Rail workers clearing a crash site in East Palestine, Ohio — where a Norfolk Southern train derailed and leaked toxic chemicals last month — are falling ill on the job, union leaders said in a letter sent to federal, state and municipal officials.
Leaders from 12 unions met in Washington, D.C., with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Amit Bose, administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, on Wednesday to discuss the disastrous train derailment that threatened to explode and flatten a small Ohio town. To avert the explosion, crews drained hazardous materials from the train cars in a controlled burn that sent up a massive cloud of toxic gas.
While authorities have maintained that the crash site is safe and air and water levels are coming back to normal, an independent study of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data found that concentrations of some chemicals “may be of health concern.” Some locals in East Palestine have reported sickness since the crash.
Ahead of the Washington meeting, union representatives sent a letter to Buttigieg and Bose, as well as East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, claiming that some Norfolk Southern workers who were tasked with cleaning the crash site reported experiencing “migraines and nausea.”
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The letter, obtained by CNBC, further alleged that rail workers were not supplied with appropriate personal protective equipment for working on a site where hazardous and carcinogenic materials had spilled. The 35 to 40 Norfolk Southern employees on the site were only provided paper or N95 masks, rubber gloves, boots or coverups.
“I have received reports that (Norfolk Southern) neither offered nor provided these workers with appropriate personal protective equipment, such as respirators that are designed to permit safely working around vinyl chloride, eye protection and protective clothing such as chemical retrain suits,” the letter reads.
“This lack of concern for the workers’ safety and well-being is, again, a basic tenet of (Norfolk Southern’s) cost-cutting business model,” the letter continues.
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One worker who spoke to union leaders said he asked his supervisor to be transferred off the crash site because he was experiencing worrying symptoms. His supervisor never got back to him and he was left on the job site, the letter claims.
The letter further excoriates Norfolk Southern and the broader American railway industry for cutting railroad jobs and putting profits over rail and employee safety.
“My hope is the stakeholders in this industry can work towards the same goals related to safety when transporting hazardous materials by rail,” said Mike Baldwin, president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen on Wednesday. “Today’s meeting is an opportunity for labor to share what our members are seeing and dealing with day to day. The railroaders labor represents are the employees who make it safe and they must have the tools to do so.”
In a statement to CNBC, Norfolk Southern said the company was “on-scene immediately after the derailment and coordinated our response with hazardous material professionals who were on site continuously to ensure the work area was safe to enter and the required PPE was utilized, all in addition to air monitoring that was established within an hour.”
Earlier on Wednesday, a group of senators introduced The Railway Safety Act of 2023, which aims to prevent further train derailments like what happened in East Palestine.
If passed, the legislation would introduce a number of new safety protocols for the transport of hazardous materials, among them: creating national requirements for wayside defect detectors (which failed to alert the Norfolk Southern train that one of its cars was on fire); establishing a permanent requirement for railroads to operate with a minimum two-person crew; and increasing fines for rail carriers that cause accidents.
“If this legislation is adopted, the (Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen) supports those efforts and looks forward to working collaboratively on common sense regulations that continue to improve safety,” Baldwin said.
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