Railway Workers Receive Hazmat Training at Labor College

by James Parks, Nov 26, 2008

Railway workers simulate a response to a hazardous chemical spill during a training class at the National Labor College.

More than 180,000 pounds of highly toxic materials are transported on America’s rails every day. Though some railway workers have been trained in handling these materials safely, thousands more still lack even the basic training needed. That’s about to change through an ambitious training program at the National Labor College (NLC), funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation.   

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration recently awarded the NLC a $1.3 million grant for an intensive program to train railway workers in the handling and transporting of hazardous materials (hazmat), including dangerous chemicals and radioactive substances.   

Says NLC President William Scheuerman: 

Tens of thousands of pounds of highly toxic, hazardous materials are carried daily by rail through cities and towns across North America. With this grant the NLC will be able to expand our railway hazmat program to increase critically important training that can help save the lives of railway workers and citizens in communities across North America. 

Since 1991, the NLC has trained more than 20,000 railway workers and peer trainers in hazardous materials transportation and chemical emergency response. Workers are trained in safety and health procedures. They also receive intensive instruction in responses and worker protection and regularly perform drills and full-gear simulations. The grant focuses on training the trainers who will in turn train thousands of railway workers over the next 12 months. 

NLC professor Henry Jajuga will oversee the implementation of the grant, which will include developing a train-the-trainer curriculum with specialized course materials, instructor guides and online course materials. As many as 160 students will be recruited to take the training. 

The grant follows a 2006 report by NLC faculty members, Ruth Ruttenberg and Brenda Cantrell, along with NLC student Maria Lazo, that urged officials to increase funding for hazardous material training of railway workers. In the report, the authors say quality training for railway workers handling hazardous materials is inadequate. According to the report:  

Just one 90-ton rail car of chlorine, whether involved in an accident or act of terrorism, could create a toxic cloud 40 miles long and 10 miles wide and could kill as many as 100,000 people in 30 minutes. One estimate of a worst-case scenario for a nuclear transportation accident in an urban area could cost—in cleanup, evacuation, and business loss—from several billion to several tens of billions of dollars. 

The NLC, located in Silver Spring, Md., is the nation’s only accredited higher education institution devoted exclusively to educating union leaders, members and activists. The NLC became a degree-granting college in 1997.

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