WASHINGTON — Democrats have finalized appointments to the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, whose ranking member is Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) Most transportation legislation affecting aviation, bus and rail originates in this committee. The Democratic mem [...]
Private sector and public sector union membership fell sharply in 2010, reports The New York Times. In the domestic private workforce, the percentage of workers represented by unions tumbled to 6.9 percent (from 7.2 percent in 2009), while in the public sector, the percentage [...]
SAN FRANCISCO — First Student school bus drivers here, represented by UTU Local 1741, have ratified a new wage and benefits agreement by a 72 percent majority. “Our strategy was to keep negotiations limited to economics because the work rules in our contract are t [...]
WASHINGTON — Rail traffic for the week ending Jan. 15 continued its upward climb, reports the Association of American Railroads. Carloads were up by 7.5 percent compared with the same week in 2010, and intermodal (trailers and containers on flat cars) showed a gain of 5 [...]
The UTU International is receiving questions about the quadrennial convention, Aug. 8-12, at the Westin Diplomat, Hollywood, Fla. Delegates will receive, by early April, a packet explaining room reservation procedures and other convention details. Room reservations will be ha [...]
On the same day (Jan. 20) Union Pacific reported record fourth quarter and record calendar year 2010 profits, UP Chairman Jim Young said he is headed to Washington to meet with President Obama’s economic advisers to oppose a congressional mandate that railroads implemen [...]
UTU member Patricia Smith, a conductor with the Port Authority Trans-Hudson Railway (PATH), has been elected general chairperson (GO 795, Local 1413, Jersey City, N.J.) — the first female general chairperson in the 103-year-history of PATH. A subsidiary of the Port Auth [...]
Decades ago, the chairman of New York Central Railroad complained that while freight could move cross country without being transferred from one boxcar to another, transcontinental passengers often had to change trains in Chicago. Even today, on Amtrak, passengers must change [...]
WASHINGTON — There is a lot of talk, hope and hype about high-speed rail in the United States, but savvy policy analysts, planners and economists expect only a very few of those projects to move forward in the near future. One such project high on the list of pragmatist [...]
WASHINGTON — Two friends of labor — Democratic Senators Kent Conrad (N.D.) and Joseph Lieberman (Conn.) — say they will retire at the end of the 112th Congress in 2012. Conrad is completing his fifth six-year term; Lieberman completing his fourth six-year te [...]
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