News and Media

Reported by Josh Funk for AP News.

Railroad workers who are fed up with demanding work schedules and disappointed in the contract they received aired their frustrations this week at rallies across the country and in a leadership vote at one of their biggest unions.

Workers gathered in Washington D.C. and nearly a dozen other locations across the country Tuesday to emphasize their quality of life concerns and fight for paid sick leave after Congress intervened in the stalled contract talks earlier this month and imposed a deal on four unions that had rejected it. And thousands of engineers voted to oust their long-time union president although that result won’t be final until next week.

WASHINGTON – Rail workers, union leaders, and Members of Congress rallied in front of the U.S. Capitol yesterday in support of freight rail industry reforms, including paid sick leave for workers, a two-person crew staffing minimum on trains, and an end to the Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) business model, which has pushed the supply chain […]

Reported by Marco Raimondi for RailFreight.Com.

The Transportation Trades Department (TTD) said that rail workers will rally in front of the US Capitol on Tuesday, 13 December, between 1 and 3 pm (GMT -5). The initiative will take place to address the issues within the freight rail industry that are causing general discontent among the workers. More solidarity rallies are scheduled all over the country as well.

The International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers’ Transportation Division (SMART-TD) is also organising solidarity rallies all over the country. More gatherings are in fact planned in Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Utah, and Wyoming.

Reported by Joanna Marsh for Freightwaves.

The drama about whether union members would go on strike has passed, with Congress passing legislation and President Joe Biden signing that legislation requiring all unions to ratify the labor agreement that union and railroad negotiators reached in September.

But the battle scars still remain and those scars must be healed in order for the rail industry not only to fully restore service levels but also to thrive and assume the role as a vital and necessary freight transportation mode.

“If railroads want to be serious about addressing these issues that the members so vocally stated were a problem during these past three years, that would be a welcome change. … If they want to start to build employee morale, they should proactively reach out,” said Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades Department, which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO.

WASHINGTON — Greg Regan and Shari Semelsberger, President and Secretary-Treasurer of the Transportation Trades Department (TTD) of the AFL-CIO, issued this statement after the Senate confirmation of Shailen Bhatt as Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration: “We congratulate Mr. Bhatt on his return to the Department of Transportation and welcome his expertise as the former […]

Reported by Darrell Berkheimer for The Union. 

Yes, the federally-suppressed rail strike would have created economic chaos and cost Americans billions of dollars daily. But have we neglected to identify the culprits that created reasons for the strike?

The forced settlement cheats many rail employees of needed sick leave and fails to adequately address bare-bones train staffing that created unsafe conditions.

Reported by Peter Coy for The New York Times. (Opinion)

I haven’t operated a railroad since I got a Lionel train set for Christmas decades ago, but even I can see that something is wrong. Railroads in North America are struggling to keep trains moving. Shippers are furious over delays. Workers are unhappy about inflexible leave policies. Congress had to impose a labor agreement to prevent a nationwide rail shutdown, which might have started today.

You may have heard or read that a root cause of the problems is something called precision scheduled railroading. That’s not entirely true. In concept, precision scheduled railroading has the potential to benefit not just railroads but shippers and workers as well. Its first principle is to stick to a schedule for delivering freight, the way passenger trains stick to a schedule for delivering people. In short, “Do what you say you’re going to do.”

Washington, D.C. – The Transportation Trades Department (TTD) of the AFL-CIO today released the following statement on behalf of rail unions regarding next steps in our push forward on reforms to a freight rail industry that is failing its workers and the American people: “Across this nation, the American people have been awakened to the importance […]

MSNBC Video.

President of the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO Greg Regan joins to share how the rank-and-file rail workers are reacting to the bill signed by President Biden set to avert a nationwide rail strike, which doesn’t include paid sick time.

Reported by Sarah Zimmerman for SupplyChainDive.

President Joe Biden on Friday signed legislation imposing a labor agreement on rail workers, avoiding a national strike or lockout that was expected to cost the economy $2 billion a day.

“A rail shutdown would have devastated our economy,” the president said at a bill signing event. “Without freight rail, many of the U.S. industries would literally shut down.”