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This page is devoted to news for members belonging to the local unions and general committees under the Railroad, Mechanical and Engineering Department.

SMART Members rally for fair contract in Chicago

On November 12, SMART Mechanical Department members joined with Transportation Division officers and members, as well as other rail unions in downtown Chicago, in a show of solidarity against Metra, a commuter rail company whose lines are serviced by union workers, including those at Local 256. Faced with depressed wages, stalled contract negotiations and a rapidly approaching benefits cliff, workers gathered for a day of speeches and collaborative discussion, elevating the chilly and overcast streets in front of Metra’s headquarters to an exciting new pitch.

The rally highlighted SMART’s strong union solidarity, with turnout from SMART Locals 73, 265 and 484 lending their support to their brothers, sisters and siblings working for Metra. Brother Jeff Hillery, an organizer from Local 73, described feeling “very inspired to see how well organized” it was. “I saw the labor movement alive and well with everyone coming together,” he explained.


As Local 484 Chairperson Mike Gallardo remarked, “To see construction members come out to a railroad rally was heartwarming and showed Metra union solidarity.”

The rally comes after more than two years of stalling by Metra to work towards a new contract, as well as austerity brought on by a pandemic that has lasted almost as long. Members working for Metra have been hit particularly hard by the unclear outlook and often-unsafe conditions presented by COVID-19 and have been adapting and persevering to keep the trains running safely, smoothly and reliably for Chicago-area residents during ebbs and flows in demand.

In September, out of finances previously described to workers as “insolvent”, Metra managed to give a 10% raise to its CEO’s salary, in addition to a splurge on CEO benefits, which effectively raises his total compensation by 21.4%. In January 2022, his salary is expected to rise even further. These increases were voted on and approved by Metra’s Board of Directors, while apparently ignoring the demands of SMART members and other rail workers who work the lines daily.

“The wage gap is getting larger every year — and not in workers’ favor,” stressed Brother Jason Dahlman, president of Local 256. “We showed Metra that unions will not stand for this, every union that stood together stood together as ONE.”

Local 256 Chairperson Charlie Demes echoed this sentiment: “Union solidarity has never been stronger, and the Metra board witnessed that.”

Despite Metra’s maneuvers, the workers in Chicago were successful: On November 23, not long after the rally, a tentative agreement was reached. While the contract still awaits a vote at the time of publishing, it promises a 17% increase to salaries over seven years, applied retroactively starting in 2019, and keeps the current cost-sharing scheme for benefits in place. Just as significantly, this agreement gives form to the power of workers acting together: SMART members know they can always count on their greatest resource — solidarity — in their pursuit of better working conditions and protections. As Brother Rick Flores, Local 256 financial secretary-treasurer, reflected, “To see the way the coalition stuck together is the true definition of union, and it was great to be a part of it.”


Get to know Mark Romine

Local Chairperson, Local 525 (Altoona, Pa.)

Brother Mark Romine is the local chairperson of SM Local 525 in Altoona, Pa. A native of Port Matilda, Pa., Brother Romine has been a SMART member for 17 years, working as a pipefitter for Norfolk Southern Railway at the Juanita Locomotive Shop. He is dedicated to the union and committed to SMART’s values. He is proud to be a member of an organization that supports working men and women all over the country.

Outside of work, Brother Romine is a bladesmith and has made custom knives for 10 years. He also spends a great deal of time outdoors, regularly fly fishing and camping with family and friends. Brother Romine and his wife Kelly also enjoy the quality time they spend with their nieces and nephew.

On October 5, 2021, SMART Local 218 celebrated the career and life of longtime member Renato Favero. Brother Favero, also known as “Notto” or “Not,” was presented with his 80-year membership plaque for good standing by General President Joseph Sellers, Jr., International Representative Paul Hayes and Business Manager Edmund Robison at a pin ceremony, alongside several colleagues.

Brother Favero’s career began at the tender age of 17 in the spring of 1941. In May, having not yet graduated from high school, Renato took the advice of his classmate’s father and applied for a job at Henson Robinson Company in Springfield, Ill. He was asked to report to work on the following Monday; however, Renato politely declined, explaining that he was still attending school. Mr. Robinson went on to petition Lanphier High School to allow the freckle-faced Italian boy to begin working early. After reviewing his grades, the high school agreed, saying, “there’s no reason he can’t go to work on Monday.” His starting wage was 37 and a half cents per hour, and union dues were five dollars for three months.

Brother Favero was not at Henson Robinson Company long before he was drafted into World War II. Renato attempted to enlist in the Marines with his buddy George. However, after telling his mother, she replied, “No you’re not! The war only kills kids your age.” Once drafted, he served as an Army combat engineer in England, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Germany.
After returning home from the war on March 17, 1946, Brother Favero returned to working sheet metal at Barker Lubin and Metal Air. Ed Pruitt offered him a journeyman’s position, and Renato agreed to attend an apprenticeship class offered to veterans, in the shop located at Lanphier High School, for six months. After six months, he was making 52 cents per hour under the supervision of journeymen on the job.

Brother Favero recalls doing everything by hand before the Pittsburgh machine, air hammers and the duct mate came along. “Creating 100 pounds of fittings was hard work,” he explained. His specialty was layout, and he was said to nest his fitting so tightly together that his scrap looked like the ribboned scrap created by a plasma cutter.

Renato Antonio Favero is the proud son of Fortunato Favero, an Italian coal miner who came to the United States in 1900. Renato was the 10th child (of 11) born to his mother, Pasqua Favero. Renato married his wife Rita nearly 75 years ago, and they had nine children of their own.

Paul Favero recalls his mother’s excitement when his father, Renato, was grossing $100 per week. “We’re rich!”, she told Paul. Brother Favero noted that his wages boomed in the late 1950s and 1960s.

The bulk of his career was spent at Metal Air and E.L. Pruitt Company. There he served as a shop foreman and later as superintendent. His most-memorable jobs include the Attorney General’s Building, the White Oaks Mall and the IDOT building.
He served as a trustee for the local for 25 years and retired on September 1st, 1985, after 44 years in the trade.

Today, Renato Favero is 98 years old. He is an active member of the Springfield Retirees’ Club and a revered member of SMART Local 218. He has served his family, country and local well, and we are proud to call him our brother. Congratulations on achieving 80 years of service.

SMART Local Union 40 (Hartford, Conn.) member Joe de la Cruz, from New London, has been honored with the Joseph J. Nigro SMART Army Service award for the sheet metal sector for his work to kickstart a national campaign to bring nose strips to thousands of volunteer mask makers cross the United States and Canada at a time when masks were in short supply.

At the start of the pandemic, the Hillery Company, a custom metal fabrication shop located in Groton, began posting messages on its Facebook page announcing that the company would donate the nose strips to anyone looking to make masks.
“Hillery was asked by a local nurse to make the aluminum strips used on N95 masks so they could sew them in the cotton masks being made by volunteers around the country,” said de la Cruz in a message posted to the company’s Facebook page on April 6. “I posted a picture showing a small box of strips on March 24th and it went viral.”

“We received requests from hospitals and small sewing groups from every state and Canada,” he added. With thousands of requests totaling more than 800,000 nose pieces in less than a month, requests quickly outstripped the company’s capacity to fulfill and ship all the orders. De la Cruz reached out to Local 40 leadership for help. The response was immediate – union locals and union sheet metal contractors from across North America joined the effort he started and crowd-sourced mass production of the small metal pieces with 17 million pieces shipped to over 27,000 individuals who requested them.
Brother De la Cruz, also a Connecticut State Representative, has displayed the epitome of what being a union member and being a SMART member is. For his important contribution at a critical time, he has been awarded the Joseph J. Nigro SMART Army Service award.

Charlotte Area Transit Systems (CATS) bus operator and retired Local 1715 GCA TMD Vice Chairperson Debra Franklin has been honored with the SMART TD Joseph J. Nigro SMART Army Service Award for her work collecting and handing out toiletries to the homeless population in Charlotte, N.C. since November 2016.

According to a previous profile on her work, “I just noticed that when I went into the public bathrooms that women were washing up in the bathroom,” Franklin said. “I noticed that they were using the bathroom pump soap. So I started collecting toiletries and handing them out or leaving them bags of toiletries by their things in the bathrooms. I would also get other bus drivers to tell me where these women were or I’d walk the streets looking for them.”

As a bus operator, Franklin saw the living conditions of many of the homeless in her city, so she decided she needed to be part of the solution for them.

Franklin has even bigger goals in mind. She is looking to renovating retired buses into mobile shower and laundry facilities. She points to instances where one person converted an old bus in San Francisco into a shower bus and a St. Louis resident who turned a bus into laundry facilities for the homeless in that city.
Franklin is working to combine the two ideas and create a shower bus with laundry facilities — pointing out that it’s not enough for people to be clean, they need their clothes to be clean if they are going get on their feet and become independent.
Her online fundraising effort estimates a $200,000 cost to acquire and convert the two buses. SMART TD North Carolina State Legislative Director Ron Ingerick has also been helping Franklin. He’s made SMART TD Carolina locals across the United States aware of her cause and has solicited toiletries.
“Debra is a vital member of our union,” said Ingerick. “She is a doer, who no matter the task, will move heaven and earth to get the job done.”

On November 18, 2021, the General President’s Maintenance Committee for Canada’s (GPMC) charity committee, consisting of Sheldon McKenna of the International Union Operating Engineers and Leonard Day from The International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART), had the opportunity to recognize Lloyd Grainger for his efforts and work he does within his community.

Lloyd is a sheet metal worker with SMART Local 8 (Edmonton, Alberta) and has been working on plant maintenance and shutdowns for over 32 years in the Fort McMurray area.

This recognition is also associated with the Edmonton Christmas Bureau, to which a $5,000 donation was made on behalf of the GPMC and Lloyd. The GPMC charity committee also gave Lloyd two checks for $5,000 each for two charities of Lloyd’s choice.

SMART SM Local 10 (Maplewood, Minn.) held a series of suicide prevention workshops in the fall for members through the Construction Working Minds Program. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), men in construction die by suicide at a rate four times higher than the general adult population, with similar figures in the transportation industry.

Rather than being a once-a-year subject, suicide in our industries requires our attention all year long. One of the ways we do this is with Construction Working Minds, making a one-hour training available to members.

Construction Working Minds was established to increase industry awareness, provide valuable resources and create a network that seeks to let people know that suicide affects everyone — and all of us have a shared responsibility to prevent it.

“We all know the traditional tools in our toolbox,” said Local 10 Business Manager Matt Fairbanks. “This program delivers our members new tools in the box around mental wellness/suicide prevention to build our local network and ensure that not only are we all there for each other, but also that each member knows their brothers and sisters have their back.”

The SMART Army was out in full force in Dearborn Heights Michigan the week of November 1st, 2021.  Upon hearing of a need by some very worthy recipients, SMART Local 80 Detroit apprentices answered that call.

Jaime Wencel, a young unwed mother, died shortly after giving birth to her fifth child.  Amid those terrible circumstances, Jaime’s parents, Debbie and Tom Wencel, stepped in to raise her 5 children, Cara (13), Paige (10), Jenna (8), Cayden (6) and Nina (4).

Debbie and Tom, who is a retired Local 1401 Drywall Finisher, have spent much of their lives volunteering and giving back to their community.  Tom is a member of the Dearborn Heights City Council, and his daughter Jaime worked many hours for his campaign to help him get elected.  They live in a modest two bedroom home, and suddenly had a need to add on a second floor addition to provide Jaime’s children with the adequate space to grow.

Many local companies and individuals have stepped up to help the Wencel Family and the Charity now  simply known as “Jaime’s Kids”.  Building materials and labor have been donated from multiple local supply houses and contractors as well as over 100 volunteers that have donated their time and talents to starting the second floor addition project.

It was brought to the attention of the SMART Local 80’s Apprenticeship Training director, Matt ORourk, that there was a need to have the metal panel roof installed over the porches on both the front and the side of the house.  The material had been donated and was on-site, but the estimates for installation by a local contractor was steep. SMART Local 80 generously donated their time and skill to get the job done.  Led by Local 80 Training Center Instructor Sam Velez, a crew of apprentices showed up to volunteer to install the panels.

List of SMART members who attended:

Richard Davidson, Drake Wonifeil, Dan Hines, Jacob Ciner, Alex Bastien, Michael Lopez, Quinn Gattori, Travis Harper, Alan Dickson, Hunter Brotherton, Daniel Bleyaert, Joshua Gibbons, Sam Velez (Instructor), Bob Wenzell (Organizer 292), David Hartsuck (Organizer 80)

In September 2021, Langley Meals on Wheels contacted SMART Army Canada Local 280 to assist them with obtaining a donation of 3 stainless-steel prep tables for their new facility. Langley Meals on Wheels is a charitable, non-profit society providing affordable menu plans and social meal programs throughout the community. It is anticipated that the new facility will double the number of meals per day and community reach. The new facilities cafe, run by Langley Meals on Wheels staff and volunteers, will be open to the public by December 2021.

After a site visit, business representative Jeff Lind and organizer Steve Davis realized they could do much more in helping such a great organization. They saw an opportunity for SMART Army Local 280 and SMACNA to help the community as well as promote the Sheet Metal trade. Among the many community partners, Langley Meals on Wheels has a strong relationship with School District 35 and its community partners such as Encompass. Through the trade discovery programs and job fairs within the School District 35, the Local is pursuing the next generation of Sheet Metal Workers as they graduate high school. Encompass is a community partner that focusses on youth and provides access and resources to job opportunities.

In April 2021, we met with Steve Dodd and Greg Hynes to talk about the first 100 days of the Biden administration. We have brought them back for this Talking SMART episode to talk about the first year of the administration and, more specifically, its impact on SMART members. 

Steve Dodd

Brother Dodd is SMART’s Director of Governmental Affairs. He spoke with us about the many actions the Biden administration has already taken to support working families, including positive impacts of the passage of the American Rescue Plan on COBRA, unemployment benefits, multiemployer pensions, and funding for school HVAC retrofits.

He also discussed the PRO Act and what it means for SMART members to have so many labor friendly people now appointed to top positions in the Biden administration.

“This president has done something that all presidents have always talked about but never were able to accomplish,” said Dodd. “This Bipartisan Infrastructure bill, and now its implementation, means a great deal to not only sheet metal workers but all workers, whether they’re union or nonunion, across the United States.”

Greg Hynes

Brother Hynes is a fifth-generation railroader and SMART TD’s National Legislative Director. He discussed how the Biden Administration, in contrast to the previous administration, now very much has an open door for labor and actively seeks input from unions on issues of concern to working families.

“The most obvious are the appointments and the people that President Biden has surrounded himself with,” said Hynes. “He’s actually put competent people in charge of these agencies. And they are all very labor friendly, I mean, it comes from the top down.”

Greg also touched on how the American Rescue Plan included funding to rehire furloughed Amtrak workers, the significance of new leadership at the Federal Rail Administration which is now re-prioritizing rail safety over corporate profits, and what it really means when politicians or rail carriers say we need to just “cut back on regulations.”

In addition, listen for the open mic segment with SMART General President Joseph Sellers at the end of this episode. He responds to multiple questions that have come in from SMART members asking about what steps the Biden-Harris administration has taken to address the multiemployer pension crisis.

Return to Talking SMART index page.

Talking SMART is a member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network — working people’s voices, broadcasting worldwide 24 hours a day.

Washington, DC—Today the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment released a report with nearly 70 recommendations to aid worker organizing and collective bargaining. In response, SMART issued the following statement.

“President Biden is living up to his commitment to deliver for working people. This report outlines significant actions the administration must take to advance worker voice and empowerment to ensure our federal government and its resources serve as a model. These actions will significantly help our union members and the communities they serve by making sure our tax dollars support American-made goods produced by workers in America and promoting utilization of registered apprenticeship programs, community benefit agreements, project labor agreements, local hire provisions and other responsible contracting and work conditions in federal programs. Further, the federal government is committed to eliminating barriers to union eligibility for federal grants and contracts, fixing longstanding misclassification issues, and increasing worker voice in decisions by ensuring unions have a seat at federal advisory tables. We stand ready to work with the federal government to quickly implement the recommendations laid out in the report so workers and our communities immediately reap the benefits of better goods and services and improved pay, benefits and working conditions.”