TTD in the news

Reported by John Oliver for HBO. John Oliver discusses freight trains and railroads, how they’ve put profits over safety, and, crucially, what shows he watched as a child that explain…everything.

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Reported by David Lassen for Trains. President Joe Biden and passenger rail advocates on Friday hailed announcement of two major Federal Railroad Administration programs — one providing $8.2 billion in grants for construction of passenger-focused projects [see “FRA announces $8.2 billion in Federal-State Partnership passenger grants,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 8, 2023] and the other…

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Reported by Joanna Marsh for Freightwaves. Prospects for rail safety legislation in Congress to move forward in the waning weeks of 2023 appear dim, given other pressing national issues and even “mental exhaustion” among politicians, according to a former U.S. Department of Transportation official who now heads a consulting firm. “I think the bottom line…

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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…

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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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