(The TTD issued the following on March 7.)
BAL HARBOUR, Fla. — President Bush “shortchanges major portions of our transportation system and misses a serious opportunity to rebuild the infrastructure of our nation, put people to work and invest in vital safety and homeland security measures,” through his Fiscal Year 2005 budget proposal, leaders of 35 AFL-CIO transportation unions said today, demanding that Congress reject these misguided proposals in favor of solid investments in jobs and transportation.
At its winter board meeting, the Executive Committee of the Transportation Trades Department (TTD) specifically condemned the Bush budget plan’s neglect of Amtrak, transit and highways, and the air traffic control system. The union officials also noted that several budget proposals directly contradict the Administration’s own policy goals.
TTD leaders said that the six-year highway and transit plan outlined in the Bush budget fails to, “advance aggressive federal policies and investments designed to create good jobs that support families and communities.” Moreover, the statement noted, the White House’s “political stunt” of threatening to veto a well-funded surface transportation bill may prevent completion of a highway and transit bill that, “will actually put Americans to work and rebuild America.”
Congress rejecting the White House funding plan for Amtrak, would in the words of AFL-CIO transportation leaders, begin to end “a 30-year starvation of Amtrak – for which workers have paid the highest price.” The statement strongly opposed a White House effort to hold 25 percent of Amtrak’s funding hostage until the railroad agrees to “reforms” which the unions said would slash service and jobs, pass costs onto the states, and begin the privatization of Amtrak.
TTD said a proposed 14 percent cut in Federal Aviation Administration funding for air traffic modernization is “bizarre” given the administration’s recent pledge to triple the capacity of the system in the next two decades. “Clearly both cuts and expansion cannot occur simultaneously, and we must interpret cuts to mean postponing and scaling back projects that would make air travel safer and more efficient,” the resolution stated.
Equally inconsistent, the transportation labor leaders stated, is while the White House places such a high priority on homeland security, the budget proposes to cut millions of dollars from crucial programs for local fire fighters, police and other emergency responders. “The needs of the men and women who are on the front lines in the event of a terrorist attack are inadequately addressed. This is especially critical to transportation workers who will forever remember that the 9/11 attacks and the immediate horrors faced by first responders in the hours and days that followed occurred in their workplace,” they said.
For a copy of the resolution, visit www.ttd.org
TTD represents 35 member unions in the aviation, rail, transit, trucking, highway, longshore, maritime and related industries. For more information, visit www.ttd.org