On Dec. 28, 2018, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) published its determination of minimum random drug and alcohol testing rates for 2019 for covered service employees and Maintenance of Way (MOW) employees in the Federal Register. FRA determined that the minimum annu [...]
Jeffrey Keith Hague, 34, died Sunday, Dec. 30, 2018, as the result of a railroad accident in Oakley, Kan. Hague was a conductor for Union Pacific and a member of Local 495 (Salina, Kan.) since 2012. Hague was the salutatorian of his 2002 graduating class. He went on from high [...]
The Associated Press reported Dec. 20 that an analysis by the federal Department of Transportation (DOT) did not take into account up to $117 million in damage reductions when considering the repeal of a Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) rule requiring the installation of [...]
A GoFundMe online fundraising effort has been created in order to assist a Local 492 member who lost his home in the Camp wildfire that ravaged more than 153,000 acres of Butte County, Calif. The home of Ervis R. Obregon Jr., a conductor with Union Pacific, was one of the nea [...]
A ruling is expected in January on whether a lawsuit by a trio of CSX shareholders who have sued the carrier’s board over the hiring of late CEO E. Hunter Harrison in 2017 can advance, the Florida Times-Union reports. The 72-year-old Harrison sought an $84 million finan [...]
Lloyd W. “Corky” Swert, who served as United Transportation Union assistant president in the 1990s, passed away at his home in Hillsdale, Mich., on Wednesday. He was 86. Swert, a member of UTU Local 2 in Toledo, Ohio, hired on as a brakeman for the New York Centra [...]
Two SMART Transportation Division members from Local 524 in Palestine, Texas, were given the privilege by Union Pacific Railroad (UP) to serve their country as conductors on President George H.W. Bush’s funeral train, Thursday, Dec. 6. The funeral procession consisted o [...]
The amounts of compensation subject to railroad retirement tier I and tier II payroll taxes will increase in 2019, while the tax rates on employers and employees will stay the same. In addition, unemployment insurance contribution rates paid by railroad employers will continu [...]
According to the Jacksonville Business Journal, two more lawsuits were filed Nov. 29 alleging that CSX Corp. has violated employees’ rights protected under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). According to the Department of Labor, “FMLA provides eligible emplo [...]
The Alaska Railroad (ARR) is back up and running after Friday’s 7.0-magnitude earthquake. Regularly scheduled freight services started running again Tuesday, Dec. 4. ARR suspended all service after the quake in order to assess damage along its nearly 500 miles of tracka [...]