TheTrucker.com: LaHood, Oberstar meet with national transportation union leaders

From TheTrucker.com:

Transportation union leaders met March 1 in their annual winter meeting and discussed their priority issues with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.  Leaders of the 32 unions that comprise the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO, discussed transportation investment, safety and security issues, and forged an agenda for 2009.  “The Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO is one of our most important partners in rebuilding America’s transportation infrastructure,” Secretary LaHood said.  “We are on the threshold of a transformational era in transportation.  We must craft a bold new programmatic and financing structure that will strengthen our economy and sustain our quality of life,” Chairman Oberstar said. “Transportation workers will again be where they have always been: on the front lines of this transformation.”  “America’s anemic economy is in need of serious job creation at a time when our transportation infrastructure is failing,” said Edward Wytkind, president of TTD. “With several key transportation bills to be updated in 2009, the stars are aligning to help break the cycle of underinvestment in America’s transportation system.”