On March 26, 2024, Local 18 (Wisconsin) members, family and friends attended the local’s eighth annual blood drive/SMART Army event at the union hall. Local 18 provided fresh grilled brats — cooked by retiree and SMART Army award-winner Kevin Turner — and refreshments to all who donated or attempted to donate. Twenty-three donations were made that day, potentially helping 53 people in need.
“We can’t say enough about how impressed we are by the support by our neighbors, members, family and friends to come out to donate to Local 18’s blood drive under the direction of the Versiti Blood Center,” said Local 18 Business Representative Steuart Wilson.
Local 36 apprentices Keira Krentz and Lilly Gibson attended Women’s Lobby Day at the Missouri Capitol on Wednesday, March 6. Both apprentices are pictured with Missouri AFL-CIO President Jacob Hummel and State Senator Elaine Gannon, a union-friendly Republican.
The SMART-TD Washington, DC, and Virginia State Legislative Boards (SLBs) met in Williamsburg, Va., on March 4th and 5th for their 2024 reorganization meeting. Ronnie Hobbs and Jarad Jackson were reelected as the Virginia and DC state legislative directors, respectively.
Preparing for the future of work isn’t new to SMART Local 33 in Cleveland. During the recession, contractors learned how HVAC Fire Life Safety skills could keep workers on the job while providing valuable services to commercial buildings in the area. With the pandemic in the rearview mirror, Local 33 hosted the National Energy Management Institute (NEMI) during a Ventilation Verification/Indoor Air Quality Awareness course on March 15.
With all the federal funding available — not just for schools, but for commercial and residential buildings too — Corey Beaubien, president and business manager of Local 33, and Lisa Davis, NEMI administrator, thought it was an opportune time to show the local’s sheet metal contractors that the work scope for Ventilation Verification/Indoor Air Quality isn’t just for TAB contractors.
“It’s a great way for people to continue their connection with their customers after the building is built by maintaining their contact through ongoing Ventilation Verification/Indoor Air Quality audits and monitoring,” Davis said. “In this way, the building owners not only get continuing increased indoor air quality throughout the life of the building, but the contractors are there to provide other services as well when other needs come up.”
NEMI, ITI and SMART contributed to the one-day course, which presented the scope of Ventilation Verification/Indoor Air Quality, challenged attendees to a hands-on portion and educated them on grant and funding opportunities as well as training and certification resources.
In addition to finding ways to keep workers on the job — just as educating contractors on fire life safety did in the 2010s — Ventilation Verification/Indoor Air Quality also opens doors for state and federal grants that fund renovations of a building’s HVAC system, Beaubien said.
“The class has generated interest. They had a better overall understanding about how it works, and that’s the beginning,” he added. “The class was meant to get the ball rolling.”
The skills needed to complete Ventilation Verification/Indoor Air Quality are typically taught during apprenticeship, and it doesn’t take TAB expertise to complete, which came as a surprise to some in attendance. Like fire life safety, this course showed contractors a different perspective — it’s a chance to get more work, but it’s also an opportunity to teach building owners of assisted living facilities, government and commercial buildings how to keep their buildings healthy and safe for their occupants, Beaubien said.
“Fire life safety was a big success. It was an idea to generate work opportunities but also to save lives,” he added. “This is another opportunity to educate contractors and the end users about what is going on above their ceilings.”
Davis added: “We are looking forward to assisting contractors and Local 33 with implementation of Ventilation Verification/Indoor Air Quality in their area, whether that looks like assisting them in helping their customers apply for grants or going after code or specification changes that would include a skilled, trained, certified workforce.”
SMART members across North America are living in extraordinary times. And nowhere are these extraordinary times, with all their challenges and opportunities, better exemplified than in Faribault, Minnesota, a town of approximately 25,000 people and the home of SMART Local 480.
An American flag flies over the shop floor as Local 480 members work at Daikin Applied.
In Faribault and nearby Owatonna, money from laws passed by the Biden administration has spurred a surge in demand at commercial HVAC manufacturer Daikin Applied, leading to an equivalent increase in workforce needs. Local 480, which represents production members, has responded by putting the pedal to the metal: organizing, recruiting and concocting innovative solutions to make sure they have the workers they need — both today, and for the long term.
“We’re growing way faster than anybody would’ve ever expected,” said Local 480 Business Manager Donavan Vierling.
Meeting the challenge
Approximately three years ago, Local 480 had 849 members across its signatory shops: Daikin Applied in Faribault and Owatonna, and Crown Cork and Seal in Faribault. Today, the local has around 1,250 members — and it’s expected to need 250 more at Daikin by the end of 2024.
“Our Daikin shops have really started to grow, especially with the money out there for COVID relief, from the CHIPS and Science Act, the infrastructure bill. The company has seen huge growth, and they’ve put a lot of money in their plants, technology, things like that,” said Local 480 Subsidized Organizer Billy Dyrdahl, a third-generation sheet metal worker.
With the need for workers showing no signs of stopping, Dyrdahl and Local 480 have pulled out all the organizing stops: hand billing during shift changes at nonunion production shops, visiting workers at manufacturing plants that are closing, flyering at gas stations and much more. They’ve also worked with the company on retention efforts, ensuring new hires know all the benefits provided by Daikin and by their union. Dyrdahl and the local even went so far as to contract with Strive Staffing, an agency that provides gateways to union jobs like those at the Minnesota Vikings and Twins stadiums, to reach potential new hires in the Twin Cities area.
The effort to meet Daikin’s demand has been a union-wide one. SMART Local 10, based out of the Twin Cities metro, has collaborated with Local 480 on various canvassing and flyering operations, including to fill workforce needs at Daikin. Plus, by working with SMART International Organizer Dan Kortte, Local 10 Business Manager Matt Fairbanks, Organizer Paul Martin and others, Local 480 recently helped Daikin complete a time-sensitive welding job by bringing on several Local 10 sheet metal workers from greater Minneapolis/St. Paul.
“The company originally figured it was going to be about a three-month project,” Vierling recalled. “These guys showed their skill and basically were done in half the time [Daikin] expected.”
The collaboration between Local 10 and Local 480 shows the industry-spanning solidarity of our union. It’s also helped provide new career pathways for SMART members across the state: Dyrdahl said Local 480 has worked with Local 10 to welcome building trades sheet metal workers who were seeking to work in a production environment.
Welcoming all members
Bringing new workers into Daikin is one thing; ensuring that the latest Local 480 members stay there is something else entirely.
“How do you onboard people and not turn everything into a complete revolving door? … Our challenge, as a union, is to make [new] people feel welcome,” Vierling explained.
For years, the demographics of Local 480 and the Daikin workforce were largely white and male. In recent decades, though, Faribault and Owatonna have welcomed a growing number of Latino/ Hispanic people and immigrants from Somalia, and the sheet metal industry at large has made strides to bring more women into the trade. Local 480 has acted accordingly – and in the true spirit of unionism — to make sure those workers have a better life.
“I’m seeing it right now: Daikin is growing, diversity-wise,” said Mustafa Jama, a Somali immigrant and 21-year SMART member. “They’re hiring all kinds of people, it doesn’t matter who you are. My department barely had female workers [when I started] … now, all through shifts, you will see at least 50% women, which is a good thing.”
This growth can take many forms, Jama, Vierling and Dyrdahl explained. One example: The Islam-practicing Somali American workers at Daikin originally ran into obstacles with management around break times and scheduling that accommodated their religious practice, which includes daily prayers and fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. Local 480 stood up for their newest members the same way they would for workers of any faith — negotiating with the company to devise break time flexibility and shift-scheduling that gives Muslim members the ability to break their fast at sundown during Ramadan, and including contract provisions that allow those same members to use time off to observe their religion.
Vierling and Dyrdahl are also supporting Recording Secretary Stephanie Bottke’s nascent efforts to form a Local 480 Women’s Committee — a development that will help women across all signatory shops gain a stronger support network (and assist as the local recruits more women moving forward). Bottke, a member of the SMART Recruitment and Retention Council, was inspired to take action by conversations with fellow SMART sisters across the union and by her own experience in the trade. Her early years were somewhat isolated, she said, particularly when she was pregnant and a working mother.
“I personally started on the shop floor at 19 years old. I raised a family on the shop floor,” Bottke recalled. “There weren’t resources available, or at least none that I knew of … about what was available to me as I was raising a family. The basic needs of nursing, time off work, those types of things.”
She hopes the Local 480 Women’s Committee will help provide her union sisters with mentors to turn to — and strengthen overall solidarity at the local by helping with recruiting and retention.
“Women come into our buildings not knowing that there are other women that are going to be supportive, and through a women’s committee we can definitely establish that support system,” Bottke said. “And I think through the women’s committee and establishing those early connections, it will help our general membership see that we can be stronger when we’re connected as a whole.”
Such changes are not without challenges. Jama, now a team lead, faced unacceptable discrimination when he first started as a coil assembler back in 2000 — and similar incidents have been reported more recently. In the same vein, some of Bottke’s first attempts at spreading awareness about the newly formed women’s committee were met with confusion at best, derision at worst.
But support from local union representatives and leaders has helped both Jama and Bottke continue on their trailblazing paths — and Dyrdahl, Vierling, Jama and Bottke all say that overcoming those difficulties and pursuing inclusive growth can only help Local 480 win stronger protections for all members moving forward.
“There’s a change, but that change came with sacrifice. People spoke up, and there were policy changes,” Jama emphasized.
“Having our local grow helps in all types of ways — including financially,” Dyrdahl added. “We can spend on lawyers when we need them for certain things. We are able to spend money to support our negotiating committee to really build up our contracts.”
Moving forward, Daikin continues to grow and require more workers. Local 480 is organizing accordingly, spreading the word to anyone who will listen: The union life is a better one for you and your family.
“Sometimes, union’s a bad word until people come and see what our benefit packages are and our wages,” Dyrdahl said. “Once we get them in the local, they’re pretty happy with it.”
For decades, high school guidance counselors, media outlets and policymakers pushed the idea that four-year college is the only path to prosperity for working families. And for decades, huge swaths of the American population have suffered as a result — while college is a great option for some, many others put themselves in debt only to pursue work unrelated to their degree.
Now, the narrative is changing: Americans once again realize the value of a union apprenticeship. And in the Portland, Oregon, area — thanks to a new outreach training program — Local 16 members are stepping up to help recruit the next generation of sheet metal workers into SMART.
“Outreach is not new, but when I took on the role as the training coordinator, we thought we’d love to get more people in the union involved with the message that we share,” said Ben Wood, training coordinator at Local 16’s Sheet Metal Institute (JATC).
“We had members reach out and say, ‘Are you attending these career fairs? Are you recruiting people from this school district or that school district?’ And we found that there’s no way for us or the JATC to cover everything, and we needed members’ help,” added Local 16 Regional Manager Brian Noble. “So, we thought that we should put together a training to show members and train them on how to do outreach, and make sure that they know everything that they need to relay to new people being recruited in.”
The local held its first outreach training in 2023, gathering around 20 members to go over the basics of outreach; provide accurate and up-to-date information about the trade, the union advantage, pay and benefits, and more; and to help members tailor their outreach to specific audiences. That includes high schools, career and technical education (CTE) programs and career fair attendees, Wood explained. But it also expands into other core recruiting populations, such as parents, formerly incarcerated people, career counselors and the like. There’s one goal across the board: to recruit any and everyone willing to do the work.
“The reality is that our trade should be something that anybody could see themselves doing,” he said. “It’s whether or not you want to do, and have an aptitude towards doing, construction-type work. You shouldn’t see it as whether or not you look a certain way, you have a certain gender or you came from a certain background.”
With the first class conducted, members have since fanned out to help recruit in the Portland area. The local provides each member with recruitment kits, including informational flyers, sheet metal trinkets, stickers and a welding simulator, as well as funds to cover any lost wages from time off work used to attend outreach events. The end result: Potential new recruits hear about the union sheet metal industry from those who are most familiar with the subject matter, and rank-and-file members get the chance to demonstrate the principle that every one of us is an organizer.
“It creates the membership involvement that in turn creates good mentors and gets people involved,” Noble concluded.
In Central Ohio, megaprojects are creating previously unheard-of amounts of work for SMART Local 24 members — putting sheet metal workers on jobsites, such as Intel’s chip factories, and creating urgent staffing needs. That’s a good problem to have, and it’s helping Local 24 recruit newly arrived migrant workers: giving them a pathway to the union-made American dream and strengthening SMART for the long haul.
“These projects are putting our members on the job, but they’re also giving us the chance to get out in our communities, bring people in and grow,” said Local 24 Business Manager/Financial Secretary- Treasurer Rodney French. “We’re proud to give our newest neighbors a shot at a career in our trade, and when we bring them onto the job, our members benefit. It’s been a great success.”
A Reuters article in May sent reporters to Columbus, Ohio, one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States, to chronicle how local unions are working to recruit and retain more and more members to build chip plants, EV battery factories and other megaprojects. Spurred by federal legislation like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act and Inflation Reduction Act, huge jobs are popping up left and right — and producing more open positions than locals can fill right away. In response, unions like Local 24 are organizing like never before, offering opportunities to any and all Ohioans willing to do the work.
One of those new Ohioans, Local 24 apprentice Jorge Herrera, is an asylum seeker who fled political violence in Nicaragua. His wife and children still live there, he told Reuters, and he hopes to bring them stateside if he’s awarded asylum. While Herrera doesn’t speak much English — another Spanish-speaking Local 24 apprentice, Sofia Mattern Mondragon, is able to help a bit on the jobsite — he has welding experience and was able to pass the apprenticeship test by using a translation app. Now, with a livable wage and union-won benefits, he can focus on learning the trade and building our country’s future alongside his fellow members.
Another new Local 24 apprentice, 45-year-old Ronal Pinto, previously worked in a Venezuelan aluminum foil factory as a mechanical engineer, according to Reuters. He fled for Chile, then four years later left to seek asylum in the U.S., landing in Columbus.
“The first two years were difficult, he said, with a string of temporary, low-paid jobs. Now, he feels like he has made it,” Reuters reported. “… On Saturdays, Pinto attends English classes at a nearby college. He is far from fluent, he said, but is working hard to improve. A few of his coworkers are trying to learn some Spanish to communicate with him, too, he said.”
Anti-worker forces often try to divide unions and workers by spreading false information about our brothers and sisters who come from other countries, including the pernicious lie that migrant workers steal jobs from Americans. The facts say otherwise. According to the Brookings Institution’s Tara Watson, referenced in the Reuters article, new migrant workers are actually expanding the American workforce: helping our economy grow without increasing inflation.
Moreover, French said, the lived experience of union members in Ohio tells an entirely different story than the one spun by anti-union and anti-immigrant entities. Despite differences in backgrounds, places of origin and languages spoken, workers like Herrera and Pinto are on the job side-by-side with their union brothers and sisters, working just as hard to get things done (and putting valuable contributions into local pension funds). It speaks to the core value and purpose of our union: United we bargain, divided we beg.
By bringing workers like Herrera and Pinto into SMART, we can only grow stronger, and it is imperative that locals take the steps to do just that: producing multilingual recruiting materials, partnering with local immigrant assistance organizations and much more. Most importantly, we need to make sure all members feel welcomed at the jobsite and in the union hall.
As 60-year-old Local 24 journey-worker Tim Lyman told Reuters, “… while communication can be tricky, ‘if they want to learn, I’ll teach them.’”
The Local 435 (Northern Fla.) JATC hosted the SMART Region III Apprenticeship Contest at its JATC on March 22–23, bringing together 27 contestants from nine local unions for a prestigious competition spanning two full days. The event showcased the talent and skills of apprentices from Locals 85 (Atlanta, Ga.), 435, 5 (East Tenn.), 441 (Mobile, Ala.), 177 (Nashville, Tenn.), 15 (Central Fla.), 32 (Southern Fla.), 4 (Memphis, Tenn.) and 399 (South Carolina), with a particular focus on core knowledge, reading plans and specifications using Procore, hand sketching and a shop project.
The apprentices were divided into different categories based on their level of training, with second-, third- and fourth-year participants representing their respective local unions. Each portion of the competition provided a unique challenge, testing the apprentices’ abilities in different aspects of sheet metal work.
The core knowledge test gauged the members’ understanding of fundamental principles and concepts in the field, ensuring they have a strong grasp of the basics. Reading plans and specifications using Procore required the apprentices to prove their proficiency in interpreting technical drawings and specifications — a crucial skill in the industry.
The hand sketch portion of the competition tested the apprentices’ creativity and ability to translate ideas onto paper, allowing them to display their design skills and attention to detail. Finally, the shop project segment challenged the apprentices to put their training into practice by completing a hands-on task, highlighting their practical skills and craftsmanship.
“Overall, the Region III Apprenticeship Contest was a valuable opportunity for apprentices to demonstrate their talents, learn from one another and gain recognition for their hard work and dedication to the sheet metal trade,” concluded Local 435 Business Manager Lance Fout.
Section 6 notices for national negotiations are not allowed to be served until November 1, 2024; however, these tentative agreements were reached on an individual carrier basis, rather than under the national umbrella. The tentative agreements, if ratified, would resolve the next round of national negotiations for SMART-MD and each respective rail carrier.
Each five-year tentative agreement provides for annual general wage increases — effective July 1st of each calendar year — totaling 17.5% (over 18.75% when compounded), as well as paid vacation days for new-hire employees and the accelerated qualification and accrual of paid vacation for tenured employees. There are also improvements to health and welfare benefits, including the extension of health and welfare coverage for surviving dependents, male sterilization procedures (i.e., vasectomy), as well as substantial increases for vision frame allowances from $115 to $250 every two years. In addition, the orthodontia lifetime maximum benefit would increase from $1,000 to $2,500 per covered individual.
The tentative agreements provide for a new individual employee-only health insurance benefits coverage that is not mandatory and will only apply to employees that select such coverage. Employees that select this new benefit will have a reduced monthly cost-share payment, capped at 10% of the carrier’s monthly payment rate. Employees that do not select the new individual employee-only health insurance benefit will continue to have their traditional employer-provided health insurance benefits, as well as a monthly cost-share payment of 15% of the carrier’s monthly payment rate. Employees that entirely opt out of their employer-provided coverage will now receive $200 per month instead of $100.
“These tentative agreements provide real wage increases and substantial improvements to paid time off that the railroads have historically fought us on, as well as improvements to health and welfare benefits with an added benefit option for those that want it,” said SMART Directing General Chairperson John McCloskey. “These tentative agreements, if ratified, take away the uncertainty of when the next round of national negotiations will be completed, and if and when annual pay increases will be implemented.”
“It is now up to the members to decide whether these agreements meet their standards,” added SMART General President Michael Coleman. “I know that all of SMART-MD, officers and staff, will be engaging with the members on each railroad property, answering questions and providing them with ratification material so they can make an informed decision.”
This is an overview of day four of the Third SMART General Convention. More details will be included in the Fall Members’ Journal.
Delegates to the 3rd SMART General Convention continued their work on Thursday, August 15, hearing from convention committees and SMART department directors on the state of our union, conducting convention business and hearing from guest speakers who remarked on the importance of solidarity as we move forward.
Helms demonstrates how solidarity strengthens our union
Thursday’s guest speakers came to Las Vegas from organizations that SMART has closely allied with for years.
SMART Convention delegates gave a warm welcome to Helmets to Hardhats Executive Director Martin Helms. SMART has partnered with Helmets to Hardhats, which works to bring United States military veterans into the unionized building trades, for more than 20 years.
In his remarks, Helms thanked SMART for playing its part by participating in Helmets to Hardhats and with programs like SMART Heroes — which offers accelerated first-year apprenticeship training to those exiting the U.S. military — while urging members to keep up the work. SMART had the third-highest number of “known successful transitions” (Helmets to Hardhats applicants who successfully begin their career in the building trades) in 2023, and is on pace to garner even more interest in 2024. Helms implored any delegates present who aren’t already working with Helmets to Hardhats to get involved.
“SMART and Helmets to Hardhats are amazing teams,” he concluded. “Thank you for the last two decades of collaboration. I am motivated by what the future holds, and the H2H team looks forward to working with each one of you to increase our veteran recruitment. Thank you, God bless, and let’s continue to build America!”
SMACNA leaders: Progress can only come through partnership
Convention delegates heard from SMACNA President Carol Duncan and CEO Aaron Hilger on Thursday, August 15, with both speakers extolling the virtues of partnership in the unionized sheet metal industry at a time when enthusiasm for organized labor is skyrocketing.
“The power of progress and collaboration [is] shaping our industry’s future,” Duncan told delegates.
During her Thursday morning remarks, Duncan overviewed the important, trailblazing work SMART members and leaders are performing to make sure the unionized sheet metal industry is positioned for growth. Only by working together on initiatives like recruitment and retention, Belonging and Excellence for All and beyond, she told delegates, can union contractors and members make sure those projects are completed by high-road signatory employers and workers.
“It is crucial that our jobsites, shops, and offices are places where everyone feels safe,” Duncan said. “We all share the responsibility to speak up when something seems off and to support one another. Creating an environment where everyone feels welcome is key to attracting and keeping the best talent in the market.”
Hilger took the podium on Thursday afternoon, speaking to the convention crowd about four challenges met by SMART and SMACNA in the last several years — and the work that still needs to be done.
The first challenge: The BE4ALL initiative and our organizations’ broader focus on making the unionized sheet metal industry more welcoming and inclusive of all. Another: Strengthening government relations at the state and local level, winning legislation and ordinances that create work for SMART locals and SMACNA chapters.
That challenge, Hilger went on, relates directly to the third challenge that SMART and SMACNA worked together to meet: indoor air quality work. The pandemic revealed to the North American public just how important proper ventilation is to staying healthy and safe. Now, he said, local unions and contractors need to collaborate intensely to increase IAQ market share.
Finally, Hilger discussed the ongoing opportunity and difficulty posed by the surge of megaprojects across North America, with 260 being actively tracked by the SMART-SMACNA megaprojects task force. Union sheet metal contractors and workers are staffing those projects — an enormous victory. Now, he said, we need to keep up the good work and continue staffing our core work.
“It’s a wonderful time to be a union contractor and a union member,” he concluded. “Thank you for your partnership as we continue to work together.”
Financial report details strength, opportunity
SMART General Secretary-Treasurer John Daniel, Controller Warren May and SMART-TD Director of Administration Matt Dolin delivered a report on the financial state of the union, validated by an independent auditor to ensure transparency and accountability at every step. Daniel overviewed SMART’s meticulous financial processes before May and Dolin presented — in great detail — the union’s finances, which show significant growth and stellar overall health.
SMART’s assets are more than six times greater than its liabilities. Daniel noted that this strong position is one we need to build on to ensure further success, with May presenting what the union’s five-year financial projection would look like with and without a per capita increase.
“Together, we will build a future our members and their families deserve,” Daniel said.
This will be May’s final convention, as the steward of SMART’s financial department is set to retire at the end of 2024. General Secretary-Treasurer Daniel thanked May for his tireless work and thoughtful administration, calling him “instrumental” to SMART’s success.
“His expertise and dedication have been invaluable to SMART,” Daniel said. “His contributions to our organization have been significant, and we owe him a great deal of gratitude.”
“It’s been an honor and a privilege to serve this great International,” May told delegates.
Director reports chart our progress, lay out roadmap of the future
SMART Director of OrganizingJason Benson provided delegates with an overview of the department’s structure before detailing the challenges our union has met through organizing: recruiting, organizing nonunion workers, engaging in job actions to flip nonunion projects to signatory status, and much more. Over the last five years, there have been more than 29,000 new members organized into SMART, Benson said.
Greg HynesPaul PimentelJared CassityJason Benson
He also offered a preview of the work we have yet to do, with billions of dollars of work coming down the pipeline.
“The future is bright,” Benson said. “As General President Emeritus Sellers used to say, this is generational growth. If we don’t take advantage of it, shame on us.”
National Energy Management Institute (NEMI) Administrator Lisa Davis presented to delegates on the work the fund has pursued since 2019, including developing new resources for affiliates and updates to Testing, Adjusting and Balancing Bureau (TABB) certifications. Davis also explained how NEMI has helped local unions and regional councils win policy and regulatory victories across the United States, creating more work for sheet metal members, as well as efforts to turn back attacks on our fire life safety and indoor air quality work jurisdiction.
“The demand for a skilled, trained and certified workforce is increasing, and we are meeting that challenge,” Davis said.
Nick GreficzLisa DavisKen Colombo
SMART-TD Organizer Nick Greficz (TD Local 278) presented the Transportation Division Organizing Department’s report. The report included a breakdown of the success TD’s organizing has experienced in the recent past and the importance of continued growth for the strength of our union. Methodologies to achieve this growth included the continued implementation of tools such as the Action Builder platform and the organizer portal on SMART’s website.
Brother Greficz summed up his vision: “Success is the result of dedication, commitment and the collective participation of everyone involved. Every member, local officer and general committee officer is an organizer!”
Over the last several years, the SMART Governmental Affairs Department has partnered with pro-union legislators and federal officials to pass and implement policies that benefit SMART members and working families. After thanking staff members Tiffany Finck-Haynes, Ben Donnelly-Fine, Shareka Bannerman, Angela Watson and Jackie Meisner, Department Director Steve Dodd presented to delegates on the progress that has been made in the last several years — and the dangerous, anti-union policies members can expect from a second Trump administration.
“I know you’ve heard all week long about the damages that [Donald Trump] did when he was in office,” Dodd declared. “What we have now is an unbelievable situation like we’ve never had in our lives … you better fight like hell for your country and do whatever you can to get Kamala Harris in office in November.”
Transportation Division National Legislative Director Greg Hynes (TD Local 1081) and Alternate Legislative Director Jared Cassity (TD Local 1377) presented their departmental report to the convention delegates. Their report emphasized the department’s efforts to engage the membership in advocating for SMART-TD legislation. Multiple bills currently in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are pivotal to freight rail members’ safety and quality of life.
Brother Cassity summed up the spirit of the Legislative Department when he said, “We need you together, we need you collected, and we need you fighting!”
Delegates also heard continued reports from a variety of convention committees, including the Constitution Committee, Union Label Committee, Organizing Committee and Industrial Automotive Committee.
