[yamtaddle]

> You need Unions. Blue collar workers care about safety and can pressure execs into doing the safe thing when the incentives aren't there higher up.

Yep. This happens all the time in other unionized industries. Manager: "Do [unsafe thing that is against policy / the law, or even that is simply physically impossible]". Worker: "Yeeeeah, I'll be looping my union rep into this conversation". Manager: "On second thought, never mind".

I'd guess the problem's that the railroad workers' union is toothless.

[EDIT] Downvotes why? Disbelief? This comes second-hand from friends in various unionized workplaces, it's damn common. Without strong unions they'd 100% for-sure have been forced to choose between doing something unsafe, and losing their jobs, many times—and that's with managers already knowing unions are a factor, I assume the rate of attempts to get workers to do unsafe things (including setting various metrics or policy such that it's impossible to meet expectations while maintaining proper safety) is higher at non-union workplaces, or those with weak unions.

[westmeal]

Upvoted since this is indeed common