The nation’s major railroads have asked a federal court to permit them to violate existing collective bargaining agreements with the UTU and the BLET when the railroads implement new hours-of-service regulations that take effect July 16. The soon-to-be-implemented hour [...]
UTU Rail Safety Alert No. 1 (revised) (Following is the first safety alert, revised June 22, issued by the UTU’s recently appointed Rail Safety Task Force. UTU International President Mike Futhey appointed the task force in response to a sharp spike in railroad on-duty [...]
By Kim ThompsonUTU General Secretary & Treasurer Nobody spends someone else’s dollars as carefully as we spend our own. The UTU International leadership is especially sensitive to the fact that members entrust us with their own hard-earned dollars, and every member rightf [...]
WASHINGTON – The UTU and 30 other trade unions have jointly written members of Congress in opposition “to any proposal” that would pay for health care reform “by altering the tax treatment of employer-provided health care. “We believe this would be a step in the wrong directi [...]
WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration has issued an interpretation of its regulations on employer harassment and intimidation of injured employees — welcome pointers to help rail workers, injured on the job, know their rights. The interpretation focuses [...]
The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 provides that no later than April 2010, the FRA must conduct a rulemaking to determine the principles, elements and methods of conductor certification. The FRA says it is now prepared to move forward on that rulemaking with the assistan [...]
By UTU Assistant President Arty Martin As a union, we can’t make the economy better, but we always attempt to make life better for our members caught up in the downturn. Many younger members, having left non-railroad employment to take railroad jobs, have now found themselves [...]
By International President Mike Futhey Compromise is the art of successful negotiations. But when one party goes to the negotiating table unwilling to compromise, the results can be unpleasant for both, and produce a result that might not be the best choice. Such was the case [...]
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which was signed into law by President Obama on Feb. 17, 2009, may temporarily reduce the premium you have to pay to purchase Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) continuation coverage under the medi [...]
Aetna has corrected the coordination-of-benefits policy of the national dental plan it administers for UTU members employed on freight railroads and Amtrak. The change applies only where Aetna is the secondary payer and the primary payer is another dental-insurance plan. An a [...]
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