Policy Statements

The importance of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) bargaining with its unions is the cornerstone of ensuring the national airspace system’s safety, efficiency, and well-being. The FAA’s highly skilled workforce relies on collective bargaining to advocate for fair compensation, equitable working conditions, and avenues for professional development. Through this process, unions provide valuable insights and […]

Airline pilots have spent decades focused on making airline operations the safest and most secure form of transportation in the world. Airline pilots work with stakeholders routinely to make commercial air transportation safer through improved training and human factors, enhanced technology, advancements in crew resource management, and the creation of positive safety culture. Today, some […]

The tragic collapse of the Francis Scott Key (FSK) Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, has highlighted the urgent need for stronger and vigorously enforced international maritime safety standards for cargo ships. Before the container ship MV Dali struck and destroyed the FSK Bridge, the Port of Baltimore played a crucial role in U.S. shipping routes, ranking […]

Extreme temperatures, largely resulting from global climate change, have become an unfortunate new normal for transportation workers. In fact, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that 2023 was the warmest year ever recorded.[1] It has become increasingly clear in recent years that extreme temperatures are not going away. Now more than ever, we must rise […]

The freight rail industry’s safety failures garnered national attention last year after the toxic East Palestine derailment, echoing an alarm that rail workers have sounded for years. Despite the calls for reform, Class I railroads continue right now to cut corners on safety and lay off the skilled workers that perform rail car and locomotive […]

Transportation labor unions recognize the serious impacts of climate change and the severe consequences if we fail to reduce our carbon footprint. Discussions about reducing emissions in the rail sector often focus on potential benefits from new technologies, without looking at the entire picture and ensuring that the impacted rail and manufacturing workers and communities […]

The Biden Administration has demonstrated its historic commitment to passenger rail, including high-speed rail, with a record level of investment through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) for passenger rail and billions of dollars of funding for key high-speed rail projects. There has never been a more pro-rail president than Joe Biden. To continue this momentum […]

Since their entry into the economy, transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft have expanded beyond ridesharing and food and package delivery to partnerships with transit and governmental agencies at the expense of taxpayers, all while continuing to invest millions of dollars into fighting efforts to ensure their drivers earn fair wages and benefits. […]

As Congress continues to review and update relevant laws governing commercial aviation programs for the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), we oppose any effort to increase the pilot retirement age from age 65 to age 67. Under U.S. law, commercial airline pilots employed by airlines[1] are required to retire at age 65.

Despite what special interests claim, raising the retirement age for airline pilots will not increase the supply of pilots. Doing so will put the United States in conflict with the mandates of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), force the reopening of hard-fought collective bargaining agreements, and create training backlogs that would imperil flight schedules and upend the entire U.S. national airspace system. Importantly, such a change has not been validated by the FAA or otherwise been studied in a satisfactory manner.

The United States is experiencing an acute shortage of professional mariners indispensable to U.S. national security, economic security, and humanitarian response efforts as a global peace leader. In 2017, the U.S. Maritime Administration found that the United States is approximately 1,800 mariners short of what is sufficient to mobilize a drawn-out military effort exceeding 4-6 months. Today, that number is much higher. With the war in Ukraine entering its second year and escalating U.S.-China tensions, the shortage of U.S. Merchant Mariners threatens U.S. national security. In a post-COVID-19 pandemic recovery, a whole-of-government approach is necessary to address significant maritime industry workforce concerns in recruitment and retention.

We call on Congress and the Biden Administration to implement aggressive strategies to resolve the mariner workforce gap by increasing enrollment at maritime academies and other maritime training institutions by breaking down financial barriers to entering the industry. Congress and the Biden Administration should increase student incentive payments for mariner education and training; subsidize expenses for academies and schools so costs are not shifted to the pockets of cadets and other entry-level mariners; and allow licensed and unlicensed merchant mariners to receive student loan forgiveness when they enter the workforce.