[HN Gopher] Leaked audio reveals US rail workers were told to sk...
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Leaked audio reveals US rail workers were told to skip inspections
Author : detaro
Score : 226 points
Date : 2023-03-03 18:06 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| boringg wrote:
| Someone better be going to jail and it better be high level
| director who is calling the shots.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| Only rogue engineers get punished.
| [deleted]
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| The Great Filter (explanation for the Fermi Paradox) is real, and
| we're starting to hit it. Once society hit a certain level of
| development it had to start cutting corners to ensure continued
| advancement, and it's working against our advancement now. Soon
| advancement and corner-cutting-caused failures will balance out,
| and we'll be in equilibrium, able to make no progress.
| decremental wrote:
| Thermodynamics strikes again.
| falcolas wrote:
| When a company values profits above all else, the only thing that
| can save us from that company's gross negligence is fines strong
| enough to eliminate those very same profits (and ideally the
| company's budget for bribing politicians too).
| pasquinelli wrote:
| just nationalize it
| gruez wrote:
| Because the US government never did anything negligent/shady
| right?
| pessimizer wrote:
| We're not only not going to fine them, but we're going to make
| special laws to protect them from the threat of their employees
| getting sick days.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Not even fines to the company will stop it.
|
| You have to go directly after the people who are making
| decisions for the company.
|
| Executives seem to have a pretty good time tanking companies to
| line their pockets and then leave before the company has to
| deal with the fallout.
| blue039 wrote:
| It is interesting that we can use RICO go to after mob bosses
| even when they have layers and layers of indirection to
| protect them.
|
| But with CEOs it seems RICO doesn't apply.
| ticviking wrote:
| CEOs generally aren't racketeering so they can't usually be
| hit with that
| ydlr wrote:
| The reason for that is there are only a tiny number of
| crimes that qualify as RICO predicates. We need to expand
| RICO to include more types of criminal activity.
| gumby wrote:
| > You have to go directly after the people who are making
| decisions for the company.
|
| Usually in this case the person really making the decision
| doesn't take the blame; that just flows downhill.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| Exactly, fining companies doesn't do anything. Fine and jail
| the PEOPLE doing these crimes.
| somenameforme wrote:
| There's always plausible deniability so that if anybody
| does take the fall it's probably going to be some mid level
| suit that was 'just following orders.' I'd rather that
| liability starts with the CEO and Chairman. You need to
| make sure executives cannot simply hide behind fallguys.
|
| You then create a top-down incentive for these people to
| genuinely make sure everything is on the up and up. The
| biggest problem is that this probably creates a strict cap
| on how large a single corporation can grow, which sounds
| much more like a feature than a bug.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| This is all well and good to say, but impossible to
| implement within our current system. That's what's so
| depressing about it. And by 'impossible' I grant its
| theoretically possible, just not in practical terms. Of
| course the other side of the coin is that even if it was
| implemented, then prosecutors, and hence government,
| would now have this new power over CEOs and it wouldn't
| be long before some corrupt politician got in office and
| used it corruptly.
| eunoia wrote:
| Sarbanes-Oxley would seem to imply that it's possible to
| enact new laws that enforce consequences for fraud among
| top level executives?
|
| In theory at least I guess. Maybe someone else can
| comment on how it actually works in practice.
| gruez wrote:
| >I'd rather that liability starts with the CEO and
| Chairman. You need to make sure executives cannot simply
| hide behind fallguys.
|
| Why can't you appoint a fall guy as the "CEO", and then
| have a COO or whatever that actually runs the day to day?
| falcolas wrote:
| I really wish I could refute this. The protections
| incorporation provides for executives seem a bit too strong
| in cases like these.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Which protections are these? I thought that incorporation
| didn't give any protections for maliciousness, it's just
| that DAs rarely go after executives because any particular
| blame is so distributed throughout the corporation that it
| would make any case difficult to prosecute.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| The diffusion of responsibility is one of those
| protections. There should definitely be some strict
| liability for certain corporate malfeasance, where it
| doesn't too much matter who specifically did the deed,
| the executive/C-level is responsible and takes the fall
| (and maybe throw the BoD in there too). Then prosecution
| comes down to 'Did your company do X? If yes, you're
| guilty.'
| a_cardboard_box wrote:
| Not only would that be effective in disincentivizing the
| malfeasance, it has the added benefit of limiting the
| scale of corporations to what execs can effectively
| manage.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Exactly. If the CEO goes to prison if the company commits
| X crime, the CEO has a strong incentive to ensure the
| business is not doing that.
|
| If the CEO's only concern is shareholder profit, crime
| usually pays pretty well.
| ticviking wrote:
| The idea that a 10000 year jail sentence must be served
| by every share holder disturbed in proportion to how much
| they owe would make "shareholder value" mean "not making
| me check into jail to serve my 2 days of the sentence for
| my 1 share" which might change corporate behavior a bit.
| Especially if insuring shareholders income against that
| risk becomes a line item in the budget.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I think shareholders might be too detached from
| decisionmaking for that to make sense. It'd definitely
| have a huge negative impact on stock values, but I'm not
| sure it would prevent corporate malfeasance.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| If nothing else it would make jail nicer in that case.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| A more realistic approach is to take away personhood
| rights that these corporations rely on. A 10 year ban on
| political donations and lobbying would be a good starting
| point. Then prison for the C-levels if they violate those
| terms which are directly under their control.
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| I think what you're describing is the difficulty in
| "piercing the veil" of an LLC to hold individuals
| accountable. You can search that legal principle and
| learn more about how an LLC structure shields individuals
| from repercussions for their actions.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| I remember a nice Obama quote "the buck stops with me".
|
| If you get the big pay check for leadership it is your
| responsibility when shit goes bad. Sadly about the worst
| consequence a failed CEO has is that he/she doesn't get
| invited to play golf for a few years.
| kingTug wrote:
| I always wonder what will come first: laws to jail negligent
| execs for the _next_ disaster, or an ambitious legislator
| with a magic solution to jail negligent execs for the
| _current_ disaster.
| klyrs wrote:
| Where by "magic" you mean an ex post facto law? I'm all for
| going after execs for their crimes, but let's try to keep
| that particular part of the constitution in tact.
| neltnerb wrote:
| The article describes some pretty blatant negligence,
| though I suppose suggesting that a legislator might get
| involved implies ex-post facto lawmaking.
|
| Maybe the responsibility is too diffuse. But these "no
| one could have predicted this" kind of Therac-25
| situations with multiple people responsible are exactly
| where that boss -- the one getting paid the big bucks
| (for the risk they take! for the difficult decisions they
| have to make! for the complex structures they have to
| oversee!) -- to actually take responsibility for the
| decisions inherent in the incentive structure they
| created in the workplace that they have total control
| over.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Neither.
|
| There's a web of power and influence invisible to people
| who aren't part of the system. Politicians who could create
| this legislation don't get reelected if they aren't
| participants; their election war chest evaporates.
|
| This is how monied interests managed to design the system
| to work.
| voytec wrote:
| Cost of fines would be transferred to customers. What can hurt
| is jail.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Breach the corporate veil. Throw any share holders in jail
| for varying times.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| If a company can just pass fines on to the consumer and not
| suffer badly for it, competition in their market is totally
| fucked.
|
| Which, sure, is probably true in many industries, but it's
| not _supposed_ to be the case that any given business can
| just pass extra costs to consumers. If they could, they
| should already have been charging higher prices.
| eastbound wrote:
| HSBC leaders never went to jail for being the bank of
| trafficking $2bn of drugs. As in, they _recognized_ the deed,
| and signed off with the DoJ a deal with no executive would be
| sent to prison.
|
| Truth be told, CIA needed the drug sales to fund ISIS before
| it was cool, but I digress. Anyway, if you expect
| corporations to be held responsible in penal courts...
| jakzurr wrote:
| A most appropriate use for prisons in the US. Finally.
| boringg wrote:
| Fines?! No, executives doing jail time is the only solution.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Should be on a case by case basis. If eliminating profits
| causes 11 other people in the company to lose their jobs, is it
| worth it?
| deepsun wrote:
| Not always.
|
| It's not law enforcement that keeps everyone from committing
| crimes, because you cannot put a policeman watching everyone.
|
| Way more efficient way is self-policing, that's the main
| difference of developed cultures IMO.
| haliskerbas wrote:
| That's kind of the definition of a company in our current
| system. It's working as designed.
| groot2581 wrote:
| This only works if execs have the company's best interests at
| heart, which they don't. They reap the benefits when things go
| well but jump ship as the company files bankruptcy when things
| go south.
|
| You need Unions. Blue collar workers care about safety and can
| pressure execs into doing the safe thing when the incentives
| aren't there higher up.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Also labour protections when reasonable action is taken to
| stop unsafe acts. If someone got fired for stopping unsafe
| thing they should get big enough payout. Probably years worth
| of wages.
| notch898a wrote:
| That exists.
|
| https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/mou/2012-07-16
|
| Note regarding "refusing to work under certain conditions:"
|
| https://www.osha.gov/workers/right-to-refuse
|
| I used to work in interstate freight (barge, not train).
| They make it crystal clear any employee has the right to
| stop work and are protected. The rail workers could have
| stopped working under their dangerous conditions, they just
| negligently kept going. The big bad railroad is to blame,
| but so are the employees.
| vsareto wrote:
| The regulation was vague, so now you have a situation
| where two sides are interpreting things differently:
|
| >She said: "The regulation at the time stated that a
| wheel bearing was bad when it had 'visible seepage'. But
| that was very vague, and the bosses used that vagueness
| to their advantage. For me, it was whenever oil was
| visible on the bearing. For my bosses, they wanted actual
| droplets and proof it would leak on the ground.
|
| That's probably why we have an audio leak story, because
| the company may have some ground to stand on because of
| this vagueness.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| > You need Unions.
|
| The railway has unions. They even wanted to strike at the end
| of last year over working conditions, but Congress and Biden
| quickly passed a law in December to prevent it.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > You need Unions. Blue collar workers care about safety and
| can pressure execs into doing the safe thing when the
| incentives aren't there higher up.
|
| Yep. This happens _all the time_ in other unionized
| industries. Manager: "Do [unsafe thing that is against
| policy / the law, or even that is simply physically
| impossible]". Worker: "Yeeeeah, I'll be looping my union rep
| into this conversation". Manager: "On second thought, never
| mind".
|
| I'd guess the problem's that the railroad workers' union is
| toothless.
|
| [EDIT] Downvotes why? Disbelief? This comes second-hand from
| friends in various unionized workplaces, it's _damn_ common.
| Without strong unions they 'd 100% for-sure have been forced
| to choose between doing something unsafe, and losing their
| jobs, many times--and that's with managers already knowing
| unions are a factor, I assume the rate of attempts to get
| workers to do unsafe things (including setting various
| metrics or policy such that it's _impossible_ to meet
| expectations while maintaining proper safety) is higher at
| non-union workplaces, or those with weak unions.
| westmeal wrote:
| Upvoted since this is indeed common
| sebazzz wrote:
| That's why companies cannot be allowed to run a nuclear power
| plant. A place where negligence has no place.
| abfan1127 wrote:
| can you point out a human organization not susceptible to
| negligence?
| jraph wrote:
| There's a question of motivation.
|
| A public service ought to be motivated to deliver a good
| service. It won't be motivated by taking shortcuts. A
| private company seeks profit and cannot afford to lose
| money, contrary to a public service which can be not
| profitable. Offering a good service it a means to be
| profitable but that's not the end goal, even if many people
| actually want to do good work.
|
| Of course there's a big if. IF the government throws enough
| money at it.
|
| This IF is unfortunately too often "IF only". If not, we
| are back to shortcuts.
| stickfigure wrote:
| The service I get from AAA's DMV services is far superior
| to the service I get from the DMV itself.
| notch898a wrote:
| They should be run by an entity devoid of negligence, like
| the US government.
| emptybits wrote:
| https://www.nei.org/resources/statistics/us-nuclear-plant-
| ow...
| quorgs wrote:
| Can't disagree but The Ministry of Medium Machine-Building
| Industry of the USSR wasn't exactly driven by profit motive
| and we still got Chernobyl.
| [deleted]
| nebula8804 wrote:
| We got Chernobyl because there wasn't transparency. The
| flaw that caused the explosion was known to the USSR but it
| was covered up and a correction to existing reactors in
| production was not implemented until after it became
| impossible to ignore. The same would be happening to
| production reactors here in the US if it weren't for the
| strict government regulations that ensured that no western
| reactors could be built the way Chernobyl was (no
| containment building, graphite moderation etc.). This
| regulation is forcing transparency in design.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| As another HN poster posted fines need to be 1-10% per incident
| of controlling stock put into trust of the relevant enforcement
| agency unable to be sold or diluted for 10 years. Can't get
| your act together then eventually overship/control/adult
| supervision goes to the government.
| jschveibinz wrote:
| From an article on the train derailment in Oregon a few years
| back:
|
| https://www.opb.org/news/series/oil-trains/how-inspectors-mi...
|
| "Those unseen, broken bolts in Mosier, Oregon, expose a
| significant flaw in the current system for railroad inspections.
| Yet, federal and state regulators, as well as the railroads, all
| say current rules are adequate. Minimum federal requirements
| allow railroads considerable leeway for how they inspect their
| own track, while government checks are few and far between. As
| Mosier showed, the system can allow potentially dangerous defects
| to go unaddressed for months."
|
| According to the article, inspection and detection is done from a
| slow-moving vehicle. It's a visual inspection...in the 21st
| century.
|
| There are all sorts of rather simple technology solutions to
| employ, e.g. barcodes/QR codes to mark when a part has been
| replaced (or needs to be replaced based on age), image detection
| to look for anomalies, radar or sonics to look for flaws, etc. If
| nothing else, to at least augment a visual detection?
|
| And another thing: our infrastructure is 100 years old, for
| Pete's sake. We need people to stand up and say "enough is
| enough" already. We have to rebuild our infrastructure and use
| our latest technologies. The civil engineers have been saying
| this for 30 years, and the politicians don't listen because it's
| not something to get them re-elected.
| corbulo wrote:
| >slow moving vehicle
|
| When train lengths are miles long, how else could you
| practically do it?
|
| The industry is clearly structured around anti-inspection.
| Inspecting 3 miles worth of traincars just so one single train
| can leave is kind of crazy to think about. It's a difficult
| problem to definitively solve unless you want to spend
| shitpiles of money to innovate new inspection
| hardware/software.
|
| Shortening trains seems like an obvious solution, but do we
| have the capacity for that? When was the last new freight
| railroad laid in the US? What are the logistical problems?
| Animats wrote:
| Automated track inspection systems exist and are in use.[1][2]
| Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern even have some of their
| inspection systems. They're much faster than driving along at
| 10MPH trying to see the problem visually. There are even
| inspection systems that are built into a freight car, so you
| just couple it into a train and get back a track report.
|
| Maybe they don't like using them. Because they're going to log
| every track flaw.
|
| [1] https://www.ensco.com/rail/track-component-imaging-system-
| tc...
|
| [2] https://www.ensco.com/sites/default/files/2022-08/ENSCO-
| Trac...
| jtlienwis wrote:
| When they said there were thousands of derailments each year in
| the U.S. i found a source on the internet that said the total for
| all derailments in Japan in 2020 was a grand total of 6.
| SllX wrote:
| I went spelunking and I found this:
| https://www.yahoo.com/now/many-train-derailments-us-2023-162...
|
| Basically we're averaging 1,704 derailments a year between 1990
| and 2021, and likely very few of them are significant since
| last year per the article there were 4 deaths.
|
| So, question: what is the legal definition of a derailment and
| does it differ between here and Japan?
| ricardobeat wrote:
| When trains are mainly used for transporting goods,
| derailment is unlikely to cause deaths. Not the case for
| Japan, and that's probably half of the explanation for why
| it's different.
| brainzap wrote:
| I have some Atlas Shrugged vibes
| bpodgursky wrote:
| The part where federal bureaucrats ordered a train to unsafely
| transit a tunnel and caused a massive explosion?
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Her whole deal in that book was that regulations are bad and
| that they are used as a cudgel by established players. Here we
| have an example of what happens when regulations are rolled
| back -- the profit motive takes over, eliminates safety
| measures, and eventually creates superfund sites.
|
| One of Rand's examples of a bad regulation in the book was
| limits on car length, which was a regulation that was removed.
|
| She assumes that the natural competence of capitalists can only
| shine through if regulation is completely eliminated. That
| regulation of the industry prevents competence. But I don't
| think it's a matter of all regulation being bad. And I think
| it's a matter of having the right regulation with adequate
| enforcement. These things require competent people to make
| decisions.
|
| In the end competence isn't a matter of being a capitalist or
| of deregulating or of being utterly selfish about everything.
| It's entirely a result of being honest and reflective and
| trying to seek solutions to the problems people face. So she
| completely misses the mark.
|
| And here's an example of how removing regulations causes
| exactly the kinds of problems she decries in the book--peoples'
| lives being ruined by totally preventable rail brought on by
| incompetence and lack of resources. In fact the selfishness of
| the management and capitalist class in this case has lead
| directly to the accident. So clearly selfishness is not a
| virtue for the people in Palestine Ohio.
| altairprime wrote:
| Rand was right that the looters will wield regulation as a
| tool for looting, but she was wrong that deregulation would
| prevent that. Modern looters are able to exploit both
| regulation _and_ deregulation for personal profit at the
| expense of others, and her ideology doesn't offer useful
| guidance for that scenario.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Rand is often quoted by the looters, in fact.
| [deleted]
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Some people underestimate the lengths to which people will go
| to satisfy their greed.
|
| Sloth drives productivity improvements and greed drives
| capitalism. Fortunately, we only have to regulate down greed
| for capitalism to work...
| phailhaus wrote:
| A system that crosses its fingers and hopes "people will do
| the right thing" will always fail. These systems are games
| that will be played. If you can make more money by making one
| of these dangerous moves, _someone will do it_. And if there
| aren 't laws against it, someone will _always_ do it even if
| the established players won 't. (not to say laws perfectly
| prevent all crime, but the rate is much higher without them)
|
| Just look at crypto, speedrunning the history of finance and
| rediscovering all the fraud you can commit when there are no
| regulations, and at massive scales affecting millions of
| people. Just because established banks learned their lessons
| hasn't meant new players would, so a world without regulation
| will _continuously_ experience these tragedies.
| corbulo wrote:
| Thats a very culturally specific issue. If you have a low-
| trust culture you're absolutely correct.
|
| If you have a different kind of culture, such as in Japan,
| thats incorrect.
|
| Finance is a great example sector in your favor because it
| is so heavily internationalized(therefore basically no one
| feels patriotic/nationalistic about their work) and greedy.
| National industries like freight would be much more likely
| to embrace cultural features of their country.
| pstuart wrote:
| There's a saying that regulations are written in blood. While
| not always true, it's clear that they come about for good
| reason.
| notch898a wrote:
| Regulations in this case are just a way to deal with the bad
| system we have for holding people accountable for
| externalities. I would focus on fixing that rather than a
| highly complex and bureaucratic regulatory regime for every
| industry. It should be made unprofitable to toxic wasteland
| an entire city.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Hmm, the problem is that the feedback loop is not tight. I
| wonder if there is some property of markets which someone has
| written about which expresses this.
|
| It's a classic TornadoGuard problem https://xkcd.com/937/
| dboreham wrote:
| I can put an airtag in my suitcase and track it all over the
| world but railroad operators can't pit bearing temperature
| sensors on their tank cars full of methlamine?
| supportengineer wrote:
| Nothing stops this train.
|
| Nothing.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Sounds like the tagline for the next Hollywood blockbuster.
| twh270 wrote:
| You kid, but the movie Unstoppable, about a runaway train,
| is based on a real life scenario. There are some
| interesting trivia details at
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477080/trivia/?ref_=tt_ql_3.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Of course there is a movie ha ha. Thanks for that link. I
| guess it is part of the "Unstoppable" genre of movies
| huh? We have an unstoppable train, unstoppable bus, what
| else? An unstoppable car, truck, or plane?
|
| [1]:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111257/
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| The don't _want_ to. It increases the amount of time those cars
| are not hauling freight.
| bombcar wrote:
| If something can go out of spec 99 times out of 100 and nothing
| "bad" happens, you may not want a thing that makes you stop
| when it's out of spec.
|
| It's not a good look, but that's often why it is done.
|
| Same reason that militaries have strict _non wartime_ limits on
| lots of their equipment, they know it can run past the norm but
| they also know there are risks involved, and you don 't want to
| risk it until it's necessary.
| notabee wrote:
| This concept of normalization of deviance gets posted on here
| a lot, but I'm going to post a link again anyway.
|
| https://sma.nasa.gov/docs/default-source/safety-
| messages/saf...
| bombcar wrote:
| Exactly, it's the inverse of the boy-who-cried-wolf
| problem, and it's not entirely simple to solve.
| wittenbunk wrote:
| Its not the inverse. Boy who cried wolf and normalization
| of deviance are both about false positives.
| extrapickles wrote:
| They don't need to even do that, just occasionally send the
| train past a thermal camera and look for wheels that are warmer
| than average.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| It is very odd to me that states do this very thing for
| trucking, but apparently do not do it for rail.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Here's a page on several of the automatic checks that exist
| for railways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defect_detector
| [deleted]
| falcolas wrote:
| They did. It was ignored. IIRC, the exact wording from
| dispatch was "If it's still alerting at the next sensor
| it's a problem."
| muttled wrote:
| I'm astonished that they treat those alarms like I
| treated the check-engine light as a poor kid who reasoned
| that the car seems to still be running fine.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| Thanks for the clarification.
| benburwell wrote:
| In general, this is actually done: there are defect detectors
| that are installed along tracks that monitor for several
| conditions as trains pass over/through them. Once the train
| has passed, a voice radio message is sent to the train crew.
|
| Here's an example of one working:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7BGg82uQ1U
|
| I'm not sure whether similar equipment was a factor in the
| East Palestine incident.
| ok_dad wrote:
| This is why you need UBI, universal healthcare, etc. If a worker
| could say "FUCK YOU" and walk off the job at a moment's notice
| without risking their family, then safety concerns like this
| become a non-issue because, IMO, most people want to do the right
| thing when in comes to safety like this, and even if half your
| staff is willing to take a payment to kill other people with
| derailment risks, the other half will happily report them.
|
| Edit: My assumption here, which I think is reasonable, is that
| you cannot solve this problem by laws alone, because (as
| evidenced by this article) companies and management do not care
| about that. All replies saying we need more laws might also be a
| part of the solution, but is not the whole thing.
| Arrath wrote:
| While I agree, if seems to me that the proper remediation for
| this situation would be robust whistleblower protections and
| swift retribution from authorities when a worker says "FUCK
| THAT" after being told to waive safety inspections or ignore
| issues and run a train anyway. Including hefty fines against
| the companies and criminal penalties against not only the
| managers pushing such approaches, but the executives complicit
| in it as well.
| Spartan-S63 wrote:
| What if whistleblower protections require the accused company
| - if the complaint has merit - put in escrow enough money to
| pay the employee's current salary tacked to inflation or CoL
| until they reach Social Security retirement age?
|
| It would ensure that a legitimate whistleblower would
| continue to collect a paycheck if they find themselves
| blacklisted by similar companies.
| Arrath wrote:
| Gotta say, I don't hate this idea.
| gruez wrote:
| > This is why you need UBI, universal healthcare, etc. If a
| worker could say "FUCK YOU" and walk off the job at a moment's
| notice without risking their family, then safety concerns like
| this become a non-issue because, IMO, most people want to do
| the right thing when in comes to safety like this, and even if
| half your staff is willing to take a payment to kill other
| people with derailment risks, the other half will happily
| report them.
|
| I don't buy this argument. What your logic seems to be is that
| if UBI was in place, then if the worker gets blacklisted or
| whatever, he can still draw upon UBI to not become homeless,
| but is that really enough? Suppose you have a middle class
| lifestyle financed by UBI plus your rail worker job, and you
| saw something shady happening. Would you really risk getting
| blacklisted from the industry and thereby downgrading your
| lifestyle to subsistence level, just so you can blow the
| whistle?
| gxt wrote:
| No. Ignoring problems is not a solution.
| [deleted]
| enumjorge wrote:
| I read this less as ignoring a problem, and more like
| empowering people at lower levels of an organization to do
| the right thing, a check-and-balances of sorts.
| gxt wrote:
| Walking out is not the right thing, and it is not
| empowerment. It is utter disregard for those who remain, it
| robs them of your expertise and care. US has OSHA, USCSB,
| municipal ad., state ad., and federal ad. AND multiple
| members of Congress per state. Before walking out there all
| these people AND MORE to contact, make aware, request help
| from.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| > most people want to do the right thing when in comes to
| safety like this
|
| not in my experience working in blue collar labor, union or
| not.
|
| also, a bad assumption in general. this is not a good argument
| for "UBI, nationalized healthcare, etc"
|
| laws/regulation with teeth (punitive fines) are the solution
| here.
| amelius wrote:
| The problem is that at some point you become reliant on a
| certain level of income.
|
| And it would be kinda strange if working nightshifts on rail
| work would pay the same as UBI.
| danaris wrote:
| You don't need it to do so indefinitely. You only need it to
| pay _enough_ to keep you afloat while you either find another
| job, or get the previous job to relent, take you back, and
| agree with you--or downsize your lifestyle.
|
| This is, however, why UBI needs to be high enough to
| _actually_ cover all the basic necessities of life, and not
| just be something like $500 /month.
| peyton wrote:
| How long do you think it takes to find a job as a railroad
| track laborer?
| notch898a wrote:
| Exactly, pay enough so that no one has to work. Then we can
| all buy the goods and services we like without toiling.
| gruez wrote:
| >This is, however, why UBI needs to be high enough to
| actually cover all the basic necessities of life, and not
| just be something like $500/month
|
| $500/month seems pretty doable if you're only eating rice
| and beans and live in dorm room style accommodations in
| south dakota, and don't spend money on anything else. Sure,
| eating rice and beans isn't great, but eating beef is
| arguably not a necessity. Nor is living in your own unit in
| a desirable location, or having money for entertainment.
| lambdasquirrel wrote:
| I don't know, I think we should consider the other half of the
| problem.
|
| Do you think, if workers were promoted (or given authority) on
| the basis of a job well done, that this would happen? Right
| now, in nearly all industries, and even in parts of tech, you
| become a manager, by being manager-like. That means playing
| politics and going to business school. Deeper understanding or
| appreciation of the job isn't really necessary. All that's
| necessary is the ability to "manage" people, which is of course
| an important skill, but there's this idea that you can
| helicopter "leaders" in who don't really need to know the job
| at hand. It breeds contempt for the folks actually doing the
| work, and their concerns about the job and their craft.
| tootie wrote:
| This is bad but it's also from 2016. There's not nearly enough
| dots to connect to say it had anything to do with the recent
| derailment.
| sbaiddn wrote:
| It demonstrates the working environment and management culture
| in the industry. In short management doesn't care.
|
| That said, "visible seepage" is infuriatingly vague. Any seal
| will "seep" to some extent. Oil seals can have "visible
| seepage" and still have life left in them.
|
| A healthy industry would have clear internal standards that
| clarifies bad rules like this and enforcement.
| 5etho wrote:
| I hope reddit/antiwork don't leak on HN.
|
| We all agree with that, it's just not the right place.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| This appears to be a single manager for a single railroad--not
| Norfolk Southern--getting caught. While egregious and likely
| indicative of what we all suspect--corner-cutting industry-wide--
| it doesn't appear related to East Palestine at all. Saying "US
| rail workers" feels like clickbait.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| The "a few bad apples spoils the bunch" defense. Not gonna
| work.
| jacobjjacob wrote:
| Folks misinterpret that statement and use it as a defense. In
| reality it's an offense- one bad apple might be a rot that
| can infest their colleagues and the whole system.
|
| It's at least as likely as not that whistleblower incidents
| like these represent a deeper issue. To stretch the metaphor,
| if you find a rotten apple in your bunch, it's unlikely it
| was the only one.
| [deleted]
| xnyan wrote:
| One of the biggest points of railway workers in the recent
| fight over contracts was safety concerns largely due to
| overwork and understaffing. According to both the government
| and the railway industry, the number of workers threating labor
| action over this was large enough to bring down rail transport
| in the US.
|
| Perhaps they could have done a better job supporting their
| argument, but the general claim that railway workers generally
| believe safety standards are inadequate seems solid to me.
| xyzelement wrote:
| From the article I got the sense that the disagreement is
| about "how many eyes" are watching out over the trains.
|
| As a layman it seems like "the more the better" but there's
| gotta be a balance. Obviously the union is going to argue for
| having 100 people per train if they could (because that's
| directly connected to the unions power and money) while the
| train company is going to try to automate it down to 0.
|
| So just because the union doesn't think it's enough isn't a
| meaningful indicator.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| This is a classic example of the fallacy of the middle. In
| general, there are often two sides to an issue. But the
| correct balance is almost never directly in the middle.
|
| You present the union and the management as equal players,
| both with radical views, and the truth as somewhere near
| the midpoint. Except the unions are trying to fight to keep
| two people per train, not have 100.
|
| > Efforts to require at least two-person crews, including
| via regulation, lack a safety justification; ignore the
| decades of safe and successful use of single-person crews
| at some U.S. freight railroads and in passenger and freight
| rail systems throughout the world; upend meaningful
| collective bargaining, and undermine the rail industry's
| ability to compete against less climate-friendly forms of
| transportation.
|
| https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/AAR-Crew-
| Size...
| gruez wrote:
| > This is a classic example of the fallacy of the middle.
| In general, there are often two sides to an issue. But
| the correct balance is almost never directly in the
| middle.
|
| What gave you the impression that the parent post thinks
| the right answer is "in the middle"? He was simply
| pointing out that both parties have an incentive to say
| the "right" amount is lower/higher, and therefore just
| because one party says the amount needs to be changed,
| doesn't mean it actually needs to be changed.
| emehex wrote:
| With all these new text-to-speech AI models... how can we trust
| any recordings like this anymore?
| falcolas wrote:
| This has been a potential attack since recording devices were
| invented. It was just done by talented people or people with
| mixing tools.
| phailhaus wrote:
| Faked audio is still easily detectable.
| maximus-decimus wrote:
| I don't know, they sound exactly like the real thing to me :
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep-f7uBd8Gc
| bastawhiz wrote:
| It's the job of the regulators to investigate audio like this
| and ensure its provenance, and speak to the people involved
| under penalty of perjury. The ability to forge audio isn't new,
| it's just more accessible.
| zokier wrote:
| you don't need text-to-speech AI model to fake recording, you
| just need random guy and a microphone.
| Reptur wrote:
| If companies are people, companies should go to prison for
| intentionally endangering Americans and the result of that
| causing Americans to become ill / get cancer. The company should
| be taken over by the government and sold to pay out to all those
| that were harmed as well as clean & rebuild everything affected.
| landoftheice wrote:
| [dead]
| TheDudeMan wrote:
| > "a manager ... explaining to a former carman that they should
| stop tagging railcars for broken bearings. The manager says doing
| so delays other cargo."
|
| This sort of thing should result in jail time.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| Make the CEO criminally responsible for everything under his or
| her watch.
|
| They are getting paid crazy amounts of money for not much risk
| currently. I bet even with the threat of criminal liabilities, a
| lot of people would still be willing to be CEO for $100 million.
| el_don_almighty wrote:
| What if ISO 9001 certification also created individual criminal
| liability for conformance?
|
| Individual criminal liability would drive accountability down to
| the people who are actually responsible for the necessary
| actions. The criminal threat empowers individuals, creating a
| drive for clear understanding of their roles, deliverables, and
| artifacts of completion. This accountability works successfully
| in the aviation industry but comes at a high cost.
|
| Could it work in other industries and could newer technologies
| lower the cost of implementation? Easier workflow management
| tools?
|
| What would happen in your company if you or your team members
| were at risk of criminal investigation for compliance to your ISO
| 9001 procedures & documentation? Could you do it? Would you stay?
| Would you want more money?
|
| Isn't it essentially commercial fraud if the organization _IS
| NOT_ meeting their documented procedures?
| ok_dad wrote:
| > What if ISO 9001 certification also created individual
| criminal liability for conformance?
|
| I worked at an ISO-13485 certified company, and actually had
| "criminal liability for conformance" for some work I did there,
| due to the FDA's regulations. I can say, for certain, that it
| does not matter if you raise issues for legal obligations with
| even one of the largest medical device manufacturers in the
| USA. I had some HR issues there with my boss which edged into
| the region of not doing our jobs properly for important quality
| inspections. He did eventually get fired, but not for risking
| the lives of patients but he was instead fired for missing some
| milestone obligations on an important project. I was turned
| into a pariah with management for trying to fix this particular
| issue, and later I quit my management position there in order
| to live a life of simplicity as a solo-contributor of software
| for my remaining days.
|
| I say that you absolutely cannot push the liability down to the
| worker level, it has to be on management and on the executives
| of a company. It would be much easier for workers to raise
| safety and HR issues at a company if they knew that their
| medical coverage and salary were safe, such as with universal
| healthcare or UBI...
| aplusbi wrote:
| I feel like this would end up with a bunch of interns in prison
| for the crimes of executives. It would be too easy to find a
| scapegoat.
| roughly wrote:
| Pete Buttigieg got pilloried last time he ran for president for
| a) not having enough experience and b) for being ex-McKinsey,
| which sank him on the left. He's got an opportunity now to take
| one of the worst examples of wall-streetism to the woodshed over
| spilling a bunch of toxic chemicals in a residential neighborhood
| because of penny-pinching, which seems like it should be the
| easiest political slam-dunk in the world for a Democrat in 2023 -
| it'll be interesting to see if he actually does so.
| sbaiddn wrote:
| I didn't know Petey's ex-McKinsey! I know McKinsey people, Ive
| been to their parties. Rubbed shoulders.
|
| Not impressed. Last time I was with them, in a room of 100
| people, two were cool. One joined when his company got bought
| out. The other one was his wife. None of them struck me as
| particularly above average, except for ego and ambition.
|
| Minus one for Pete.
| eastbayjake wrote:
| The sort of argument-by-anecdote that makes Hacker News such
| an interesting, informative, civilized forum to read these
| days - thanks for your contribution
| twh270 wrote:
| He'll take them out behind the woodshed, give them a stern
| talking to, and then give them a handshake and a "Thanks for
| this truly productive discussion, see you at our usual
| watering-hole tonight?"
|
| Maybe a few weak regulations will be improved and Democrats
| will loudly proclaiming how hard they are "cracking down" on
| unsafe practices.
|
| There will be no real change unless the political winds (i.e.,
| voters) demand it so strongly that Democrats have no other
| choice. Both parties are beholden to corporate money and
| interests.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| I think its too late to recover from this. If he was going to
| act it should have been before the Republicans did. Pete and
| the Dems seem like they are just trying to move on from this as
| quick as possible but I don't get them, you can't just move on
| when so many people are looking at this disaster.
| [deleted]
| roughly wrote:
| There's still an opportunity when the report comes out. I
| agree, though, I don't think they're going to. I suspect it
| has to do with the feds breaking the train worker strike a
| couple months ago, which was already a pretty severe
| political own-goal - I think you're right, they're hoping
| people stop talking about trains.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| The consensus among "progressive media" seems to be that
| they don't want to set a precedent where they do actionable
| change after a crisis. This could hurt them with their
| donors in future incidents so their strategy is to somehow
| get people move on from this. Maybe it will be continued
| media blackout or something dumb will be coming that will
| take up the news cycle(eg. Chinese Balloons). It is
| infuriating especially after they were given a lifeline by
| their voters in the midterms. Its a never ending clown show
| with both the left and the right.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| This is yet another reason why the German model of having half
| the executive board seats selected by the employees of the
| corporation should be adopted in the United States. Employees see
| these kinds of problems and can pass them on up to their board
| representatives to ensure they get addressed before disasters
| happen.
| Havoc wrote:
| Ah the Boeing management style. That explains things
| pasttense01 wrote:
| A key point is the date, 2016. This was 7 years ago. Just because
| there were issues then doesn't mean there are issues now:
|
| "In late 2016, Stephanie Griffin, a former Union Pacific carman,
| went to her manager with concerns that she was getting pushback
| for tagging - or reporting for repair - railcars. Her manager
| told her it was OK to skip inspections."
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| > Just because there were issues then doesn't mean there are
| issues now
|
| It's going to take me an hour to find my eyes.
|
| If anything, the issue is probably worse now. If an industry
| can get away with something, they'll keep doing it and more.
| sbaiddn wrote:
| Its gotten worse. The industry has been greatly increasing
| workload on fewer employees.
|
| Just a few months ago Biden forced a contract on rail workers
| who were complaining, among other things, how they're stretched
| thin to an unsafe amount.
|
| Most of Congress backed the administration and rail companies
| xyzelement wrote:
| I can't read the article again due to paywall but when I read it
| the first time, the idea I got is not that they were "told to
| skip inspect" but a disagreement between employees and management
| on the level of oil seepage that was required in order to
| consider the train car in need of repair.
| noughtme wrote:
| "The regulation at the time stated that a wheel bearing was bad
| when it had 'visible seepage'. But that was very vague, and the
| bosses used that vagueness to their advantage. For me, it was
| whenever oil was visible on the bearing. For my bosses, they
| wanted actual droplets and proof it would leak on the ground.
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