Transportation Policy Working Group

The Global Labor Institute will organize five meetings of its Transportation Policy Working Group during 2011.

The next meeting will be held in April in Washington, D.C. The agenda will focus on how to fund major transportation investments as well as the role of freight transport and efficient vehicles in a low-carbon transportation system.

Discussions at its meeting in February focused on aligning labor's 2030 vision for transportation with a joint strategy by labor and policy organizations to resist current cutbacks on transportation spending and public transit.

Passage of an effective federal Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act in 2011 was also part of the discussion at the Amalgamated Transit Union Headquarters, Washington, D.C., organizers said.  

Global Labor Institute Associate Director of Research Lara Skinner said, "The working group brings together unions and environmental and transportation policy organizations to discuss how transportation policy affects working families, unions and the environment."

"These diverse organizations all work on federal transportation policy, but typically have never worked collaboratively or even been in a meeting together," she said in an interview.

"Many programs in the Obama administration's 2012 budget were cut, but spending on transportation infrastructure was increased to act as a second stimulus plan," Skinner said.

"The administration has identified transportation as an area that can boost job creation, reduce emissions and congestion and improve working family's quality of life by increasing the affordability and accessibility of transportation options. These are areas where the Global Labor Institute is providing expertise and leadership nationally and internationally," she said.

Newly-elected Amalgamated Transit Union International President Larry Hanley and the union's Director of Government Affairs Jeff Rosenberg welcomed 30 members of the Transportation Policy Working Group to the February meeting.

Hanley opened the meeting by describing his union's plan to build a coalition of transit workers, environmentalists, transit riders and advocates.

"Mass transit is being dismantled at a time when some of us believe there are problems with our environment, that there is global warming, at a time when transit ridership levels are surging -- they are higher now than they’ve been in decades. Yet, we're seeing record layoffs, more layoffs in transit operating since we had in World War II," he said.

Hanley said public transportation has an important role to play in providing good jobs, reducing carbon emissions and providing Americans with greater mobility options.