WASHINGTON — Amtrak reported March 9 that it has marked 16 consecutive months of ridership growth, and that February was the best on record, with 2.1 million passengers. “The ridership increase shows the continued popularity of rail travel and the need for continu [...]
WASHINGTON — U.S. House of Representatives Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California, the third-ranking House Republican, told McClatchey Newspapers March 8 that California should not be the recipient of additional federal funds for construction of a high-speed rail li [...]
WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration has agreed to a request by railroads to scale back the number of rail route miles over which positive train control (PTC) must be implemented before January 2016. Railroads asserted that since the Rail Safety Improvement [...]
WASHINGTON — Late Friday, March 4, U.S. District Court Judge John Bates issued several rulings regarding the pending cases regarding the UTU and the Sheet Metal Workers International Association — SMWIA v. UTU and Murphy et al. v. SMWIA. Initially, Judge Bates gra [...]
WASHINGTON — Railroads soon will be required by the Federal Railroad Administration to establish toll-free telephone numbers to allow the public to report malfunctioning highway-rail grade-crossing warning signals, disabled vehicles blocking crossings and other unsafe c [...]
WASHINGTON — Mexican buses and trucks operated by Mexican drivers would be permitted to cross into and travel through the United States under an agreement reached March 3 between President Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon. Congress, however, must approve the [...]
WASHINGTON — Figures released by the Federal Railroad Administration for 2010 show that 20 rail employees — eight of them UTU members — died in on-duty accidents in 2010. There were 16 on-duty employee deaths in 2009 — eight being UTU members. Highway- [...]
Demonstrations continued in state capitals in Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin this week as extreme right-wing legislatures indicated no intention of giving ground in their union-busting efforts. UTU International President Mike Futhey, meeting with AFL-CIO officials in Washington [...]
Walt Barrows, secretary-treasurer of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen since 1999, has been nominated by President Obama to fill the labor chair on the three-member Railroad Retirement Board, succeeding Butch Speakman, who is retiring. The nomination requires Senate confi [...]
WASHINGTON — President Obama Feb. 23 named BNSF CEO Matt Rose, AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka and United Food and Commercial Workers’ Secretary-Treasurer Joseph Hansen to the White House Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. The three join a long list of mostly busi [...]
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