Get Updates


TTD in the news

DESPITE ADMINISTRATIVE EFFORTS, NO IMPROVEMENTS MADE FOR RAIL SAFETY

By Admin

President of the Transportation Trades Department, Greg Regan, joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast to discuss the ongoing battle for rail safety improvements, safety legislation and a high-speed rail system working with unions in California.

Rail safety is still a major concern for the TTD. Despite the best efforts of the administration and Railroad Safety Administration, until there can be actual legislation passed, Regan doesn’t believe changes will be made. The Rail Safety Act, is currently in the U.S. Senate, and is about two or three members shy of having the support needed to pass. Until the industry can put safety ahead of profits, the needed changes to make railroads safer won’t happen, he said.

Read More

ProPublica probe details how big railroads put profits before safety

By Admin

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 communities at risk.

The findings track what the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department has said for years. Its president, Greg Regan, has raised the rail safety issue and lobbied and testified often before federal officials and Congress about the safety hazards on the nation’s Class I big freight railroads.

Read More

Union leaders O’Brien, Nelson, Fain to Senate: Unionization battles corporate greed

By Admin

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 declaring, “In the past six months, we have begun to turn the tide in that class war—for the American worker.”

Read More

Unions are the strongest in decades. Nearly a million Americans got double-digit raises as a result

By Admin

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. […]

Read More

California authority, unions sign MOU for future high-speed rail system

By Admin

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 rail workers will perform traditional railroad work such as operating trains, engineering work, maintenance of equipment, dispatching, on-board service and clerical work, according to a press release issued by the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO.

Read More

STB gets earful on proposed rule for reciprocal switching

By Admin

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 can regulators create a formula that can recognize when subpar rail service has occurred but can also account for unusual circumstances such as flooding? Should reciprocal switching be an option provided to all shippers, including those that ship commodities that have historically been exempt from regulations, such as crushed stone or scrap metal? And how could reciprocal switching affect collective bargaining agreements?

STB will be mulling over these questions over the next several weeks. Meanwhile, stakeholders’ responses to the filings will be due Dec. 6.

Read More

Driverless vehicles are a menace to society, say labor unions

By Admin

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 “grave concerns”
The Transport Workers Union of America, Transportation Trades Department, International Brotherhood of Teamsters and about two dozen other unions outlined their worries to Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. Transportation Secretary, last Wednesday. “We write today to reiterate our grave safety concerns about the expanded testing and operation of automated driving system-equipped vehicles,” the letter read. “Given the recent surge in both the number of cities operating these vehicles on public streets and the number of crashes and safety incidents involving these vehicles, we urge you to take immediate action to bring long overdue federal leadership to this issue.”

Read More

‘End the unsafe operation’ of autonomous vehicles, union leaders tell US DOT

By Admin

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 that there is a need for federal leadership “as opposed to a patchwork of state and local laws” governing autonomous vehicles. Labor leaders also asked the DOT to update the department’s automated vehicle policy and to “reject the Trump Administration’s hands-off approach to regulating automated vehicles.”

In 2021, NHTSA ordered manufacturers and operators of vehicles equipped with advanced driver assistance systems, such as lane-centering and adaptive cruise control, to report all crashes involving these technologies. The following year, NHTSA reported 367 collisions, including six fatalities, over a 10-month period.

Read More

NEWS: Following I-95 Collapse, TTD Supports Bill to Make FTA Emergency Response Program Work Better

By Admin

WASHINGTON, DC – Pennsylvania U.S. Senator John Fetterman, along with fourteen Senate colleagues, today introduced the Transit Emergency Relief Act, a new bill to improve the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) Emergency Response (ER) Program. The bill would bring the FTA ER program into parity with the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) program that serves the same purpose for America’s […]

Read More

TTD Supports Letter Calling For Robust Investment In Passenger Rail To Connect Our Communities

By Admin

WASHINGTON, D.C. — This week, Rep. Emilia Sykes (OH-13) led a letter with Reps. Seth Moulton (MA-06), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01), Don Bacon (NE-02), and 74 additional House members to House and Senate leadership calling for any upcoming government funding package to include robust funding for Amtrak and its passenger rail services. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, […]

Read More