UTU Local 426 Archived News.
08/22/06
UTU 426
ELECTIONS TO BE HELD THIS FALL
POSITIONS UP FOR ELECTION ARE: DELEGATE, ALTERNATE DELEGATE, LOCAL CHAIRMAN & VICE LOCAL CHAIRMAN
Nomination for delegate can be done one of two ways and by any active UTU 0426 member; five signatures from members with a member being nominated and delivered to the S&T on or before Oct 24, or a nomination can be made from the floor at the Oct. 24 monthly meeting.
Same process for local chairman, except that those nominating or being nominated must be in local committee they are nominating.
Mail ballots will then be distributed to all members for vote. Vote will be counted at regular November meeting, Nov. 28.
Those winning the election will assume their respective positions on Jan. 1, 2007.
Tellers will be assigned at the Sept. or Oct. meeting to handle the PO Box set up and ballot collection.
Monthly meeting held 4th Tuesday of each month, 1400 at the Thai Restaurant at the corner of Fancher and Broadway, upstairs.
Scoter Pischel
UTU 0426 S&T
08/16/06 URGENT!!!!!! Read Now! Respond Now! Read the actual Bill here
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Your help needed on legislation |
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WASHINGTON,
D.C. -- The UTU, with assistance from other labor
organizations, is on the road to solving a two-decades-old
problem that places an inequitable ceiling of just $400
monthly on outside earnings for anyone drawing a Railroad
Retirement disability annuity.
By contrast, those receiving disability benefits under Social Security can earn considerably more than $400 monthly -- and the Social Security earnings limitation increases every year under a cost-of-living adjustment. To help achieve the goal of increasing the Railroad Retirement earnings limitation for disability annuitants, it is essential that UTU members and retirees contact their lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives to ask them to co-sponsor H.R. 5483, which will be known as the Railroad Retirement Disability Earnings Act. This bill will raise the ceiling on outside earnings for those receiving Railroad Retirement disability annuities to $700 monthly. It would also include automatic yearly cost-of-living increases in the monthly earnings limitation. The yearly rate of increase would be the same as that for Social Security disability recipients. This is bi-partisan legislation. Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) and ranking Democrat James Oberstar of Minnesota, of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, have been joined by Chairman Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio) and ranking Democrat Corrine Brown of Florida, of the House Railroad Subcommittee, to introduce H.R. 5483. Please contact your congressman and ask that he/she cosponsor and support H.R. 5483; and that the congressman contact Chairman Young’s office to urge a markup to move this important legislation as soon as possible. The UTU had promised it would correct, at the first opportunity, this technical flaw that harms those receiving Railroad Retirement disability annuities. This is exactly what we are doing. To find the name, phone number and e-mail address of your congressman, go to the UTU home page at www.utu.org and left click, in the red column, on “Washington Updates.” Then scroll down and left click on “Contacting the Congress.” Then fill in your address, including zip code, and your congressman’s name will appear with contact information. You should only contact your congressional representative at this time and not your senators. |
08/02/06 Check out the Track Warrant - Protect Open Switch Briefing
08/02/06
The only throats railroads cut are their own By James Brunkenhoefer
National Legislative DirectorThe railroads dream of having a Bush Presidential Emergency Board.
It is their hope he would appoint Ann Coulter, Karl Rove and Frank Lorenzo, or people like them -- people who would just rubber stamp the railroads' demands to force one-person crews, impose massive pay cuts and force employees to shoulder most costs of health-care insurance.
The UTU is not alone in having problems with rail carriers. Their customers -- already forced to pay higher rates and accept reduced levels of service -- similarly are up in arms.
The railroads have had numerous hazmat-related accidents and derailments. The railroads say the answer is to require shippers to shoulder the cost of improved tank-car design and accept liability for hazmat accidents.
The railroads are targeting shippers as they are targeting employees, while resisting their own responsibility to improve training and reduce crew fatigue.
Rail management has forgotten the savings rail labor helped them achieve from Railroad Retirement reform, or the $180 million in annual savings from fuel-tax relief.
They forget how labor helped them defeat coal slurry pipelines, bigger trucks and reregulation.
Don't you find it mystifying that the railroads want our help at the same time they want to eliminate your job, cut your wages, raise your health-care costs and avoid improving training and reducing crew fatigue?
For years we have been told by carriers what would happen to us if the shippers advanced their own legislative agenda. The railroads say labor must stand shoulder to shoulder with them against the shippers -- that if the shippers succeed with their agenda, rail labor will suffer.
In fact, the carriers have been advancing an agenda to cut the throats of both their customers and their unionized employees.
Shippers are fighting back and have reached out to rail labor for support. As President Thompson said last month, "It is time now for the carriers to plow and plant their fields anew or reap the troubled harvest they previously sowed."
President Thompson and I met with hazmat shippers and will continue to meet with shipper groups. No longer should railroads expect the UTU to do their bidding while they plot against us.
As shippers go to Capitol Hill for solutions to railroad problems, the railroads may start regretting how they have been treating their employees. In fact, Matt Rose may regret the lies he has been telling about positive train control and how the experimental, unproven technology allows one-person crews.
The railroads now face the reality of the saying, "Live by the sword, die by the sword."