News and Media

Reported by Yahoo Finance.

AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department President Greg Regan joins Yahoo Finance Live to weigh in on how the union contract negotiations with railroads are proceeding, the issues at stake including wages and benefits, and the potential for work stoppage.

Reported by Pilar Wolfsteller for Flight Global.

A group of US unions has come out against raising the pilot retirement age from 65 currently – an idea that has been circulating in order to help alleviate the current pilot shortage.

In a letter to US senators on 19 July, the seven unions deny a shortage even exists, calling it a “false narrative” created by airlines and an “excuse for some airlines to water down pilot training requirements and flight experience time”.

Reported by George Anderson for Retail Wire.

President Joseph Biden last Friday stepped in with an executive order designed to keep freight rail workers from striking over the next 60 days.

Mr. Biden signed the action naming an emergency board of arbitrators that will help resolve disputes between the workers and their employers. The arbitrators have been tasked with coming up with recommendations for the parties to consider in an effort to find a middle ground that will avert a strike or further federal intervention.

Reported by Eleanor Mueller for Politico.

Congress passed long-fought-for provisions aimed at improving transit workplace safety as part of its bipartisan infrastructure bill in November, 20 months into a pandemic that saw violence against workers spike across industries. One requirement: that transit agencies and unions join forces to form safety planning committees.

But the agency responsible for implementing the language, the Federal Transit Administration, says it doesn’t plan to enforce the provisions until the end of 2022. And the group that represents transit agencies, the American Public Transit Association, is pushing to extend that timeline, which it says does not give its members enough time to pull together the requisite committees.

WASHINGTON – Greg Regan, President of the Transportation Trades Department (TTD) of the AFL-CIO, released the following statement in response to President Joe Biden’s Executive Order establishing a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB), which will delay any freight rail work stoppage or strike for 60 days upon taking effect Monday, July 18th. TTD is the nation’s largest transportation […]

Reported by Harrison Mantas for Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

President Joe Biden blocked a strike Friday by the nation’s railroad workers by naming a board to help resolve the dispute.

Rail labor unions were preparing to strike July 18 when a federally mandated “cooling off period” expired, however, Biden’s order extends that period for 60 days.

The board’s recommendations aren’t legally binding, but can serve as a jumping off point for compromise.

Reported by David Lassen for Trains.

Preventing a national rail strike that could have begun Monday, July 18, President Joe Biden has established a Presidential Emergency Board to investigate the ongoing dispute between railroads and workers.

Biden will name the members of the three-person board, whose members can not have any financial or other interest in either a rail labor organization or a railroad. The board will have 30 days from its establishment, effective Monday, to deliver a report recommending a resolution to the dispute. After that, the Railway Labor Act specifies there can be no work stoppage for another 30 days, except by agreement of both sides.

Reported by Joanna Marsh for Freightwaves.

President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order to establish an emergency board to handle an ongoing dispute between freight railroads and their unions over a new labor contract.

The board’s formation averts a potential strike by union members on Monday.

Reported by David C. Lester for RT&S.

RT&S reported earlier that we were running out of time to avoid a possible national rail labor strike beginning Monday, July 18. We can now report this potential strike has been averted.

President Biden issued an executive order creating a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) that will avoid a national rail strike and help railroads and their workers settle ongoing national labor negotiations and ultimately agree to a new contract.

Reported by Stas Margaronis for American Journal of  Transportation.

The head of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department (TTD) says a coalition of labor unions and shippers in agriculture, energy and chemicals supports giving the Surface Transportation Board stronger powers to regulate the nation’s railroads

In an interview with AJOT, Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO, representing U.S. transportation workers said: “If you would have asked me five years ago if my organization would be signing a joint statement of principles with shipping organizations, big agriculture, big energy and big chemical organizations I would have told you that you are out of your mind but that is what we have done here.”