A guide to RR Medicare’s voice-responsive phone line

You need to know more about your Railroad Medicare benefits or specific claims.  Sometimes you’d like to find the information on your own, and other times, you want to speak with a Customer Service Representative (CSR).  Railroad Medicare, administered by Palmetto GBA, gives [...]

Conductors, engineers deal with trauma

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In the last three years in Duval County, four people have been killed walking on railroad tracks. That number may seem pretty small, but there are the unseen victims to consider in these cases as well: The men and women who have to witness a train k [...]

Wash., Mo., Va. legislative updates

Transportation funding in Missouri has been a hot topic at the state capital this session, State Legislative Director Ken Menges reports. In its last session, the Missouri legislature appointed a committee to study the state’s transportation needs and UTU was invited and made [...]

UP posts ‘most profitable year’ in history

(By M.J. Clark for Wyoming Business Report) Wyoming’s main rail line, Union Pacific, reported net income of $3.9 billion in 2012, which makes 2012 “Union Pacific’s most profitable year in our 150-year history,” Jack Koraleski, UP’s CEO said in a [...]

Negotiations with Amtrak continue

Contract talks on Amtrak are continuing, General Chairperson Dirk Sampson reports.  “As these negotiations are ongoing and sensitive, I am not a liberty to release the details,” he said.  “My main priority with Amtrak is getting this contract settled,” [...]

Union membership slips after anti-labor attacks

The percentage of American workers in labor unions took an unusually large fall in 2012, dropping to 11.3 percent last year from 11.8 percent in 2011, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced. The total number of union members also took an unusually big drop, by 400,000, to 1 [...]

GO LIRR Sandy relief fund aids members

Days after super storm Sandy hit the New York Tri-State area, Long Island Rail Road GO LIRR General Chairperson Anthony Simon established the “UTU Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund” for Long Island Rail Road members in need. Through both mail-in and boots-on-the-ground donation cam [...]

NLC offers hazmat training for railroaders

The National Labor College will conduct regional hazardous materials training workshops for railroad workers at various locations throughout the United States in 2013. The first two workshops are five-day Hazardous Materials Chemical/Emergency Response Training Programs, that [...]