the meantime and at least 100 students have opted to return to school remotely.
Even that may work in the company’s favor, a local has pointed out to me, if it sells or rents the land for more industrial use. Of course, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. There are real people enduring real trauma and suffering, and they must be helped even if a corporation takes advantage of it. But under capitalism, even public restitution is profitable!
Horrible toxins and dangerous carcinogenic compounds, called dioxins, were released into the environment in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and perhaps further. Despite all that experts know, this exact situation has never happened before.
There is a real sense in which East Palestine and nearby communities are a chemical and biological experiment running human test subjects. No one knows exactly what the effects on human or environmental health will be.
This is nothing new for us, in one sense. Northeast Ohio has long been treated like a homegrown “third world” for American companies to abuse, exploit, and pollute. We have long dealt with higher rates of cancer and other diseases from environmental contamination. They call us “flyover country” so that the rest of the population doesn’t notice (or, if they notice, don’t feel too bad).
I’ve personally seen many comments on social media saying that we “deserve” it because our counties veer rightwing in electoral politics: “You got the safety deregulation you voted for!” But this viewpoint leaves out too much of reality to be tenable.
It’s easy to ignore that 45% of eligible voters didn’t even show up to the polls for any candidate in 2016; that 30% of East Palestine’s voters picked other candidates; that the U.S. elections system is absurdly gerrymandered and artificially limited to two essentially identical parties; that babies, fish, trees, or deer can’t vote at all. It’s easy to forget that we all share the air and water, or that our soil grows so much of everyone’s food.
This callousness, especially in the “backwater” parts of the area, is nothing new to us. But the scale and immediacy of the disaster were beyond anything this area has experienced since the Cuyahoga last caught fire.
Another spoke about the need for authentic democracy in the rail industry and our communities. They put it bluntly: “Who voted for Norfolk Southern to come through our communities? Who voted for Norfolk Southern to poison East Palestine?” The answer, of course, is none of us. They continued, “We have no democratic control or oversight of the rails!”
What would such local control, or ‘democratic oversight,’ of the rail industry look like? Protestors made the point that it only begins with strong, interconnected communities where everyone’s voice is welcome. “A living, breathing democracy is when we come together with neighbors, friends, our communities. It’s not a poll once per year. We need to meet together. That’s how we make Norfolk Southern pay!”
Norfolk Southern is enmeshed throughout the eastern US. Protestors pointed out the company is funding Cop City—where one Wobbly lost their life mere months ago—and demanded it “fund the solutions to this problem instead!”
Werner Lange, chair of the Ohio Peace Council, also spoke. “You break it, you pay for it!” he declared. “And [Norfolk Southern should pay] not just thousands, not just millions, not just billions, but BILLIONS AND BILLIONS” to make things right for the whole area.
In the protestors’ opinions– and the writer’s–Governor DeWine’s water sip photo op was a joke. The speaker noted that officials did the same thing in Flint, but problems persisted. It is clear that the issue is consumption over years being unsafe, not mere sips for TV cameras. Politicians and corporations know this but insist on treating locals as completely brainless.
Before we dispersed, a native of Flint, Michigan who now lives in the Mahoning Valley spoke. They pointed out that East Palestine could learn from the experiences of Flint residents. According to this speaker, Norfolk Southern is using quarterly accounting tricks to make it seem like they can’t afford to do better on safety. Such corporate and government tricks were a major problem in fighting for clean water in Flint, too.
In Flint’s case, the community organized, got the nation’s attention and kept fighting. The fight has been long, difficult, and costly. But our local community must do nothing less if we are to overcome these obstacles. A long road lies ahead; all we can decide is whether we will walk it alone or together.
Get Involved/Find Out More:
River Valley Organizing is handling much of the organizing and relief efforts on the ground. You can get in touch with them here. You can find the East Palestine solidarity fund to make a donation here.
I took IWW’s Organizer Training 101: Build the Committee course in January when the opportunity to take it in person at my local GMB presented itself. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but had a vague sense of wanting to “do more” or at least learn more when it came to labor organizing and aligning myself with the values and operations of my fellow workers, not just at the IWW but in society in general; this has been a larger pursuit for me for the last decade or so, and I find myself, increasingly so the older I get, constantly searching for lenses through which to focus this desire to help things get better. When I joined the IWW I was hoping I was signing on to a cause that could take this impulse to the next level, so naturally organizer training seemed like a foundational building block.
I’m not exactly sure that I’m the ideal candidate for organizer training. I am self-employed, a contractor who works from home and never sees fellow workers, someone who files his 1040-SR every three months (uh, roughly) and can’t take sick days, has no health care, and enjoys zero job protection and exists entirely at the whim of some faceless middle manager in accounting. Well, wait, maybe I am the ideal candidate for organizer training. I may not be able to directly affect my own work environment, but I can certainly help others articulate and define their own needs and concerns, and learn to advocate for them effectively even if I’m not actively changing my own material conditions. And that was the attitude I took with me to Rhizome House in January.
I have spent a lifetime enduring forced retreats and dry, corporate “learning sessions” or “retreats” where the primary lessons learned involved crafting a plausible excuse for not attending; I have also been to weird raves in the desert involving flamethrowers and a head full of peyote. I wasn’t sure which way this one was going to lean but I was hoping I wouldn’t have to inveigle a revolt this early in my IWW tenure.
Thankfully the Fellow Workers from Detroit were competent, professional and dedicated to keeping the operation on rails. Right from the start I sensed that this marathon sessions, 14 hours over two days, was going to zoom by. Starting with the basic assumption that “You are a worker, and as a worker you are a person who deserves rights, and that begins with the right to organize,” we plunged into the work of building a committee at your own workplace, starting with yourself and slow expanding outward.
The trainers worked together nicely, building points off of each other respectfully, and always allowing comments or differing interpretations from attendees. Frankly it was a lot of information to get through, but at each stage where a new concept was introduced, we were broken into small groups (or more often simply asked to turn to the person sitting next to us) and asked to roleplay the situation that had just been examined by the instructors. And from both sides of the conversation. So not only were we absorbing this information by actually acting it out, we were usually being tasked with seeing the opposite viewpoint, so we could empathize better with people who might not want to hear the message. Usually these roleplay sessions involved recruiting people at your workplace to discuss issues involving that office or shop without coming off as a heavy-handed labor goon, or just as importantly, without tipping off management that an attempt to organize was underway and setting off their alarms too early in the process. We learned the delicacies of introducing what should be normal but still and too often in this country reads as “radical,” this idea that all workers deserve protection and dignity, into a capitalist ecosystem that, as always, defines value purely on the basis of profits and ignores that profits are created by people.
Anyway, I now know that you can foment a workplace revolution in a Subway sandwich shop thanks to our trainers. I am fairly confident after this training that I could convince a crypto tech bro to demand better material conditions.
Continuing on from the one-on-one sessions, we later broke out into larger groups, including one where we staged a walkout on an unsuspecting boss who had just eliminated workplace breaks. That was wildly cathartic and I thank one trainer for allowing me to focus decades of suppressed boss rage on a fellow worker by proxy for a few minutes.
The team-building is real, btw. Take OT 101 and you’ll swiftly reach a point where you’re ready to fall on a grenade for these people you just met 27 hours ago. I would have walked past you on the street yesterday and today we’re the crew of the IWSS Intersectional, on a five-year mission to organize all the things.
The pacing, again, was perfect, the segue from one section to the next presented in a logical, comprehensive way, and weirdly super orderly for prima facie anarchists. Like watching a fish walk, but maybe that’s a skill we’ll all need to teach ourselves to get through these strange times.
Thanks again to our Fellow Workers for guiding us through the basic building blocks of organizing principles, thanks to the FWs at Northeast Ohio IWW GMB for setting it up, and thanks to the workers that make up the IWW most of all.
On October 1-2, the Organizing Department Board (ODB) held the 2022 North American Regional Administration (NARA) IWW organizing summit in Chicago. Fellow Workers came from across the Union to share their experiences and expertise in every aspect of workplace organizing. We discussed challenges and hurdles, shared new ideas and approaches, and built solidarity across industries, branches, and borders.
Workers discussed organizing in large and small workshops that focused on issues like improving our one-on-ones, the challenges of adapting our organizing model to online spaces, and how to approach committee work like handling grievances. Small sessions allowed more conversation on topics including organizing industries without a traditional shop structure like gig work, high-risk workplaces with dangerous COVID exposure rates, grant-funded workplaces and non-profit organizing, and the unique barriers to building solidarity in tipped workplaces.
The ODB presented some very informative sessions like an analysis of lead intakes and follow-ups presented by the Survey and Research Committee (SRC). We heard about ways to build a branch memory by creating an archive of member interviews. One of the most lively discussions came in a presentation on how we develop and use External Organizers in campaigns, and how the Union and each branch can build up our external organizer program.
What was the best part of the summit? Our Fellow Workers. As another FW and veteran organizer wrote:
When you’ve “seen it all” what is there to be excited about? Our organizers. I am so happy to say they have inspired me. I am happy to say that I met organizers far better than I am, younger than I am, newer than I am, who I want to learn from and this event gave me the opportunity to take some of their wisdom with me. [Interwob]
For my own part, it was an amazing experience that showed how strong Solidarity Unionism really can be. While our victories are not as public as the headlines we see from other campaigns, we got to share, discuss, and unpack stories of big and small wins from campaigns across the Union. Everyone at the summit had taken the Organizer Training 101 and had experience in organizing campaigns, so we all came with questions and everyone helped offer answers.
We all know that An Injury to One is an Injury to All, but the flip side to that is every win for one is a win for all, and every question one worker has finds an answer that helps us all.
What’s the next step for every one of us? Organize!
Sign up for an Organizer Training. If you’ve already done the OT-101, start a campaign or contact the ODL to ask about working as an External Organizer. If you’ve taken the OT-101, sign up for the OT-102. If you’ve got some campaign experience, help the work along as an external observer for another campaign.
The NARA Organizing Summit is presented every two years. Ideally, during the off years we have the chance to organize regional Organizing Summits.
How does a 2023 Cleveland Great Lakes/Rustbelt Organizing Summit sound?
Come join the Northeast Ohio Industrial Workers of the World for a film event and discussion unlike any other–featuring the inestimable radicals, Alice and Staughton Lynd! Our local union is proud to host a showing of Shout Youngstown, the remarkable documentary on the community fight to save Youngstown’s steel mills.
Be a part of an evening of education and reflection on some of our area’s most dramatic labor history, as the Lynds walk us through their experiences and what modern working people can learn from our past. Join us for a night of working class education and solidarity!
Alice and Staughton are longtime working class activists who have been based in Northeast Ohio since the late 1970s. Staughton and Alice were instrumental in providing Youngstown steelworkers with legal aid, tactical advice, and fostering solidarity between local working people. They were prominent voices in the anti-war and civil rights movements, who have continued to struggle alongside working people for decades.
What’s Shout Youngstown!?
Shout Youngstown is a short documentary film depicting the fight to save Youngstown’s steel industry from corporate greed. It features interviews with numerous figures instrumental in the fight. This film shows the struggle to save the mills, but vitally the solidarity between Youngstown workers, families, and advocates in the face of overwhelming corporate and government opposition.
The film’s name comes from a song by unionist Joe Jencks, “I Will Shout Youngstown.” The first verse goes:
What can I tell you
Tell me what can I say
All the mills standing silent
All the jobs gone away
Now the storefronts are empty
As I walk up and down
But everywhere I go
I will
Shout Youngstown!
What you can expect:
Good times, a rare local film, laughter and tears, an atmosphere of solidarity, singing union songs, and lessons from our history you can’t afford to miss!
IWWs and comrades gather before the Akron Pride Equity March begins its route through downtown.
In July, the Northeast Ohio IWW membership voted to participate in Akron Pride Festival’s 2022 Equity March. Many of us had high hopes for a strong turnout in solidarity with local LGBTQ+ workers. Despite short notice, our members pulled together and we were not disappointed!
At least 15 Wobblies, Socialist Rifle Association members, and local leftists assembled near Spaghetti Warehouse at 9 AM on Saturday, August 27. The procession onto the street began at approximately 10 AM. Altogether, we marched for a little over half a mile. We moved through downtown into the festival location.
Fellow Workers carried our branch banner and several IWW flags. Marchers also carried numerous Pride flags and leftist or workers flags. Multiple marchers shouted down an evangelical Christofascist group alongside other participants and attendees.
STRONG LABOR PRESENCE ENCOURAGES LOCAL WORKING CLASS
A Wobbly displays a specially designed IWW Trans Pride flag used for the march.
Notably, numerous Wobblies were present assisting other organizations. So were many representatives of working class groups, including SRA. While our group had no contact with them, Akron DSA was also present in the march. The other union presence we’re aware of was United Steelworkers Local 979. We were very warmly received by the Akron LGBTQ+ community and our members were happy to be there together.
Altogether, a sizable representation of labor rank-and-file and various leftist or working class organizations showed up. This fact was a material sign of hope for many within the Union and numerous spectators. Strangers voiced their support (and, more than once, pleasant surprise) for our presence there.
When the march finished, our delegation officially dispersed. Many participating IWWs & comrades gathered together at Tear-ez for an outstanding pizza and beer social.
AN INJURY TO LGBTQ+ WORKERS IS AN INJURY TO ALL
A comrade holds the Defend Equality flag aloft as the group passes Christofascist hate preachers. (Photo credit Northeast Ohio SRA, here.)
The Northeast Ohio Industrial Workers of the World is proud to stand hand in hand with our LGBTQ+ fellow workers in their sustained fight for dignity and equity. No worker is safe until all workers are safe– until LGBTQ+ workers are safe! It is especially vital in these times of increased attacks on LGBTQ+ communities that all workers reaffirm their commitment to their total liberation.
