Category: Healthcare
Important update for all SMART-TD and BLET members included in national negotiations
2023 payment rates confirmed for H&W plans INDEPENDENCE, Ohio (Nov. 8, 2022) — Late last week, members of the Cooperating Railway Labor Organizations (CRLO) and the National Carriers’ Conference Committee (NCCC) convened to review and renew the payment rates for the natio [...]
VSTD premium reset and benefit changes announced
Several changes regarding the SMART Voluntary Short-Term Disability (VSTD) Plan for bus and rail members will take effect Jan. 1, 2023. The temporary reduction of premiums for Plan participants announced Oct. 21, 2020, will expire Dec. 31, 2022. VSTD premiums will be reset to [...]Ultimately, decision about tentative agreement is in members’ hands
For the first time in more than 30 years, this Union has taken the Railway Labor Act (RLA) to its limits. We negotiated. We mediated. We cooled off. We went all the way to a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) and then back into a cooling-off period again. The coordinated barg [...]
LU 10 Holds Working Minds Suicide Prevention Workshops
SMART SM Local 10 held a series of suicide prevention workshops 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 [...]
New SMOHIT Safety Guide Available
SMOHIT has released the latest version of its safety handbook. Focused on workplace safety, the handbook covers a variety of workplace hazards, scaffold and ladder safety, shop safety, ventilation and fire safety, among a multitude of other possible dangers faced by sheet met [...]
RRB: Medicare Part B premiums for 2022
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced that the standard monthly Part B premium will be $170.10 in 2022, an increase of $21.60 from $148.50 in 2021. Some Medicare beneficiaries may pay less than this amount because, by law, Part B premiums for cu [...]
ERMA LIFETIME MAXIMUM BENEFIT TO INCREASE IN 2022
The lifetime maximum benefit for the Railroad Employees National Early Retirement Major Medical Benefit (ERMA or GA-46000) Plan will increase from $175,700 to $182,700 beginning Jan. 1, 2022. At the end of 2001, labor and management had agreed on various procedures to adminis [...]
Rail workers’ right to choose medical network upheld
In early July 2020, just over eight months after the current round of national bargaining had begun, the carriers’ representative — the National Railway Labor Conference (NRLC) — proposed reconfiguring the National Plan’s network structure in a way that would forc [...]