Category: Transportation

Home>News>Transportation

Implementing agreement reached on 3 CN properties

October 20, 2011 Some 430 UTU represented conductors and brakemen employed by Canadian National properties Wisconsin Central; Duluth, Winnipeg & Pacific (DW&P); and Duluth Missabe and Iron Range (DM&IR) have ratified an implementing agreement — effective Jan. 1 — cons [...]

Tags Canadian National, CN, DM&IR, Duluth, DW&P, GO 315, GO 321, GO 325, GO 987, implementing agreement, John Babler, Ken Flashberger, Matt Koski, Missabi & Iron Range, Saint Laurent, Steve Haus, Winnipeg & Pacific, Wisconsin Central

Former Alternate NLD Gene Plourd dead at 79

October 19, 2011 LIMERICK, Maine – Former Alternate National Legislative Director Gene Plourd (1993-1997) died Oct. 15 at age 79. Plourd, 79, born in Providence, R.I., hired out on Maine Central Railroad in December 1954, and was promoted to fireman in 1955, and engineer in 1962. Early in his [...]

Tags Gene Plourd

False rumors by competitors target UTUIA, DIPP

October 17, 2011 As the perfectly healthy man told the obituary editor of his local newspaper, “Reports of my demise are grossly exaggerated.” And so it is with the UTU Insurance Association (UTUIA) and the UTU’s Discipline Income Protection Plan (DIPP). Vicious and absolutely false rumors ar [...]

Tags DIPP, Discipline Income Protection Plan, UTUIA

House bill would help restore transit service, jobs

October 17, 2011 WASHINGTON – A bi-partisan bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives to bring financial relief to distressed transit systems and to help stem cuts in transit jobs and service. Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.) and Rep. Steve Latourette (R-Ohio) have introduced H.R. 32 [...]

Tags bus, Local Flexibilty for Transit Assistance Act, Russ Carnahan, Steve LaTourette, transit

2 rail properties, 1 bus property join UTU family

October 14, 2011 Rail and bus workers continue to call out to the United Transportation Union for representation in these troubling times. The UTU’s ability to negotiate industry-leading contracts, process grievances and achieve workplace safety improvements are most often cited as the reason [...]

Tags Columbia & Cowlitz Railway, First Transit, Iindustrial Switching and Services, IRSS, organizing, Patriot Rail, Patriot Woods Railroad

Daughter of former Colo. SLD Shaver dies

October 13, 2011 Janna Shaver, 49, daughter of retired Colorado State Legislative Director Jack Shaver, and his wife Barbara, died Oct. 10. Janna would have graduated from The University of Denver Law School next May. She is also survived by her sister, Lisa. Donations made in Janna’s h [...]

Tags colorado, dies, janna, shaver

Take note of prescription drug recall

October 13, 2011 Qualitest Pharmaceuticals has issued a voluntary nationwide recall of its oral contraceptive owing to a packaging error that could leave women at risk of an unintended pregnancy. Medco, which supplies many UTU members and family with prescription drugs, is notifying its patie [...]

Tags prescription drug recall

This is all about saving railroaders’ limbs and lives

October 12, 2011 During the first six months of 2011, 37 serious injuries occurred during switching operations, resulting in three fatalities and eight amputations; while over the past two years, five rail workers have died in accidents involving rolling rail equipment. The Switching Operatio [...]

Tags Federal Register, FRA, safety, SOFA

Arbitrator rules in favor of SMART merger

October 11, 2011 An arbitrator has ruled that a merger between the UTU and the Sheet Metal Workers International Association (SMWIA) be implemented and that the presidents of the two unions – or their designees — meet to decide how the implementation is to proceed. Arbitrator Michael H. [...]

Tags air, Judge John Bates, LMRDA, Michael H. Gottesman, Rail & Transportation, Sheet Metal, Sheet Metal Workers International Association, SMART, SMWIA