#Tempe

[elinordash]

The Tempe train disaster on 28 February 2023, which claimed 57 lives, exposed critical failures in Greece’s railway safety systems and sparked widespread allegations of a cover-up. Despite repeated warnings from railway workers, key safety upgrades were never implemented, and investigations have since revealed political interference, missing evidence, and potential fuel smuggling on the freight train. Two years on, mass protests, new forensic findings, and fresh legal battles continue to fuel demands for justice and accountability.

source | Tempe case timeline

[serresblues]

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Return to office and dying on the job

Denise Prudhomme's bosses at Wells Fargo insisted that the in-person camaraderie of their offices warranted a mandatory return-to-office policy, but when she died at her desk in her Tempe, AZ office, no one noticed for four days.

That was in August. Now, Wells Fargo United has published a statement on her death, one that vibrates with anger at the callously selective surveillance that Wells Fargo inflicts on its workforce:

https://www.reddit.com/r/WellsFargoUnited/comments/1fnp9fa/please_print_and_take_to_your_managersite_leader/

The union points out that Wells Fargo workers are subjected to continuous, fine-grained on-the-job surveillance from a variety of bossware tools that count their keystrokes and create tables of the distancess their mice cross each day:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

Wells Fargo's message to its workforce is, "You can't be trusted," a policy that Wells Fargo doubled down on with its Return to Office mandate. Return to Office is often pitched as a chance to improve teamwork, communication, and human connection with your co-workers, and there's no arguing with the idea that spending some time in person with people can help improve working relationships (I attended a week-long, all-hands, staff retreat for EFF earlier this month and it was fantastic, primarily due to its in-person nature).

But our bosses don't want us back in the office because they enjoy our company, nor because they're so excited about having hired such a swell bunch of folks and can't wait to see how we all get along together. As John Quiggin writes, the biggest reason to force us back to the office is to get a bunch of us to quit:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/26/in-their-plaintive-call-for-a-return-to-the-office-ceos-reveal-how-little-they-are-needed

As one of Musk's toadies put it in a private message before the Twitter takeover, "Sharpen your blades boys. 2 day a week Office requirement = 20% voluntary departures":

https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/29/elon-musk-texts-discovery-twitter/

The other reason to spy on us is because they don't trust us. Remember all the panic about "quiet quitting" and "no one wants to work"? Bosses' hypothesis was that eking out a bare minimum living on from a couple of small-dollar covid stimulus checks was preferable to working for them for a full paycheck.

Every accusation is a a confession. When your boss tells you that he thinks that you can't be trusted to do a good job without total, constant surveillance, he's really saying, "I only bother to do my CEO job when I'm afraid of getting fired':

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/19/make-them-afraid/#fear-is-their-mind-killer

As Wells Fargo United notes, Wells Fargo employees like Denise Prudhomme are spied on from the moment they set foot in the building until the moment they clock out (and sometimes the spying continues when you're off the clock):

Wells Fargo monitors our every move and keystroke using remote, electronic technologies—purportedly to evaluate our productivity—and will fire us if we are caught not making enough keystrokes on our computers.

The Arizona Republic coverage notes further that Prudhomme had to log her comings and goings from the Wells Fargo offices with a badge, so Wells Fargo could see that Prudhomme had entered the premises four days before, but hadn't left:

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/tempe-breaking/2024/09/23/wells-fargo-employees-union-responds-death-tempe-woman/75352015007/

Wells Fargo has mandated in-person working, even when that means crossing a state line to be closer to the office. They've created "hub cities" where workers are supposed to turn up. This may sound convivial, but Prudhomme was the only member of her team working out of the Tempe hub, so she was being asked to leave her home, travel long distances, and spend her days in a distant corner of the building where no one ventured for periods of (at least) four days at a time.

Bosses are so convinced that they themselves would goof off if they could that they fixate on forcing employees to spend their days in the office, no matter what the cost. Back in March 2020, Charter CEO Tom Rutledge – then the highest-paid CEO in America – instituted a policy that every back office staffer had to work in person at his call centers. This was the most deadly phase of the pandemic, there was no PPE to speak of, we didn't understand transmission very well, and vaccines didn't exist yet. Charter is a telecommunications company and it was booming as workers across America upgraded their broadband so they could work from home, and the CEO's response was to ban remote work. His customer service centers were superspreading charnel houses:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/18/diy-tp/#sociopathy

That Wells Fargo would leave a dead employee at her desk for four days is par for the course for the third-largest commercial bank in America. This is Wells Fargo, remember, the company that forced its low-level bank staff to open two million fake accounts in order to steal from their customers and defraud their shareholders, then fired and blackballed staff who complained:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/26/495454165/ex-wells-fargo-employees-sue-allege-they-were-punished-for-not-breaking-law

The executive who ran that swindle got a $125 million bonus:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/09/wells-fargo-ceos-teflon-don-act-backfires-at-senate-hearing-i-take-full-responsibility-means-anything-but.html

And the CEO got $200 million:

https://money.cnn.com/2016/09/21/investing/wells-fargo-fired-workers-retaliation-fake-accounts/index.html

It's not like Wells Fargo treats its workers badly but does well by everyone else. Remember, those fake accounts existed as part of a fraud on the company's investors. The company went on to steal $76m from its customers on currency conversions. They also foreclosed on customers who were up to date on their mortgages, seizing and selling off all their possessions. They argued that when bosses pressured tellers into forging customers on fraudulent account-opening paperwork, that those customers had lost their right to sue, since the fraudulent paperwork had a binding arbitration clause. When they finally agreed to pay restitution to their victims, they made the payments opt-in, ensuring that most of the millions of people they stole from would never get their money back.

They stole millions with fraudulent "home warranties." They stole millions from small businesses with fake credit-card fees. They defrauded 800,000 customers through an insurance scam, and stole 25,000 customers' cars with illegal repos. They led the pre-2008 pack on mis-selling deceptive mortgages that blew up and triggered the foreclosure epidemic. They loaned vast sums to Trump, who slashed their taxes, and then they fired 26.000 workers and did a $40.6B stock buyback. They stole 525 homes from mortgage borrowers and blamed it on a "computer glitch":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/29/jubilance/#too-big-to-jail

Given all this, two things are obvious: first, if anyone is going to be monitored for crimes, fraud and scams, it should be Wells Fargo, not its workers. Second, Wells Fargo's surveillance system exists solely to terrorize workers, not to help them. As Wells Fargo United writes:

We demand improved safety precautions that are not punitive or cause further stress for employees. The solution is not more monitoring, but ensuring that we are all connected to a supportive work environment instead of warehoused away in a back office.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/27/sharpen-your-blades-boys/#disciplinary-technology

[warpedwings]

Misha Collins - Talking Politics and Advocating for Harris-Walz in Nevada and Arizona - September 2024.

[kimmyocca]

Tempe

[anagatajavanese]

Wanda Cosmo The Fairly OddParents

Fried Tempeh (Indonesian style)

[matthewgrantanson]

Winter in the Desert, Tempe -- January 1st, 2023

Etsy

[greendayauthority]

Tempe, AZ, 11 March 2013

[ilikepjo24]

Hello everyone, Kate here. There is a serious matter that I truly need to address so please, would you take some time of your day and read this post in its entirety? Reblog it and make the situation known?

This Friday, there will be a huge nation wide strike happening in Greece and oversees, in hopes to punish the crime of the horrible train crash that happened in 2023 in the Valley of Tempe, Greece and the complete disregard of the government towards the situation.

Two years ago, a series of mistakes in scheduling and organization due to neglect, as well as poorly maintained control equipment for the sake of decreasing the cost of maintenance, lead to a passenger train riding on the wrong lane and on the same train tracks as, and opposite of, a freight train that was heading right for it.

The resulting crash of the two trains lead to a giant explosion, the impact of which had as consequence of 57 lives, mostly students. The ones that didn't die on impact where trapped in a flaming metal container until the cruel circumstances killed them, or where heavily injured.

But that's not all. Since the crash, there are a few details that have come to light.

Investigations commissioned by the Greek Supreme Civil and Criminal Court and the relatives of the victims have shown that incredibly soon after the crash, the scene of the crime was covered by concrete, which we believe was done on purpose as an obstacle to further investigations.

Additionally, none of the materials that were listed to be on the freight train could have possibly resulted in such a big explosion, leading to the mostly confirmed theory that the train was carrying illegal, undocumented, flammable materials.

In the past couple of years, the relatives of the victims have been fighting incredibly hard to ensure that the situation will be properly investigated, and to bring attention to the European community as a whole.

Meanwhile, members and allies of the governing party have bluntly denied claims of a crime, opposing the notion of the subject becoming widely known across the EU and being deceitful and patronizing the entirety of the Greek population and insulting towards survivors, relatives of the victims.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the current prime minister, has repeatedly denied the happening of a crime and has actively discouraged and worked against investigations.

Adonis Georgiadis, the health minister, has actively and openly encouraged violence against protesters and strikers.

Afroditi Latinopoulo, president of a far-right party named "Voice of Reason" ("Φωνή Λογικής"), has openly and repeatedly opposed the matter going to the EU.

On Friday 28/2/2025 (DD/MM/YYYY) we will be protesting to make our voices heard. Most of the population will be on strike and taxis will work for free to help people reach the places the protests will be taking place. I will not be in my workplace, and I will be protesting instead.

There are over 250 strikes and protests happening worldwide, and if there's any going on in your area, I would encourage you to show up and speak up. The following link is a list of all the protests happening within and outside of Greece for the matter.

https://tempi2023.jodi.graphics/

I would be incredibly grateful if you could stand by me, my phone, and justice in this matter. I would be incredibly grateful if you attended a protest happening in your area. I would bf incredibly grateful if you could just spread the word.

Thank you for your time.

[godsofwoes]

two years since the train accident that happened in Tempi, where 57 people lost their lives, and justice is nowhere to be seen. I found this post from my drafts, its from February 2024. and another one from June 2024

It has been almost a year since the train accident and that just alerted my brain chemistry. Not only cause i lost people i knew. We were in high school together, a year older than me. They used to come to our class so they could hug our teachers and talk to them about their problems. I remember that I saw the twin girls a day before the accident. How I admired them, for always being together, being jealous too as i lost my twin brother before he even had the change to live. Them and their cousin were always together. I remember waking up at the first of March last year and seeing the news in tv. About the three girls that were missing after the accident from my town. I immediately felt scared, and sad, but also confused and angry, but i was so scared for all of my friends and for the people who i didn't even know. Family members of mine were calling my mom asking if i am alright. And then as the hours were passing, they were finding more dead bodies. Of young people. Because of course they were young. They were students and easily everyone could be one of these 57 people who died that night. I could be one of them.

A year later and my opinions are the same, my anger and sadness haven't left cause there's no justice for the families and victims. There's no peace. A year later and there's no way I'm gonna use a train ever again. I remember the first weeks after the train accident i used to have nightmares, about me being inside that train and burning alive, the moment i was seeing train tracks or a train i was immediately in a panic mood. I can not even imagine the pain the survivors are still carrying to this day.

-

one year and a few months after the accident and today i thought about them. about all the people who died that night. i was on the bus going to my psychiatrist appointment. i stared at the people who were sitting next to me wearing seat belts. and then it hit me like it did back then. i could die in any moment possible. and not only because of an accident but because of how fucked up my country is. how they let people die so easily. i remember for a while after the accident i was scared to even enter the bus. i was overthinking that something bad would happen to me. and even now a year and a few months after the accident i found myself being scared, and texting my friends to tell me if they arrived or just texting them to make sure they are okay after they used public transport. which i know it might sounds silly to someone but i can't forget how scared i was last month. i had nightmares all the time and sleep paralysis because of what happened. how i saw the twin girls a few days or a day i can't remember for sure before the accident. how this moment will haunt me forever.

[enbycarp]

Can we please appreciate this picture of my mom's old dog

[eyecsatori]

L A V E N D E R 🪻 H A Z E

[kulchurstudio]

[bandcampsnoop]

1/11/25.

Soft Shoulder must be one of Tempe, Arizona's most known bands. We first posted about them in 2015, and they released new material as recently as 2023. Their Discogs page (their profile states, "No-Wave / Junk-Kraut from thee Sonoran Desert with satellite members in Oakland, Montreal, Berlin, etc.") boasts 33 releases. That said, this band is still decidedly under the radar. There is no entry at all on AllMusic. I did find several references to the band on Maximum Rock N Roll.

Our initial post mentioned both Eddy Current Suppresion Ring and Diat. There is a lot of noise here - but I would say this is closer to The Fall, Spray Paint and Blank Realm. These songs are short though. I was surprised how quickly each side of the LP ended.

Soft Shoulder serve as the vehicle for some of the music of James Fella. This is released on Gilgongo Records (which I think was started by Fella).

[bignaz8]

Tempe, Arizona tradition. Get the Tijuana Torpedo. You're welcome.

[jeffcbliss]

Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day - Innings Music Festival; Tempe, AZ (2-25-23). @GreenDay @billiejoe

Photo: Jeff Bliss