BNSF reported a 9 percent improvement in profit for the third quarter 2011 versus the third quarter 2010. The third-quarter operating ratio of 71.7 percent was slightly higher than the 70.8 percent for third-quarter 2010. Operating ratio is a railroad’s operating expenses exp [...]
By BONNIE MORRAlternate Vice President, Bus Department As some in Congress seek to slash spending on public transit – the only affordable means for millions of Americans going to and from work – ridership is soaring. The American Public Transit Association says more than five [...]
Mike Futhey with Bill Lucy (For more than six decades, Bill Lucy has been a labor-union foot soldier. In 1968, as an officer of AFSCME Local 1733 in Memphis, Tenn., he collaborated with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the sanitation workers’ strike, during which Dr. King wa [...]
WASHINGTON – Deputy Federal Railroad Administrator Karen Rae is departing the agency Nov. 3 to rejoin the New York State government as deputy secretary of transportation in the office of New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Rae has been the number two to Administrator Josep [...]
Amtrak General Chairperson Dirk Sampson (GO 769), issued the following update on wage, benefits and work rules negotiations with Amtrak: “In continuing contract talks with Amtrak, we are striving to obtain an equitable agreement for our members. “We recently sent [...]
A benefit fund has been established for the family of Norfolk Southern conductor Christopher Ochoa, a member of UTU Local 1895, Chicago, who died Oct. 17. Ochoa is survived by his wife, Elly Medrano-Ochoa, and children: Daniel Medrano, age 15; Brian, age four; and twins Alexa [...]
Retirees receiving Railroad Retirement Tier I or Social Security benefits will see their payments rise by 3.6 percent beginning Jan. 1 – the first increase in those benefit payments in two years. Increases in Railroad Retirement and Social Security benefits are tied to the De [...]
Some 430 UTU represented conductors and brakemen employed by Canadian National properties Wisconsin Central; Duluth, Winnipeg & Pacific (DW&P); and Duluth Missabe and Iron Range (DM&IR) have ratified an implementing agreement — effective Jan. 1 — cons [...]
LIMERICK, Maine – Former Alternate National Legislative Director Gene Plourd (1993-1997) died Oct. 15 at age 79. Plourd, 79, born in Providence, R.I., hired out on Maine Central Railroad in December 1954, and was promoted to fireman in 1955, and engineer in 1962. Early in his [...]
As the perfectly healthy man told the obituary editor of his local newspaper, “Reports of my demise are grossly exaggerated.” And so it is with the UTU Insurance Association (UTUIA) and the UTU’s Discipline Income Protection Plan (DIPP). Vicious and absolutely false rumors ar [...]
