The Civil War-era tunnel will be replaced by the brand-new Frederick Douglass Tunnel. Not only will this save commuters time on the largest rail bottleneck between Washington, DC and New Jersey; thanks to a new project labor agreement (PLA), both SMART sheet metal workers and SMART Transportation Division members working at Amtrak stand to benefit for years to come.
A new analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimates that misclassified construction workers lose out on as much as $16,729 per year in income and job benefits compared with what they would have earned as employees.
This is a call to action. The burning wreckage of what used to be the Grand Old Party (GOP) is attempting to attack the labor movement immediately after the holidays while our guard is down and as the transition to the new Congress occurs. SMART is asking you to take action a [...]
The AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department (TTD), of which the SMART-TD and -MD are members, released the following statement on behalf of rail unions regarding next steps in our push forward on reforms to a freight rail industry that is failing its workers and the American [...]
October 12, 2022 — The membership of the SMART Railroad, Mechanical and Engineering Department (SMART MD) has voted to ratify a tentative agreement with the carriers, after almost three years of negotiations between the union and the National Carriers’ Conference Committee (N [...]
SMART published the first episode of SMART News – a new video/web show focused on issues of importance to SMART members and working families across North America – on September 27, 2022, responding to feedback from SMART workers on the information from their union that they f [...]
Today the United States Department of Labor (DOL) announced a final rule to rescind the Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Program (IRAP), and will instead direct the department’s resources toward registered apprenticeships. The DOL issued this final rule after revi [...]
September 11, 2022 — SMART’s Railroad, Mechanical and Engineering Department (Mechanical Department or MD) reached a tentative agreement with the National Carriers’ Conference Committee (NCCC), which includes the highest wage increases ever achieved in national freight rail b [...]
Today, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, officially codifying this groundbreaking piece of legislation into law. In response, SMART issued the following statement. “By signing the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden has once again acted on his c [...]
Today, the Biden Administration released a fact sheet intended to help schools, educators, families and children safely prepare to return to school this fall. As part of its efforts to help local education administrators ensure schools are ready to reopen, the White House not [...]