News and Media

Reported by Mark Gruenberg for People’s World. A major investigation by the news site ProPublica has—by sifting through thousands of documents, poring over 111 court cases over 15 years about safety issues, and interviewing hundreds of rail workers willing to talk—revealed in detail how the nation’s major freight railroads have put profits before safety, putting workers and…

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Reported by Mark Gruenberg for People’s World. Labor’s renewed activism and unionizing nationally not only wins battles for workers but also combats corporate greed and increasing income inequality, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, and Association of Flight Attendants-CWA President Sara Nelson told senators in mid-November. Fain summed up the progress by…

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Reported by Chris Isidore for CNN. Nearly 900,000 Americans sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner this week will have unions – and the double-digit pay increases they won – to thank. That’s how many unionized workers have won immediate pay hikes of 10% or more in just the last year, according to an analysis by CNN.…

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Reported by Progressive Railroading. The California High-Speed Rail Authority and 13 rail labor unions last week announced they’ve entered into an agreement in which the authority will use rail workers covered by federal rail labor laws in critical jobs once the high-speed trains begin to operate. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) ensures that “highly skilled…

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The Surface Transportation Board recently closed the comment period for rail stakeholders to file their thoughts on whether reciprocal switching should be considered as an option to address subpar rail service in the U.S. And among the thousands of pages in filings to the board about the issue were dozens of suggestions and questions. How…

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More than two dozen labor unions are calling on the federal government to rein in autonomous vehicles. In a letter to the Secretary of Transportation, the unions wrote that driverless vehicles are a menace to society. The unions say that federal officials should dig deep into the record and reliability of driverless vehicles. Unions have…

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On Nov. 8, 26 labor organizations asked the U.S. Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in a six-page letter to “take immediate action” to “end the unsafe operation of [automated driving system]-equipped vehicles on our roads.” Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, told Smart Cities Dive…

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