The National Transportation Safety Board’s ruling last week on the need for cameras recording locomotive engineers as they work is an attack upon all working people.
The failure of rail labor to stick together and to build a common strategy and a common platform has historically been one of the greatest impediments to railroad workers achieving their goals. Read more about the co-ordinated bargaining campaign in the Fall 2009 Highball.
Heather Boehlke, widow of Jared Boehlke, locomotive remote control operator, who was killed on Mother's Day, 2009, appeals for support. Send your letter to Congressman James Oberstar, head of the House Transportation Committee.
Almost 12,000 signatures of railroad workers and spouses from all over the United States who say that now is the time to reform railroad retirement.
You can help with the campaign to reform Railroad Retirement. Download, print and circulate the RWU Reform Railroad Retirement RESOLUTION, FLYER and PETITION. You can write your labor leaders using the letter here.You can write your Congressional Representatives by going here.
The family of Jared Boehlke, the railroad remote control trainman whose death on Mother's Day this year caused a national response across the railroads of the USA, made a significant impact at this year's Capital District Labor Day picnic In particular Heather Boehlke, Jared's widow, made a speech to the crowd that left few unmoved. She got a promise from several politicians, including Congressman Paul Tonko that they would discuss with her needed legal reforms on the issue of remote control and one person crews.
Pictures of the Boehlke family are here.
Politically, the time is ripe for this petition and we wholeheartedly applaud the initiative of Brothers Futhey and Rodzwicz. We hope this leads to many more such cooperative actions in the future. We also hope that the BLET and UTU are actively seeking the public support of the eleven other unions which represent rail workers in the US.
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Railroad Workers United urges all rail union members across the U.S. to join us in a show of SOLIDARITY by wearing a BLACK SHIRT to work on Friday, June 19th, Fathers Day Weekend.(Press Release Here)
A few weeks ago on Mother's Day, Conductor Jared Boehlke was killed in the line of duty while working RCO alone in Selkirk, NY. A few days later, signal maintainer John Pichalski, Jr. was killed in Middletown, Pa., while repairing a damaged railroad crossing. His death brought the total for 2009 to twelve.
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WASHINGTON - A special pension fund for railroad workers that was given permission during the Bush administration to invest its assets in the stock market lost more than a third of its value during a recent 18-month period, a loss that could influence an ongoing debate about how to keep government-affiliated retirement programs solvent.
