Per this source, a 25 mile radius includes 585,000 people. That means (before lawyer fees so imagine half in actuality), Norfolk-Southern wants to give $1,000 per person for permanently poisoning not only their property but their body which is now forever scarred. This was filed for approval by the Plaintiff (people hurt) but as shown in the story and simple math show this can’t be appropriate for a company with billions in revenue. Unfortunately this may also (not sure about insurance’s involvement) represent a third of their cash on hand 2023 Annual Report pdf page 58/their k48. I personally believe this is unjust and would love to hear other opinions and/or other information such as the index number for this (I have not diligently searched/PACER looked, but usually at least one news sources mentions a caption or docket number).
This arguably pushes me further in agreement to the person you’re responding to. The messaging I’m getting from Biden according to this article is that ‘As a laborer you can organize into a union, but only if it’s an impotent union that isn’t involved in inconveniencing anyone else to achieve it’s goals.’ It still sounds like Biden chose to side with Big-Business over labor and the concessions made by the rail companies to the union were inadequate, at best.
What gets lost in media spin is Biden has just as much power to force the rail companies to accept terms of the union memebers as he did to shut down a strike.
It was also only after East Palestine threw mud on his face that his administration really hustled to get the meager contract they got. Compair the 4 days of sick leave Biden and Union leaders called a huge win for rail workers to Seattle’s city wide 1 hour of sick leave earned for every 30 hours worked that Socialist Kashama Sawant pushed democrats on city council to the left on in 2012.