ATU Action Weekly Update - 1/22/07

• Action Needed: Urge Congress to Fully Fund Transit
• ATU Int'l President George Urges Quick Action on Transit Security
• President Bush to Propose Health Care Initiative
• Tell Your Senators to Raise the Minimum Wage

Although Democrats are now in full control of Congress, the damage left behind by years of Republican leadership is being felt in many areas, especially transportation.

Republicans, who controlled both the U.S. House and Senate until January, ended the 109th Congress having completed work on only two of the 13 appropriations bills needed to fund the government for fiscal year (FY) 2007, which began last October. Faced with mopping up that budget mess, Democrats have said they will enact a year long continuing resolution, freezing governmental spending at current levels. According to the new leadership, this is necessary for the Democrats to start fresh on their ambitious legislative agenda and begin consideration of FY 2008 appropriations bills.

If Congress freezes funding at the FY 2006 level, investment in the federal transit program would fall $470 million short of levels authorized and guaranteed under SAFETEA-LU, the five-year transit bill passed in 2005.

Appropriations leaders plan to act quickly on this issue. Please contact your representatives in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives immediately and urge them to support full funding of the transit program in the forthcoming full-year FY 2007 continuing resolution at the levels authorized and guaranteed under SAFETEA-LU. Ask them to fund the federal transit program at the $8.975 billion level. Make sure to explain how a freeze in funding would impact your transit system and your community.

ATU Int'l President George Urges Quick Action on Transit Security

"We need to take action now to address the security needs of the transit industry - and most importantly to train the workers in this industry," said ATU International President Warren S. George before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs on January 18, 2007.

President George was one of five witnesses that appeared before the Senate committee at a hearing entitled, "Examining the State of Transit Security." The other witnesses included Bill Millar, President of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA); Aurelio Rojo Garrido, Operational Director for Metro Madrid; Dannel P. Malloy, Mayor of Stanford, CT; and Tim O’Toole, Managing Director of Transport for the City of London.

The hearing was the first of the year for the Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over transit issues. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), who recently assumed the chairmanship of the committee, stated that he choose transit security as the subject of the first hearing because "the safety of more than fourteen million Americans and the prosperity of our nation is at stake."

President George's testimony stressed the importance of training all frontline transit employees on security and emergency response protocols and procedures.  All of the witness concurred with President George that training is the most important security measure that a transit agency can take.

For more on President George's testimony and the hearing, check out the next edition of In Transit and stay posted to the ATU website for future updates on this issue.

President Bush to Propose Health Care Initiative

Tomorrow President Bush will give his annual state of the union address.  Among the many high profile proposals he will set forth will be a plan that would tax health insurance plans costing more than $15,000.  Revenue from this tax would offset tax breaks for individuals who buy their own plans.  Problem is, most people who buy their own plans are the self-employed and small business owners, not the uninsured poor who can't afford insurance regardless of any tax incentive.

President Bush's plan would do nothing to assist the 46 million Americans currently without health insurance.  The ATU, along with others in labor, will continue to push Congress to seek real, comprehensive solutions to our nations' health care crisis.

Tell Your Senators to Raise the Minimum Wage

The U.S. House passed the a clean bill to raise the minimum wage and now the bill is being considered in the U.S. Senate. 

With your help, we can hold the new Congress to its promise to make a minimum wage increase—with no anti-worker strings attached—one of its first priorities. As lawmakers receive thousands of messages from working family activists like you around the country, please add your voice.