Perhaps they could have done a better job supporting their argument, but the general claim that railway workers generally believe safety standards are inadequate seems solid to me.
As a layman it seems like "the more the better" but there's gotta be a balance. Obviously the union is going to argue for having 100 people per train if they could (because that's directly connected to the unions power and money) while the train company is going to try to automate it down to 0.
So just because the union doesn't think it's enough isn't a meaningful indicator.
You present the union and the management as equal players, both with radical views, and the truth as somewhere near the midpoint. Except the unions are trying to fight to keep two people per train, not have 100.
> Efforts to require at least two-person crews, including via regulation, lack a safety justification; ignore the decades of safe and successful use of single-person crews at some U.S. freight railroads and in passenger and freight rail systems throughout the world; upend meaningful collective bargaining, and undermine the rail industry's ability to compete against less climate-friendly forms of transportation.
https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/AAR-Crew-Size...
What gave you the impression that the parent post thinks the right answer is "in the middle"? He was simply pointing out that both parties have an incentive to say the "right" amount is lower/higher, and therefore just because one party says the amount needs to be changed, doesn't mean it actually needs to be changed.
It’s at least as likely as not that whistleblower incidents like these represent a deeper issue. To stretch the metaphor, if you find a rotten apple in your bunch, it’s unlikely it was the only one.