Previsich Operations center employees of South Florida Tri-Rail, who voted UTU “yes” early in 2011, have their first collective bargaining agreement in place. It provides for a signing bonus; an immediate wage increase, plus additional wage increases in 2012 and 2013; a 40-ho [...]
By Carl CochranUTU Alumni Association Coordinator So you’ve invested 40 years of your life working on the railroad or with a bus or transit agency. You paid your dues – figuratively and literally – to your employer and to your union. Maybe you were an officer in your local, o [...]
A safety advisory on autorack cars has been issued by the Association of American Railroads. Some of these cars have been found to have cut convenience handles, ladder rungs and/or fasteners missing from these devices. Convenience handles are those handles mounted on end door [...]
A former president of a UTU local, a former Railroad Retirement Board employee, two physicians and six workers retired from Long Island Rail Road have been charged by the federal government with criminal fraud involving allegedly false Long Island Rail Road employee occupatio [...]
BNSF reported a 9 percent improvement in profit for the third quarter 2011 versus the third quarter 2010. The third-quarter operating ratio of 71.7 percent was slightly higher than the 70.8 percent for third-quarter 2010. Operating ratio is a railroad’s operating expenses exp [...]
By BONNIE MORRAlternate Vice President, Bus Department As some in Congress seek to slash spending on public transit – the only affordable means for millions of Americans going to and from work – ridership is soaring. The American Public Transit Association says more than five [...]
Mike Futhey with Bill Lucy (For more than six decades, Bill Lucy has been a labor-union foot soldier. In 1968, as an officer of AFSCME Local 1733 in Memphis, Tenn., he collaborated with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the sanitation workers’ strike, during which Dr. King wa [...]
WASHINGTON – Deputy Federal Railroad Administrator Karen Rae is departing the agency Nov. 3 to rejoin the New York State government as deputy secretary of transportation in the office of New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Rae has been the number two to Administrator Josep [...]
Amtrak General Chairperson Dirk Sampson (GO 769), issued the following update on wage, benefits and work rules negotiations with Amtrak: “In continuing contract talks with Amtrak, we are striving to obtain an equitable agreement for our members. “We recently sent [...]
A benefit fund has been established for the family of Norfolk Southern conductor Christopher Ochoa, a member of UTU Local 1895, Chicago, who died Oct. 17. Ochoa is survived by his wife, Elly Medrano-Ochoa, and children: Daniel Medrano, age 15; Brian, age four; and twins Alexa [...]
