Admin

WASHINGTON – Greg Regan and Shari Semelsberger, President and Secretary-Treasurer of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD), issued this statement in response to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s announcement of funding for the revised Low or No Emission Grant Program and the Grants for Buses and Bus Facilities Competitive Program: “We applaud the Department of […]

On February 1, 2022, BNSF Railway implemented a new “Hi-Viz” attendance policy that betrays its obligation to protect the safety and health of its workers and the public. This draconian new policy will reduce the safety of the rail network and exacerbate existing supply chain challenges. We concur with the letter sent on January 31, 2022 by the BLET and SMART-TD, TTD affiliate unions, and hope you will examine this matter and its effects on impacted BNSF employees.

Most railroad engineers and trainmen do not work predictable schedules. They are expected to remain in on-call status continuously, without pause for weekends and holidays. This often means that a rail worker can learn at any time, with as little as 90 minutes of notice, that they are called to report to work for a shift lasting anywhere from 12 to 60 hours. The only mechanism that provided some degree of predictability to this arrangement was train line-ups, which indicated a loose likelihood of being called to duty, and were solely managed by the railroad. BNSF has admitted that this system was inadequate and poorly predicted workers’ schedules.

WASHINGTON – Greg Regan and Shari Semelsberger, President and Secretary-Treasurer of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD), issued this statement in response to President Biden’s first State of the Union (SOTU) address to the nation: “From the passage of the American Rescue Plan to the biggest investment in infrastructure in our nation’s history, the first year of the […]

TTD and our 36 affiliated unions proudly stand with the rest of the labor movement in honoring the contributions and achievements of Black Americans to our nation, past and present. Black History Month Profiles Several of our affiliated members were featured in the AFL-CIO’s Black History Month Profiles, including: International Association of Machinists and Aerospace […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A coalition of labor unions representing tens of thousands of airport passenger service agents, flight attendants, and other airline employees today urged Attorney General Merrick Garland to pursue federal criminal penalties against individuals who assault or interfere with passenger service agents. The coalition – which includes the Communications Workers of America (CWA), […]

As reported by Madeleine Ngo for the New York Times

A coalition of labor unions representing tens of thousands of airline industry workers urged the Justice Department to step up its prosecutions of unruly passengers on Thursday.

In a letter to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, the group asked the department to pursue and prioritize prosecutions of people who assault passenger service agents, many of whom have been attacked at airport gates, ticket and reservation areas and other airport locations during the pandemic.

The request comes at a turbulent time for the airline industry, which began to see a spike early last year in violent and disruptive passengers who have refused to follow Covid protocols and attempted to interfere with flight crew.

As Reported by Jessica Wehrman for Roll Call

Republicans and Democrats demonstrated a fundamental disagreement Tuesday on how best to address skyrocketing numbers of weapons being confiscated at airport security checkpoints, with Republicans arguing for more education and Democrats more inclined to embrace higher penalties for offenders.

While both parties agreed that the nearly 6,000 guns confiscated at airport security by Transportation Security Administration officers in 2021 was a problem, Republicans on the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security argued that most offenders were inadvertent offenders — people who had simply forgotten that they had a gun in their bag.

As Reported by Jennifer Shutt for News from the States

U.S. House members wrestled Tuesday with how to address a spike in travelers trying to bring firearms through airport screening points in carry-on bags.

During 2021, Transportation Security Administration officers detected 5,972 firearms at checkpoints, 86% of which were loaded. That number was up from the previous record of 4,432 discovered in 2019.

The Homeland Security Transportation and Maritime Security Subcommittee received several suggestions during its hearing about how to deal with this increase, though Democrats and Republicans differed on how best to reduce the number of passengers bringing guns to airports as well as their motivations.

As Reported by CBS Miami 

Representatives from Miami International Airport and Atlanta’s Hartfield-Jackson Airport testified before lawmakers in the House as part of a national effort to tackle the surge in weapons discovered at TSA checkpoints nationwide.

Last year, the U.S. broke a record for guns found in carry-on luggage. An alarmingly high number of those weapons were loaded.

As Reported by Lillianna Byington for Bloomberg Government

Higher fines, more signs, and a no-fly list could help deter passengers from bringing a rising number of guns to airport security checkpoints, airport executives, police, and lawmakers said.

Such incidents reached record levels over the last year and more needs to be done to stop them, witnesses told a House Homeland Security subcommittee hearing on Tuesday. Transportation Security Administration officers found 5,972 firearms at airport security checkpoints nationwide in 2021, about an 83% spike from the year before.