The horrific scene unfolding in East Palestine, Ohio is the consequence of a privately owned for-profit rail system. The barbaric logic of the billionaires has led to increasingly unsafe operation of the railroads through deregulation, cost-cutting, understaffing, and disinvestment in rail infrastructure.

The Republican and Democratic Parties are complicit in this catastrophe by ensuring decades of deregulation and superficial oversight. When railroad workers voted overwhelmingly to go on strike last year, they did so not only for basic workers’ rights like sick pay, but also to address the dangerous state of the rail industry. When the government forced a rotten deal down the workers’ throats, their actions put us all at risk. This disaster – like so many other train wrecks - was easily preventable!

Join us April 3rd in Alder Hall Auditorium on UW campus to demand democratic public ownership over the railroads, with the workers calling the shots on safety, not profit-hungry bosses and their political servants, as well as free healthcare for all and a new party of, by, and for working people! Sign the petition here!