Category: News
Social Security Administration announces benefit increase for 2023
Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits for approximately 70 million Americans will increase 8.7% in 2023, the Social Security Administration announced. On average, Social Security benefits will increase by more than $140 per month starting in January. [...]
SMART MD membership votes to ratify contract with freight rail carriers
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 [...]
Medicare Part B premium and deductible for 2023
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released the Part B premium and deductible costs for 2023. Railroad Medicare processes claims for Part B services. This year saw a modest decrease in both costs. The 2023 annual Part B deductible decreased from $233 t [...]
N.Y. Post reports Amtrak execs net big post-pandemic bonuses
The New York Post reported that Amtrak paid out over $2.3 million in annual bonuses to 10 executives in 2021, despite the carrier seeing its lowest revenues in a decade. In the article published by the Post on Oct. 5, the bonuses were reported by Amtrak to be “earned incentiv [...]
SMART-TD Tentative Agreement update: Oct. 5, 2022
SMART-TD Brothers and Sisters, Due to an immense amount of misinformation, I would like to provide answers to some of the questions and concerns that I have been receiving over the past few weeks, as well as provide an update on where we are in the process regarding the tenta [...]
TD organizing win thanks to collaboration in Michigan
As the expression goes, “There is strength in numbers.” That being said, our union’s about to get stronger. Through the efforts of SMART-TD’s Michigan State Legislative Director Don Roach and TD Organizer Nick Greficz (GO 687 in Detroit, Mich.), our union has organized [...]
SMART launches video news show focused on issues that matter to members
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 [...]
Ill. governor pledges his support for the Rule of 2
Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) of Illinois again has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with rail workers in the battle for national two-person crew legislation. SMART Transportation Division members and the people of Illinois have even more evidence that Gov. Pritzker has their safety as hi [...]