SMART UnionSUPERIOR, Wis. — A BNSF employee was killed at a taconite facility Dec. 1, reports the Duluth News-Tribune.
Kelly Yadron, 43, “was found pinned between two steel beams beside a conveyer belt,” a Superior fire chief told the newspaper. He was a member of the Transportation Communications Union.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the accident.
It has been fifty-five years since Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus — “an act that challenged the moral conscience of an entire nation,” said President Obama Dec. 1 in honoring her legacy
Most historians date the beginning of the modern civil rights movement in the United States to Rosa Park’s act of courage on Dec. 1, 1955.
The Montgomery bus boycott lasted 382 days and brought Parks to the attention of the world. The Supreme Court subsequently struck down the Montgomery ordinance under which Parks had been fined, and outlawed racial segregation on public transportation.
Obama said the Montgomery bus boycott “marked a turning point in American history … and the eventual outlawing of racial segregation and discrimination.
“Rosa Parks and the many other leaders and foot soldiers in that struggle for justice championed our founding principles of freedom and equality for all, and today, as we commemorate the anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, I encourage all Americans to honor their legacy — the legacy of Americans who marched bravely, worked tirelessly, and devoted their lives to the never-ending task of making our country a more perfect union,” said Obama.
In 1996, President Clinton presented Parks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She received a Congressional Gold Medal in 1999.
After her death in 2005, at age 92, Parks’ casket was placed in the rotunda of the United States Capitol for two days — making her the only the only woman and second African-American in American history to lie in state at the Capitol.
A Federal Railroad Administration safety specialist has been honored with an Excellence Award by the U.S. Department of Transportation for what Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called “his role in uncovering the widespread failure of a Class I railroad to maintain their fleet of equipment up to the federal standards.”
Honored was FRA Motive Power & Equipment Specialist Timothy McQuaid, assigned to the agency’s Region 4 office in Chicago. The railroad was CN, and the violations McQuaid documented occurred within Region 4, which includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
“Because of McQuaid’s efforts,” said LaHood, “the railroad committed to upgrading their inspection and oversight processes, improving safety on our nation’s freight corridors.”
According to the FRA, McQuaid “demonstrated superior initiative, leadership, and tenacious attention to duty in finding widespread failure of a Class 1 railroad to conduct proper mechanical inspections on their equipment and locomotives.
“Over the course of the past year, Mr. McQuaid reviewed hundreds of reports from his inspectors, studied the reports on mechanically caused accidents on the railroad, and conducted countless inspections across the region to determine, first hand, the widespread failure by the railroad to maintain their fleet of equipment up to federal standards,” said agency is honoring McQuaid.
“During 2009,” said the FRA, “Mr. McQuaid noticed an increase in the mechanically caused derailments on a Class 1 railroad. He deployed his inspectors to the key terminals, inspecting for the mechanical defects identified as the causes for the derailments.
“Inspecting after the railroad’s carmen had performed their mechanical inspection, Mr. McQuaid’s inspectors discovered a consistent failure on the railroad’s part to correctly identify and repair these defects. He personally conducted scores of inspections and interviews with employees to ascertain the level of managerial culpability. Following this preliminary phase of his fact finding mission, he thoroughly documented his findings and presented it to the railroad and to the regional FRA leadership.
“The railroad was not convinced of his findings, and dismissed the findings as ‘minor,'” said the FRA.
“In the face of these obstacles, Mr. McQuaid briefed his supervisor, recommended a series of mechanical audits to identify the breadth and scope of the non-compliance, and led a multi-state, multi-regional audit,” said the FRA. “After several audits spanning months and meetings with railroad officials, the railroad began to conduct their own internal audit to determine the seriousness of the offense.
“During a joint FRA-railroad senior management meeting, the railroad acknowledged the seriousness of their shortcomings, identified the need for improved training standards, focus on safety rather than performance, and began tracking all mechanical inspections performed by their personnel,” said the FRA. “In addition, the railroad has committed to upgrading their inspection and oversight processes.”
Concluded the FRA, “Mr. McQuaid’s thorough inspection and meticulous documentation of the audits and the findings were reviewed at the highest levels of FRA, and was the key factor in strengthening federal oversight of the railroad’s mechanical inspection process and implementation.”
WASHINGTON — Long term federal unemployment benefits expired Dec. 1 for hundreds of thousands of jobless as the lame-duck Congress failed to take action to extend them. Millions more will lose benefits if Congress does not act.
Federal unemployment benefits had begun after an initial 26 weeks of state-provided jobless benefits.
If Congress does not extend those federal benefits, the 26 weeks of state-provided unemployment benefits will be the maximum for most American jobless, although individual states can provide additional assistance.
The New York Times reported earlier this week that there are five applicants for every available job.
The Associated Press, quoting the National Employment Law Project, says 26 states will phase out extended benefits between Dec. 4 and Jan. 1.
Ten states, however, guarantee some extended benefits when unemployment is high, no matter what Congress does. They are Alaska, Connecticut, Kansas, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington state.
The Labor Department, according to the Associated Press, estimates that 635,000 jobless will lose federal unemployment benefits this week; an additional 1.6 million will lose them by Christmas; and 3.29 million jobless Americans will be cutoff by Jan. 29, if Congress does not act.
The Associated Press said that those who run out of jobless benefits must depend on food stamps. The number of food stamp recipients is already at a record-high 42.4 million, said the Associated Press.
Amtrak said that effective Dec. 15, it will accept unloaded guns in checked baggage at stations and on trains operating within the United States that offer checked baggage service.
This change in the Amtrak checked baggage policy is required by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2010, said Amtrak.
As not all Amtrak served stations or trains offer checked baggage service, Amtrak advises passengers seeking to travel with their firearms contact Amtrak for further information.
Under the law, passengers are required by law to notify Amtrak and declare that they will be checking firearms and/or ammunition no later than 24 hours before train departure.
All firearms (rifles, shotguns, handguns, starter pistols) must be unloaded and in an approved, locked hard-sided container. The passenger must have sole possession of the key or the combination for the lock to the container. Passengers failing to meet requirements for checking firearms will be denied transportation.
Click on the following link for more information on carrying firearms aboard Amtrak:
www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer/Page/1237748590271/1237748590271
Railroad Retirement payroll taxes will remain at 2010 levels in 2011, reports the Railroad Retirement Board.
For Tier I, carriers and employees each will pay 6.20 percent on a maximum of $106,800 of wages.
For Medicare, carriers and employees each will pay 1.45 percent on all wages.
For Tier II, carriers will pay 12.10 percent and employees 3.9 percent on a maximum of $79,200 of wages.
Shippers are increasingly abandoning all-truck movements for their freight in favor of rail intermodal (trailers and containers atop rail flat cars), reports the Journal of Commerce.
Journal of Commerce trucking editor Bill Cassidy writes, “Supermarkets and shopping malls don’t have rail sidings, truckers love to point out, but the intermodal industry is moving steadily closer to the store floor.”
Increased investments in improved port transfers and the growing fleet of 53-foot long domestic containers are creating what shippers call more “seamless” transportation — hence the move to intermodal, says the Journal of Commerce.
The Association of American Railroads reported last week that through the first 46 weeks of 2010, total intermodal loads are up 14.8 percent over a similar period in 2009.
The Association of American Railroads reports that through the first 46 weeks of 2010, total intermodal loads (trailers and containers atop rail flat cars) are up 14.8 percent over a similar period in 2009.
Intermodal loads on Class I railroads doubled from some 6 million in 1990 to more than 12 million in 2007. Although the economic downturn saw intermodal loads retreat to fewer than 10 million in 2009, they have resumed their upward climb, according to AAR statistics.
WASHINGTON – When the lame-duck Congress returns to the House and Senate floors Monday, Nov. 29, they will have until midnight Tuesday to prevent a lapse in federal long-term unemployment benefits.
If lawmakers in the House and Senate do not extend those federal unemployment benefits, some two million American workers will lose long-term unemployment benefits beginning Dec. 1.
Previous efforts to extend the benefits failed prior to the November elections as lawmakers fought over the broader question of whether to extend tax deductions for the wealthy.
In a Nov. 28 editorial, The New York Times termed the “lack of regard for working Americans” as “shocking.”
The New York Times warns that the question of “tax cuts for the rich are bound to drive and distort the debate again. Republicans and Democrats will almost certainly link the renewal of jobless benefits to an extension of the high-end Bush-era tax cuts. That would be a travesty. There is no good argument for letting jobless benefits expire, or for extending those cuts,” editorialized The New York Times.
The level of unemployment, says The New York Times in its editorial, is “the worst” in three decades, with 42 percent of almost 15 million jobless Americans unemployed for at least six months.
The UTU National Legislative Office and the AFL-CIO will continue a concerted effort to contact lawmakers urging that they put aside partisan differences and extend federal long-term unemployment benefits.
An agreement was reached with the carriers’ National Railway Labor Conference to extend until Dec. 31, 2010, the deadline for enrolling eligible dependent children for coverage under the National Railway Carriers and UTU Health and Welfare Plan (NRC/UTU) or the Railroad Employees National Health and Welfare Plan.
To obtain the enrollment packet or to obtain an enrollment form, call UnitedHealthcare’s Railroad Enrollment Service toll free at (800) 753-2692.
This form MUST BE COMPLETED AND RETURNED to the Railroad Enrollment Service with a postmark NO LATER THAN DEC. 31 to have your eligible dependent children covered for medical benefits after Jan. 1, 2011.
This will be the final opportunity to enroll you children. There will be NO FURTHER EXTENSIONS of the deadline.
Note that you will not be able to change your medical benefit plan administrator at this time. This extension is only to enroll eligible dependent children for coverage under the NRC/UTU Health and Welfare Plan or the National Railroad Employees Health and Welfare Plan.
One of the jewels of the Obama administration’s health care reform allows dependent children — even those employed, so long as they are not offered insurance by their own employer — to remain on a parent’s health care insurance plan until age 26, without regard to student, marital, residence or financial dependent status. To claim the benefit, eligible dependent children must be enrolled.
Again, to obtain the enrollment packet, or to obtain a form to complete and return — POSTMARKED NO LATER THAN DEC. 31, 2010 — call UnitedHealthcare’s Railroad Enrollment Service toll free at (800) 753-2692.
WASHINGTON — The outgoing chairman of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee – Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.), who was defeated in the Nov. 2 elections – fears increased polarization along party lines when the new Congress is seated in January.
In an interview published by cnn.com, Oberstar, who was known to exert great effort to reach bipartisan agreement, said:
“I think there will be a significant loss of ability to moderate and mediate and bring consensus together … what the election brought into the Republican Party are persons who are committed to the more extreme conservatism, and on the Democratic side those who are more hard-core liberals … governance is best when you govern from the center and reach out to bring the views of both sides to a compromise.”
Oberstar was not speaking about the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee leadership, where most transportation legislation affecting UTU airline, bus and rail members originates.
In fact, there was considerable bipartisan agreement among the T&I committee’s leadership under Oberstar’s chairmanship; and, previously, the chairmanship of now retired Republican Bud Shuster of Pennsylvania, when Oberstar was the ranking Democrat on the committee.
The new chairman of the T&I Committee will be nine-term House member John Mica (R-Fla.), who was the ranking Republican when Oberstar was chairman.
The ranking Democrat in the 2011-2012 Congress will be Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), a 17-term veteran who is respected for his efforts at seeking bipartisan consensus.
Oberstar, who will depart Congress Dec. 31, has served in the House for 18 two-year terms.