A newsletter of workplace safety and labor issues
Criminal charges have been dropped against Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway (MMA), according to Quebec’s Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP), for causing the deaths of 47 people when 73 cars of highly combustible crude oil derailed in the small Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic in 2013 turning the downtown into a raging inferno. For those of you who…
A jury has acquitted all three rail workers charged with criminal negligence causing death of 47 persons in the 2013 Lac-Mégantic rail disaster. For those of you who may not have been following this story, Montreal, Maine and Atlantic (MMA) locomotive engineer Tom Harding, 56, rail traffic controller Richard Labrie, 59, and operations manager Jean Demaître,…
After a 3 month-long trial, jurors are finally deliberating on the fate of three rail workers accused of criminal neglegence when a “bomb train” carrying 73 cars of highly combustible crude oil derailed in the small Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic in 2013, killing 47 people. Three former employees of the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA), Thomas Harding,…
An unmanned, half-mile long train “bomb train” carrying tank-cars full of highly explosive crude oil barrels toward a city where it is doomed to derail on a curve, killing everyone in its wake. Luckily, Denzel Washington and Chris Pine show up to save the city at the last second. Everyone lives happily ever after. That…
Steve Bannon may have moved out of the West Wing, but he left his goal of “deconstructing the regulatory state” behind. And we all may pay the price. As I wrote a couple of weeks, we just passed the 5-year anniversary of the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster that incinerated 47 persons when an un-manned runaway “bomb-train” derailed…
July 6 has a rather dubious place in the history of workplace and community safety, corporate responsibility and government oversight. Lac Mégantic, July 6, 2013 Five years ago today, an unmanned train carrying 72 tank-cars of highly combustible crude oil barreled down a hill at 65 mph, three times the normal speed, and careened off the…
The trial of three rail employees blamed for the deaths of 47 people when a train carrying 73 cars of highly combustible crude oil derailed in the small Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic continues to move forward. Below are a few updates to the trial, as well as some related stories. For those of you just tuning in, a…
The trial of three rail employees blamed for the deaths of 47 people due to a train carrying 73 cars of highly combustible crude oil that derailed in the small Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic continues to move forward. At around 1:00 am on July 6, 2013, the un-manned train began to roll down a hill toward the town…
The trial of three rail employees blamed for the deaths of 47 people when a train carrying 73 cars of highly combustible crude oil derailed in the small Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic is in its second week. Three former employees of the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA), Thomas Harding, 56, Richard Labrie, 59, and Jean Demaitre, 53, are being tried on 47…
Workers Can Participate in CSB Investigations: A major goal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act is to encourage workers to participate in the process, including allowing workers to walk around with OSHA inspectors. When the Chemical Safety Board was authorized, the law required that workers be given the same opportunity to participate in facility…