Last week, officials and members from TCU/IAM, the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and Unite-HERE banded together to lobby Congress on issues facing our members at Amtrak.
Each union focused their meetings on Members of Congress whose districts are near Amtrak onboard service crew bases. For TCU, however, our lobbying efforts ran the full gamut of issues facing our various crafts: the potential outsourcing of onboard service work, the closure and outsourcing of the Riverside, CA call center, the un-staffing of rural stations, and more.
[Click HERE to read the full Amtrak report]
TCU worked with TWU and Unite-HERE to draft a report detailing the numerous struggles of Amtrak employees under its new President and CEO Richard Anderson. Our message is simple: under Richard Anderson’s leadership, Amtrak has taken an anti-union, anti-worker stance, and labor relations are at an all-time low.
Richard Anderson has brought to Amtrak the same union-busting hostility he deployed as CEO of Delta Airlines. What was once a healthy working relationship where TCU was considered a partner and stakeholder by Amtrak, today has devolved into what can only be described as hostile.
TCU members are fed up, and this week’s advocacy was just the beginning of our efforts to educate all of Congress about what’s really going on at Amtrak.