The new tax law excludes millions of airline workers, railroad workers, and other transportation-related workers from President Donald Trump’s “no tax on overtime” promise, and the Transport Workers Union is urging congressional leaders to make changes.
TWU International President John Samuelsen is urging lawmakers to correct an unintentional mistake in the law’s language that ends up harming hardworking, blue-collar workers.
“It’s a legislative blunder and a political blunder,” Samuelsen said. “This will become a huge political issue, particularly for the Republicans, if it’s not fixed.”
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA) revised the tax code, allowing most hourly workers to deduct up to $25,000 in overtime pay from their yearly income for tax purposes. Congress passed the bill on July 3. However, the revision relies on an outdated definition of overtime dating back to the Fair Labor Standards Act, or FSLA, that was signed into law in 1938. As a result, an estimated 3 million workers were unintentionally excluded. They include workers employed by airlines, railroads, school bus companies, and motor coach carriers.
One of the workers hit by the tax law quirk is Chris Comeau, a TWU member in Massachusetts who works 20 to 30 hours of overtime most weeks cleaning commuter trains. Comeau was hoping the break could save him thousands of dollars but is disappointed that rail workers won’t qualify.
Twenty unions and affiliates signed a letter sent on July 21 to House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urging them to make changes.
“This is just the beginning of our efforts,” Samuelsen said. “We will be leading the charge on this until all our members get what they deserve.”
“Providing tax relief to blue-collar workers is a great idea,” Samuelsen said. “They deserve it much more than greedy corporate giants and hedge-fund vultures who never get their hands dirty or have to lift anything heavier than a cocktail. All blue-collar workers, however, must be deemed eligible.”
Read coverage in the Wall Street Journal on the issue.
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The TWU represents more than 160,000 workers across the airline, railroad, transit, universities, utilities and service sectors. The TWU is the largest airline workers union in the United States.