Disability annuities for railroad employees

The Railroad Retirement Act provides disability annuities for railroaders who become totally or occupationally disabled. Medicare coverage before age 65 is also available for totally disabled employees and those suffering from chronic kidney disease. The following questions a [...]

National rail talks: October update

The UTU and railroads party to the national rail agreement will meet next week and again in mid-November in continuing negotiations aimed at amending a contract covering wages, benefits and working conditions. These will be the sixth and seventh negotiating sessions between t [...]

FRA to make cell-phone ban permanent

WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration has announced it will make permanent its Emergency Order No. 26 restricting the use by on-duty train crews of cell phones and other electronic devices. Some changes, as described below, are to be included in the permanent [...]

Health insurance alert: Children under 26?

By UTU International President Mike Futhey One of the jewels of the Obama health care reform plan passed into law by Congress earlier this year allows certain dependent children to remain on an employee’s health care insurance plan until age 26 without regard to student, mari [...]

Rail clerk marks 114th birthday

GREAT FALLS, Mont. – A Montana resident believed to be the world’s oldest man celebrated his 114th birthday Tuesday at a retirement home in Great Falls, the Great Falls Tribune reports. Walter Breuning was born on Sept. 21, 1896, in Melrose, Minnesota, and moved to Mont [...]

Medicare provides free flu, pneumonia shot

We are about to begin the flu season and a flu vaccine is the best way to prevent infection and the complications associated with the flu. Vaccination is necessary each year because flu viruses change each year. The flu shot can be received once a year in either the fall or w [...]