Category: Transportation
Carrier groups’ waiver extension request denied by FRA
The Federal Railroad Administration on Sept. 21 sided with a SMART Transportation Division request to reject the extension of COVID-related regulatory waiver requests by the Association of American Railroads (AAR) and the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). The [...]
FTA publishes bus and rail safety reports
Last last week, FTA published new bus and rail safety data reports to provide a snapshot of transit industry safety performance from 2007–2018 for rail and 2008–2018 for bus, and focus on patterns and trends in events, fatalities and injuries. Report summaries and full report [...]
New director of programs at RRB
The U.S. Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) named Arturo Cardenas as the agency’s Director of Programs, the agency announced in a Sept. 24 release. Cardenas oversees all operations to process and pay benefits administered by the agency. He will also serve on the RRB’s Executive [...]
SMART-TD mourns another COVID-19 loss
Terri Poole Taylor Kerns, 52, of Local 1971 (Atlanta, Ga.) lost her life to COVID-19 on Friday, September 10. Diagnosed with COVID-19 on August 24, she was hospitalized Sunday, August 29 with severe chest pains. After suffering from cardiac arrest, she passed in the early hou [...]
Coordinated Bargaining Coalition statement: Sept. 22, 2021
September 22, 2021 — The Rail Unions comprising the Coordinated Bargaining Coalition (CBC), negotiating together in the current round of National Negotiations, have issued the following statement: “As we advised in January of 2021, the CBC and the nation’s rail carriers have [...]
TD members may act in solidarity for striking workers, but actions limited by RLA
Local 313 (Grand Rapids, Mich.) member Chris Larson, a member of our union for seven years, wrote to the office of SMART-TD President Jeremy Ferguson asking the extent that members can go to support and show solidarity to an ongoing labor action by another labor union against [...]
Statement from President Ferguson on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks
A statement from TD President Jeremy Ferguson: Twenty years after the shocking and devastating terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we pause to remember the lives that were lost and irreversibly changed on that day. Members of our union, as many other people did in Pennsylvan [...]RRB Q&A: Deemed service month credits
Railroad Retirement benefits are based on months of service and earnings credits. Earnings are creditable, up to certain annual maximums, on the amount of compensation subject to Railroad Retirement taxes. Credit for a month of railroad service is earned for every month in wh [...]