Concerns about staffing and safety are the focus of railroad union representatives, who say they’re worried increasing automation will affect operations. Amid job cuts at Jacksonville-based CSX Transportation, the union reps say approximately 900 employees will be furloughed by Nov. 15, and that human track inspections have dropped 40% in the past three months. The railroad has said it’s making the adjustments “to better align teams with seasonal workflows and the maintenance work required across the network,” but that its “focus on safety is unchanged.” We talk to two senior union representatives who say the Jacksonville community should be paying close attention.
Guests:
- Brian Thompson, general chairman, Allied Federation of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union
- Tony Cardwell, president, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union
Beyond bars
A former prisoner turned criminal justice reform advocate has written a memoir documenting his decade behind bars, as well as his discovery of yoga as a means of coping with the realities of imprisonment. St. Augustine native Emmett Tatter, now a certified yoga instructor, refers to the five daily inmate head counts conducted by prison staff in the title of his new book, Count Time. For Tatter, that amounted to 15,523 counts over a 10-year sentence. We talk to him about the challenges of surviving beyond prison, the complexity of reentering life on the outside and his work helping other inmates endure carceral system-related violence and PTSD.
Guest: Emmett Tatter, prison reform advocate, author of Count Time
Guest star
From the complexity of the cosmos to the celestial sightings of earthbound stargazers, WJCT’s resident space man, Eddie Whistler, keeps us grounded in the realm of the universal. He joins us each month for an update on sky science, interplanetary exploration and just cool discoveries from deep space. He also keeps us abreast of MOSH outreach programs during the Museum of Science and History’s three-year physical hiatus, as the 55-year-old institution relocates from the Southbank to its new Northbank home.
Guest: Eddie Whisler, director of planetarium and outreach, Museum of Science and History
Topics and guests subject to change.