TTD in the news

[By Keith Laing of The Hill] A prominent transportation union is defending concession workers on Amtrak after House Republicans sharply criticized the national passenger railway’s food and beverage service in a hearing this week. AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department President Ed Wytkind said Amtrak workers do “much more than sell you food. “Things happen on Amtrak […]

TTD President Ed Wytkind tells The Rick Smith Show that Mitt Romney does not understand that roads, bridges, seaports, airports, navigation channels and transit systems cost money and the businesses that use them don’t pay for them. The U.S. must invest in its infrastructure to move the economy forward. It was taxpayers who paid for […]

[By Keith Laing of The Hill] A prominent transportation union is sharply criticizing Mitt Romney for attacking President Obama’s statements about the government’s role in building public infrastructure, which the president argues is used by businesses to help them succeed. The presumptive GOP nominee has seized on a statement by Obama that business “didn’t build […]

[By Keith Laing of The Hill] A key transportation union is knocking a group of Republican governors for recent rejections of federal money that would have gone to large construction projects in their states. The AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department used California Gov. Jerry Brown’s (D) embrace of a proposed high-speed railway in his state to […]

[By Keith Laing of The Hill] House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) suggestion of a possible six-month highway bill extension last week is causing transportation observers to worry that a multi-year bill is now out-of-reach. A 47-member conference committee has been trying for a month to find a compromise between the House and Senate on a […]

[By Keith Laing of The Hill] The transportation sector added 36,000 jobs in the month of May, despite an overall increase in the national unemployment rate to 8.2 percent. Statistics released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the U.S. economy added only 69,000 jobs in May, but employment in the transportation industry increased […]

Hear TTD President Edward Wytkind live on the Leslie Marshall Show talk about the 9,600 passenger service workers at American Airlines who deserve the opportunity to hold a union election. Corporations such as AMR should not be able to game the system and use delay as a tactic.

[As posted by Ed Wytkind in The Huffington Post] Lawbreaker. That is exactly what we need to start calling American Airlines for its blatant refusal to proceed with a union election among its 9,600 passenger service agents that was legally and properly ordered by the National Mediation Board. The NMB needs to aggressively step in and […]

The committee of lawmakers appointed to negotiate a new federal highway bill will meet for the first time Tuesday, beginning their talks amid low expectations for a deal in a charged election-year environment. Many observers, including Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, have expressed doubt that Congress will pass a multiyear bill before the November election. But […]

[By Joan Lowy of the Associated Press] WASHINGTON (AP)—Defying expectations, Congress has reached the homestretch on a major overhaul of federal transportation programs that is critical if the nation is to avoid steep cutbacks in highway and transit aid. The bill is driven partly by election-year politics. Both Congress and President Barack Obama have made […]