National Transit Conference Draws Top Leaders To Discuss Labor-Management Solutions

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

Local and national labor leaders, academics, government officials, and private sector interests joined colleagues from 16 transit agencies and 18 transportation and workforce development organizations to learn from one another and foster innovative labor-management partnership solutions at the recent Making Connections national transit conference in Silver Spring. ATU Local 689 President Jackie Jeter, ATU President Larry Hanley and Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Rick Bloomingdale joined METRO General Manager Richard Sarles in welcoming 150 participants to the day-long conference, which featured workshops highlighting current hot topics within transit, including safety, marketing transit careers to a new generation, livability and sustainability, and federal transportation reauthorization, as well as how to get labor-management partnerships off the ground. Making Connections was hosted by the Transportation Learning Center, a nonprofit organization “dedicated to improving public transportation at the national level and within communities though a labor-management partnership approach that improves transit’s human capital.”  Conveners of this year’s conference included Wider Opportunities for Women, Keystone Development Partnership, the American Public Transportation Association, and Good Jobs First.