Category: Amtrak/Commuter

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Fight for our futures against labor’s enemies

June 7, 2011 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 [...]

Tags Amtrak, anti-union, collective bargaining defense fund, Hynes, Lenfest, Local 113, union busting, UTU PAC

Court: Cab cams don’t violate privacy

June 3, 2011 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, [...]

Tags BLET, FRA, inward-facing cameras, Metrolink, privacy, texting, video cameras

Transport-employee fatigue continues to kill

June 2, 2011 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 [...]

Tags designated legal counsel, fatigue, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, FMCSA, LaHood, National Transportation Safety Board, OSHA, whistleblower

Amtrak contract talks: June 2011 update

June 1, 2011 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 [...]

Tags Amtrak, bargaining sessions, collective bargaining, negotiations

RRB to withhold Medicare Parts C&D premiums

May 31, 2011 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 [...]

Tags deductions, Medicare, Railroad Retirement Board, RRB, withholdings

Union-busting efforts face glare of sunlight

May 31, 2011 Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis coined the term, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” Indeed, sunlight cast by labor-union members on the dark-of-night action by political extremists in the Wisconsin legislature is having a meaningful impact in Wiscons [...]

Tags anti-union, collective bargaining, collective bargaining defense fund, recalls, rights, union busting, Wisconsin

PTC installation could be trimmed 10,000 miles

May 27, 2011 WASHINGTON — The Obama administration suggests scaling back by 10,000 miles a federal mandate that positive train control (PTC) be installed on some 140,000 miles of freight and passenger track no later than Dec. 31, 2015. The 10,000 miles represents track over which fr [...]

Tags AAR, Association of American Railroads, crash-avoidance safety overlay system, federal mandate, National Transportation Safety Board, positive train control, PTC

Amtrak privatization scheme voiced in House

May 27, 2011 WASHINGTON — Two House Republicans with transportation oversight authority — House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) and Rail Subcommittee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) — want to transfer ownership of Amtrak’s No [...]

Tags Amtrak, Amtrak privatization, Congress, intercity rail passenger service, Northeast Corridor, ownership, privatization

CSX wreck claims 2; member loses limbs on BNSF

May 25, 2011 MINERAL SPRINGS, N.C. — CSX conductor Phillip E. Crawford Jr., 33, and locomotive engineer James Gregory Hadden, 36, were killed early May 24 in a rear-end collision here involving two CSX freight trains, according to news reports. Mineral Springs is some 30 miles south [...]

Tags accident, BNSF, collision, CSX, dead, FRA, injuries, killed, Local 970, National Transportation Safety Board, UP

At 97, former UTU president still leads fight

May 24, 2011 Former UTU International President Al Chesser (1972-1979) is now 97 years old, and the fire in his belly in support of organized labor has never dimmed. The following was written by Chesser in response to creation by President Mike Futhey of the Collective Bargaining Defense [...]

Tags anti-union, chesser, collective bargaining, collective bargaining defense fund, extremists, rights, union busting