Labor, Community, & Environmental Organizations Are Mobilizing to Get East Palestine Healthcare (w/ Justice for East Palestine Residents & Workers)

Working People

This Saturday, March 23, unionists and labor leaders, environmental justice groups, community organizers, community members from other “sacrifice zones,” and supporters from around the country are coming to East Palestine to join residents as part of the newly formed Justice for East Palestine Residents and Workers coalition. The coalition has come together in recent months and mobilized around the core objective of pressuring President Biden to invoke the Stafford Act and issue a major disaster declaration for East Palestine. If Biden does this, organizers say, it will immediately unlock a whole suite of federal resources that residents desperately need and have been demanding for a year, and it will also immediately guarantee every resident emergency healthcare. For residents like Chris Albright—a former pipeline worker and LIUNA member who has been disabled by the toxic fallout from the derailment, is now experiencing severe heart failure, can’t work, and has subsequently lost his health benefits—this is a matter of life and death, and we are racing against the clock.

This episode is a compilation of voices from across the growing Justice for East Palestine Residents and Workers coalition. Speeches in the first half are from a panel cohosted by Steve Zeltzer and Penny Logsdon and recorded by the Labor Video Project on Feb. 3, 2024, the one-year anniversary of the derailment; speeches in the second half are from another panel cohosted by Steve Zeltzer and Penny Logsdon and recorded by the Labor Video Project on March 9, 2024. Speakers include: Steve Zeltzer (Labortech); Penny Logsdon (Lee County Labor Chapter); Chris Albright (East Palestine resident, LIUNA member); Jami Wallace (East Palestine Unity Council); Steve Mellon (Pittsburgh Union Progress); Jeff Kurtz (Lee County Labor Chapter); Maximillian Alvarez (The Real News Network); Mike Stout (protest musician); Charlie Wishman (Iowa AFL-CIO); John Palmer (Teamsters, San Antonio); Bob Anspach (BLET-IBT 391); Vina Colley (Portsmouth Pikeston Residents for Environmental Justice).

From the Justice for East Palestine Residents and Workers organizing committee: "We will be hosting a National Conference for the people of East Palestine along with supporters in Ohio and throughout the country to build this campaign for healthcare on Saturday, March 23, 2024, where we will bring community members, labor, environmentalist and allies together in our urgent campaign. This Conference will be held from 12-5pm ET at the East Palestine Park. To contact the Justice for East Palestine Residents and Workers organizing committee, reach out to

Steve Zeltzer: labormedia[at]gmail[dot]com

Penny Logsdon: onecent7921[at]gmail[dot]com

In solidarity."

Additional links/info below…

• Steve Mellon, Pittsburgh Union Progress, "‘Where are you, President Biden?’ Union organizers, residents demand health care for East Palestine"
• Maximillian Alvarez, Breaking Points, "East Palestine DEMANDS Biden Visit More Than 'PHOTO OP'"

Permanent links below...

• Working People Patreon page
• Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
• Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music...

• Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song