WASHINGTON, DC – Transportation union leaders yesterday endorsed the President’s transportation jobs bill, which builds on President Obama’s legacy of using investments in transportation as important pillars of economic policy. In their annual fall meeting Thursday, leaders of the 32 unions that form the Executive Committee of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD) vowed to push jobs creating legislation forward and to defend federal and postal workers from unprecedented attacks on their jobs, pensions and rights.
“With unemployment over 9 percent and our economy still teetering, we need to invest now in a plan to create millions of jobs, repair our nation’s crumbling infrastructure and maintain a first-class transportation network,” said TTD President Edward Wytkind. “We commend the President for challenging Congress to pass his jobs bill now and we will push lawmakers to end the partisan bickering and pass this plan.”
The TTD Executive Committee welcomed guest speakers Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), the ranking Democrat on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee; Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH); Jason Furman, Deputy Director of the National Economic Council; and Polly Trottenberg, Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy at the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The TTD Executive Committee also focused on the need to complete the stalled multi-year Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill, already extended 22 times, to turn back attempts to repeal the National Mediation Board’s union election rules, to reauthorize the surface transportation bill and to stop the anticipated legislative attacks on longstanding worker protections in our laws.
“This era of transportation budget cutting, outsourcing and privatizing is threatening our economy and your members’ jobs,” said Rep. Rahall. “We stand with you against the House Republican agenda to use transportation legislation to attack collective bargaining and organizing rights.”
“It is time to pass a multi-year FAA bill that doesn’t attack the rights of working men and women,” Rep. LaTourette told the Executive Committee. “Your agenda to push for long overdue transportation investments and create millions of jobs is my agenda. We can’t cut our way to prosperity as some in this town want to do.”
The Executive Committee also discussed TTD plans to research and disseminate information on the transportation records of candidates in the 2012 presidential election and to educate transportation workers on what’s at stake next November.
To read the Executive Committee policy statements as adopted and for additional information on TTD’s policy agenda, click here.
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The Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO, represents 32 member unions in the aviation, rail, transit, motor carrier, highway, longshore, maritime and related industries. For more information, visit us at ttd.org or on Facebook and Twitter.
