Transportation News

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FAA: Serious runway incursions halved

Serious runway incursions halved, says FAA Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Randy Babbitt says the number of serious runway incursions during the past 12 months at the nation’s airports dropped 50 percent from a similar 12-month period ending Sept. 30, 2009, the [...]

UTU Local 1741 opposes school bus cuts

SAN FRANCISCO – With the San Francisco Unified School District facing a deficit of $113 million over the next two school years, a decision is looming to cut the number of buses to save money. UTU Local 1741 officer Paul Stein was quick to intervene, telling the San Francisco [...]

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 [...]

Progressive approach to PTC in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES — A former Federal Railroad Administration chief safety officer, Jim Schultz, who later became a highly respected safety officer at CSX, is advising Los Angeles Metrolink as it moves to lead the rail industry in installing and implementing a positive train c [...]

UTU to Congress: ‘End air-employee abuse’

Airline pilots who sleep in the terminal because lodging is not provided? Flight attendants who can’t afford dental care and have used Super Glue to mend a broken tooth? Pilots and flight attendants who qualify for food-stamps? For airline pilots and flight attendants employe [...]

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 [...]

Republican lawyer nominated for NMB

WASHINGTON – President Obama has nominated Republican Thomas M. Beck, an attorney, to succeed Republican Elizabeth Dougherty on the three-member National Mediation Board. The nomination requires Senate confirmation, and a confirmation hearing before the Senate Labor Committee [...]

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 [...]

We are monitoring bus-belt regulations

By Calvin StudivantAlternate vice president, Bus Department Newly manufactured motorcoaches would be required to have lap-shoulder seat belts – and older motorcoaches might be required to add them – under proposals from the U.S. DOT that are open for public comment. The feder [...]

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 [...]