Transportation News

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Preserving Medicare: We have a role to play

Would you accept a job paying $1 million to count out $2 billion in $1 bills? Think again, because working a 40-hour week and counting out $1 per second, you would require 266 years to count out the $2 billion total. Now that you have an idea how much $2 billion is, consider [...]

UTU, TRRA seek anti-terrorist training grant

The UTU and the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis (TRRA) are jointly seeking an anti-terrorist security grant from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). If the grant is approved — with a DHS decision expected in August — the UTU and TRRA will collabo [...]

BNSF, UP target of price-fixing lawsuit

A mining and natural resources company, Oxbow Carbon and Minerals, has filed an antitrust suit against BNSF and Union Pacific, alleging the railroads have illegally fixed freight rates, in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, “to gouge customers.” Oxbow mines and ships coa [...]

Fight for our futures against labor’s enemies

UTU members are stepping up to the plate in the fight to preserve collective bargaining rights, Amtrak, workplace safety, Railroad Retirement, Social Security and Medicare by mounting a counter attack on political extremists intent on destroying organized labor and all it has [...]

Charlotte bus drivers vote ‘yes’ for UTU

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The 546 bus operators employed by Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) have voted by more than a 2-1 margin to return to the United Transportation Union. Calvin Studivant, alternate vice president of the UTU Bus Department, will now assist those bus op [...]

Court: Cab cams don’t violate privacy

LOS ANGELES — A lawsuit brought by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen against Los Angeles Metrolink to eliminate inward-facing video cameras in the cab has been dismissed by a judge here. Superior Court Judge Luis Lavin said the inward-facing cameras, [...]

Transport-employee fatigue continues to kill

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 [...]

Record pay boost in UTU tentative rail pact

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 [...]

Amtrak contract talks: June 2011 update

  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 [...]

RRB to withhold Medicare Parts C&D premiums

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 [...]