Policy

As you know, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act provided desperately needed support to keep public transportation services across the country from coming to a complete halt. To that end, your bold leadership has already protected hundreds of thousands of jobs and is ensuring that critical employees including health care workers, law enforcement personnel, and first responders can get to and from work each day in rural and urban communities alike. We write today to urge you to continue that leadership by including $32 billion in emergency supplemental funds for public transit in the next COVID response bill.

On behalf of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD) and our affiliated maritime unions whose members crew U.S.-flag seagoing vessels, we call on you to include emergency supplemental funding for the Maritime Security Program (MSP) and to amend cargo preference requirements in the next COVID-19 aid package. These proposals will help protect the jobs, wages, and benefits of U.S. mariners and support a critical sector of the economy.

On behalf of the Rail Labor Division of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO, the
American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association, the Association of American Railroads,
and the Teamsters Rail Conference, we thank the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate
for passage of the CARES Act. We are especially appreciative of your efforts to ensure that
railroad workers, through Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act (RUIA) enhancements, were
provided similar protections and benefits as other hardworking Americans during this pandemic.

Dear Leader McConnell, Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, and Leader McCarthy: On behalf of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD) and our 33 affiliated unions, whose members design, build, operate, and maintain every facet of our nation’s surface transportation network, we ask that you provide urgently needed supplemental funding in the next COVID-19 related emergency relief bill to help keep critical infrastructure projects across the country from grinding to a halt.

Every year on April 28th, we pause to commemorate Worker’s Memorial Day and to remember and honor those who have been killed or seriously injured on the job. This day has particular poignancy this year, as millions of essential workers put themselves in harm’s way and continue to do their jobs in order to help in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. That is why, on behalf of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD), and our 33 affiliated unions, I urge you to cosponsor H.R. 6559, the COVID-19 Every Worker Protection Act of 2020, which would require the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) to promulgate an emergency temporary standard (ETS) to protect workers from exposure to the coronavirus.

Dear Ms. Kelly: On behalf of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD), I call on the Department of Transportation to take immediate action to eliminate risks of COVID-19 contagion from continued random drug and alcohol testing of essential transportation workers. TTD consists of 33 affiliate unions representing workers in all modes of transportation covered by DOT’s drug and alcohol testing requirements, including those administered by FAA, FMCSA, FTA, FRA, PHMSA and USCG

Dear Secretaries Chao and Scalia: It has now been over a month since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak to be a pandemic. The United States alone has had over 670,000 confirmed cases and, tragically, over 34,000 deaths. Since this public health crisis began, TTD and our unions have consistently urged the federal government to take specific steps to protect frontline transportation workers and their families from exposure to this virus.

Dear Chairman Pallone and Ranking Member Walden: While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to present our country with unprecedented challenges, we urge you to continue to focus your attention on this ongoing public health and economic crisis. In particular, we believe that continued efforts to pass automated vehicle legislation at this critical juncture in world history would be a grave mistake.

Dear Administrator Batory: On March 13th, the FRA opened the Emergency Relief Docket (FRA-2020-0002) for Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), activating the provisions of 49 CFR § 211.45. These provisions grant the FRA wide latitude to expeditiously waive its regulations, including those that concern rail safety and the wellbeing and fair treatment of employees. For these reasons, we are carefully monitoring requests for relief made to the docket and may file additional comments on present or future petitions.

Stories of frontline public transportation workers contracting COVID-19 and tragically dying from the virus are already emerging around the country, and it will only get worse in the coming weeks and months. To ensure the best use of the emergency funding provided by the CARES Act and to protect the health and safety of the frontline workforce and traveling public, we request the following: