About NASHTU

About NASHTU

NASHTU’s roots extend back to 1999 when a number of unions and employee associations representing engineers and related professionals employed by state and local transportation departments throughout the country began to share information and discuss common issues and how to address them. NASHTU, the National Association of State Highway and Transportation Unions, has now grown into a coalition of 38 unions and affiliates from 20 states and the District of Columbia representing hundreds of thousands of state and locally employed public transportation workers throughout the United States.

The 11^th Annual NASHTU Conference was held April 27-29, 2010 in Washington, D.C. Conference participants from around the nation discussed local responses to state outsourcing policies, and heard from U.S. DOT Deputy Secretary John Porcari, Members of Congress, and other transportation experts. NASHTU members also met with their state’s Representatives and Senators to advocate safe and cost effective transportation solutions.

NASHTU is pursuing two important legislative proposals that are designed to protect public safety and tax dollars as the federal government and states embark on new or expanded transportation improvement programs.

The first legislative proposal is H.R. 2104 (Filner), which would require public employees to perform the inspection on all state and local transportation projects that utilize federal funds. On transportation projects, public inspectors ensure that construction standards are met, that projects meet safety requirements and that the materials used will stand the test of time. When the construction inspection function is outsourced, there is no representative of the public on the job site and private companies are left inspecting other private companies. Examples in which the lack of public inspection oversight has resulted in a threat to public safety, increased costs and project delays include including Boston’s “Big Dig” (where a concrete slab from a tunnel ceiling fell and killed a woman), the Los Angeles Red Line Subway (Hollywood Boulevard collapsed), the 8-805 Interchange in San Diego (10,000 defective welds on a seismic retrofit project), and many other projects.

NASHTU’s second legislative proposal will ensure taxpayers receive safe, high quality transportation services at the best possible price by requiring state and local transportation agencies to prepare a simple cost comparison prior to contracting for transportation services. Increasingly, transportation agencies are spending hundreds of millions of federal dollars on private contracts for architectural, engineering, construction inspection and related transportation services without determining if these contracts are cost effective, result in the construction of safe projects, or in any way serve the public interest. In state after state, independent and comparative analyses have determined that outsourcing engineering work and similar transportation functions costs significantly more than doing the work with public employees.

Each year, since 2000, NASHTU members have participated in a national conference in Washington D.C. to help its members learn more about federal practices and procedures and generate an exchange of ideas and possible solutions to common problems.

The annual conferences have demonstrated that outsourcing for engineering, technical, and other transportation services is a problem in nearly every state. By coming together and sharing strategies and perspectives, NASHTU can help each member union be more successful in its fight to limit outsourcing. Even though outsourcing has proven to be wasteful and inefficient, it has strong political and institutional support within state and local governments and transportation agencies.

The NASHTU attendees have heard from a variety of speakers over the years including: Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, Former Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta, Representatives James Oberstar, Peter DeFazio, Don Young, Stephen Lynch, Elijah Cummings, Robert Filner, Carolyn Kilpatrick, William Pascrell, Donna Edwards and Senators Amy Klobuchar, James Jeffords and Robert Menendez. John Horsley, Executive Director of AASHTO, and Ed Wytkind, President of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department have also addressed our Conference.

In 2002, NASHTU produced a highly acclaimed report Highway Robbery, which focused on the problems of outsourcing (fraud, inefficiency, and waste) from around the country and brought them together in one document.

In 2007, NASHTU released Highway Robbery II, an update of the 2002 report that highlights the enormous problems, including delays in project delivery, cost overruns, and reduced project safety that have been created in recent years when transportation agencies unnecessarily outsource design, construction management, and inspection on transportation projects.

For more information, please visit NASHTU’s website at www.nasthu.us or call 916-446-0584.

National Association of State Highway
and Transportation Unions
455 Capitol Mall, Suite 501
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-446-0584 | Fax: 916-446-0489