Category: Front Page
Building Trades: US Needs $4 Trillion for Infrastructure Repairs
By Mark Gruenberg and John Wojcik Press Associates Union News Service The U.S. needs to spend $4 trillion, four times as much as the Republican Trump administration requested, for needed infrastructure repairs, the president of North America’s Building Trades Unions sa [...]
Update: Condition of member who suffered domestic attack
Amtrak conductor and Local 1933 member Amanda “Mandie” Brillhart has been in the hospital more than a month and continues to undergo surgeries after Florence, S.C., sheriff’s deputies said her husband, Charles Durell Nethercutt, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire in t [...]
Armed man apprehended on Amtrak train
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Taylor M. Wilson, 25, of St. Charles, Mo., was detained by Amtrak staff after he pulled the emergency brake while aboard an Amtrak train traveling southwest through Nebraska. It was discovered that Wilson was armed with a loaded Smith [...]
Coordinated Bargaining Group condemns interference in its ratification process
On October 6, 2017, the six Rail Unions comprising the Coordinated Bargaining Group (CBG) announced that they had reached a Tentative National Agreement with the Nation’s Freight Rail Carriers. Shortly after that announcement, a Union belonging to a different bargaining coali [...]
GP Sellers Named to President’s Task Force On Apprenticeship Expansion
SMART General President Joseph Sellers was named today to serve on the President’s Task Force on Apprenticeship Expansion. In June, President Trump signed an executive order expanding apprenticeship programs and vocational training at a White House ceremony. The execut [...]
REGISTER NOW: Sellers to hold first online town hall with members
SMART TD General President Joseph Sellers Jr. plans to hold an online town hall forum Nov. 2 to hear and respond to concerns and questions from members. Registration is required for this first of its kind event, scheduled 6:30-7 p.m. EST, Nov. 2. To sign up to participate in [...]Lac-Megantic testimony finds lack of safety culture at MMA
The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic (MMA) employee in charge of safety and training at the railroad testified that a minimum of nine handbrakes should have been used on the train that destroyed the town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in 2013. Michael Horan testified that only seven ha [...]
SMART TD against Trump’s nominee for Amtrak chair
SMART TD opposes the recent nomination of former U.S. Rep. Lynn A. Westmoreland of Georgia by the Trump administration to serve on the Board of Directors of Amtrak. As a longtime member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and H [...]