(The TTD issued the following news release on March 7.)
BAL HARBOUR, Fla. — Congress must not give in to White House pressure to scale back a major highway and transit jobs bill, AFL-CIO transportation union leaders said, adding that they were “baffled” by the President’s opposition to strong proposals to stimulate the economy and create badly needed jobs.
“It now falls on the House to show resolve and not acquiesce to unreasonable White House demands to pass a bill below the Senate funding levels – a move that would cost millions of jobs and shortchange our transportation system,” the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department (TTD) said. For every $1 billion invested in transportation infrastructure 47,000 jobs are created.
In other actions at the meeting, TTD said that despite over two years passing since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the federal government has yet to require rigorous and mandatory anti-terrorism training for flight attendants. While there have been several attempts to do this, TTD member unions said that airline lobbyists have watered down the requirements, leaving the airlines with “free range to skirt their responsibility to provide flight attendants with the type of uniform security training they so desperately need.” The statement said that strong federal action is needed to keep airline management from offering “only the bare minimum” for its workers.
Addressing the over 250 accidents in recent years involving remote control operations of locomotives, TTD said that the Bush administration’s refusal to “issues rules that will properly limit and regulate this dangerous practice… places all rail workers at risk of injury and death.” In a statement, the transportation unions assailed the “the foot dragging and delay” of the Federal Railroad Administration, saying that the agency’s conclusion that remote control operations are safe is based on flawed, self-reported data by railroad corporations who strongly support remote control.
Commenting on pending pension reform legislation before Congress, TTD urged swift passage of a bill addressing the recent losses by multi-employer and single-employer defined-benefit pension plans due to a “perfect storm” of stock market and interest rate declines. The legislation would also provide relief for a benefit plan jointly administered by Greyhound and the Amalgamated Transit Union whose unique circumstances now require a legislative remedy. TTD said that the bill “will provide much needed pension stability and facilitate the continuation of defined benefit plans for all workers in the transportation industry.”
“Foreign controlled terminal operators continue to resist measures that would greatly enhance the security of the infrastructure at seaports, our seaport workers and the people living in the neighboring communities,” a unanimously-passed TTD statement on port security declared. Transportation unions described the ways in which port operators undermine efforts to inspect cargo, particularly the seals on containers coming off of foreign ships as well as attempts to more closely monitor the shipment of empty containers.
TTD called upon Congress and the Administration to adequately fund programs to ensure safe helicopter operations in the Gulf of Mexico. As offshore oil and natural gas exploration pushes deeper into the Gulf of Mexico, air traffic infrastructure – such as radio repeater facilities and automated weather observation stations – have not kept up, “placing helicopter pilots and their passengers in great danger.” In addition to expanded federal funding for these programs, the unions of the TTD urged greater cooperation among the Departments of Commerce, Homeland Security, and Transportation.