Category: Transportation

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Transport-employee fatigue continues to kill

June 2, 2011 While sleep scientists have established that going to work fatigued is like going to work drunk, there remains a disconnect among those who manage transportation firms. And people are needlessly dying and being seriously injured as a result. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHoo [...]

Tags designated legal counsel, fatigue, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, FMCSA, LaHood, National Transportation Safety Board, OSHA, whistleblower

Record pay boost in UTU tentative rail pact

June 2, 2011 A 17 percent pay increase, retention of the $200 monthly cap on health care cost-sharing, FRA certification pay, a faster process for new hires to reach full pay rates, and no rollback of the January 2011 cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) highlight the new five-year national r [...]

Tags contract, National Carriers' Conference Committee, national rail agreement, NCCC, negotiated, rail pact

Amtrak contract talks: June 2011 update

June 1, 2011 By International Vice President John Previsich Collective bargaining with Amtrak over revisions to the current wages, benefits and work rules agreement continues. This report to the membership follows a briefing we provided the general committee during its recent quadr [...]

Tags Amtrak, bargaining sessions, collective bargaining, negotiations

RRB to withhold Medicare Parts C&D premiums

May 31, 2011 The Railroad Retirement Board will begin June 1 to withhold from benefits checks premiums for Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage plans) and Medicare Part D (prescription drug plans). Withholding is voluntary, and beneficiaries should contact their plans to request withholdin [...]

Tags deductions, Medicare, Railroad Retirement Board, RRB, withholdings

Union-busting efforts face glare of sunlight

May 31, 2011 Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis coined the term, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” Indeed, sunlight cast by labor-union members on the dark-of-night action by political extremists in the Wisconsin legislature is having a meaningful impact in Wiscons [...]

Tags anti-union, collective bargaining, collective bargaining defense fund, recalls, rights, union busting, Wisconsin

PTC installation could be trimmed 10,000 miles

May 27, 2011 WASHINGTON — The Obama administration suggests scaling back by 10,000 miles a federal mandate that positive train control (PTC) be installed on some 140,000 miles of freight and passenger track no later than Dec. 31, 2015. The 10,000 miles represents track over which fr [...]

Tags AAR, Association of American Railroads, crash-avoidance safety overlay system, federal mandate, National Transportation Safety Board, positive train control, PTC

Amtrak privatization scheme voiced in House

May 27, 2011 WASHINGTON — Two House Republicans with transportation oversight authority — House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) and Rail Subcommittee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) — want to transfer ownership of Amtrak’s No [...]

Tags Amtrak, Amtrak privatization, Congress, intercity rail passenger service, Northeast Corridor, ownership, privatization

Melanoma: Early detection a life saver

May 26, 2011 It’s almost summer. The sun is higher in the sky. We spend more time outdoors. Thus, we invite skin cancer — the most common form of cancer in America. And dark skin does not mean you are immune. More skin cancer cases are diagnosed each year than breast, prostate [...]

Tags cancer, detection, lesions, melanoma, skin cancer

Tentative pact for Great Lakes flight attendants

May 26, 2011 A tentative four-year agreement covering flight attendants employed by Great Lakes Airlines and represented by UTU Local 40 has been negotiated with the carrier. The agreement has been circulated for ratification, with votes to be counted May 17. The UTU represents some 300 f [...]

Tags agreement, aviation, contract, Great Lakes, Great Lakes Airlines, Great Lakes flight attendants, pact, ratification, ratify, UTU Local 40

CSX wreck claims 2; member loses limbs on BNSF

May 25, 2011 MINERAL SPRINGS, N.C. — CSX conductor Phillip E. Crawford Jr., 33, and locomotive engineer James Gregory Hadden, 36, were killed early May 24 in a rear-end collision here involving two CSX freight trains, according to news reports. Mineral Springs is some 30 miles south [...]

Tags accident, BNSF, collision, CSX, dead, FRA, injuries, killed, Local 970, National Transportation Safety Board, UP