A high union chief penned a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg about a lot of rail staff on the Norfolk Southern derailment web site in East Palestine, Ohio, who’ve develop into sick, possible from the poisonous chemical spill. CNBC obtained the letter on Wednesday. 

Jonathan Lengthy, a union consultant for the Brotherhood of Upkeep of Manner Workers Division of the Worldwide Brotherhood of Teamsters, titled the letter “Norfolk Southern Is Harmful to America” and mentioned about 40 staff have been ordered by the railway to wash up the wreckage. 

Lengthy mentioned staff weren’t given correct private safety gear to wash up the poisonous wreckage. He mentioned many staff weren’t equipped respirators, protecting clothes, or eye safety. 

Because of the chemical publicity, many rail staff “reported that they proceed to expertise migraines and nausea, days after the derailment, they usually all suspect that they have been willingly uncovered to those chemical compounds on the course of [Norfolk Southern].”

Lengthy added, “This lack of concern for the employees’ security and well-being is, once more, a fundamental tenet of NS’s cost-cutting enterprise mannequin.”

Norfolk Southern launched a press release to CNBC concerning the cleanup effort. They mentioned:

Norfolk was “on-scene instantly after the derailment and coordinated our response with hazardous materials professionals who have been on web site repeatedly to make sure the work space was secure to enter and the required PPE was utilized, all along with air monitoring that was established inside an hour.”

In the meantime, the Environmental Safety Company, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, and the Biden administration have ensured ample measures have been taken to guard residents and surrounding communities from the poisonous chemical spill and managed burn of vinyl chloride. 

However maybe the EPA and authorities aren’t telling rail staff and residents the reality. That is as a result of rail staff are getting sick, residents complain about well being points, and animals in state parks are dying.