Category: Transportation
Rail unions petition FRA to protect Amtrak passengers, personnel after U.S. Capitol insurrection
CLEVELAND, Ohio (Jan. 12, 2021) — The leaders of two of the nation’s largest railroad worker unions urgently petitioned the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in a letter January 11 to prevent security vulnerabilities and to protec [...]
Norm Patterson Jr., LCA-020 vice local chairperson, passes away from cancer
Norman “Norm” Patterson Jr., 52, of Lubbock, Texas, vice local chairperson of LCA-020 and a member of Local 9 (Slaton, Texas), passed away Jan. 5 after a battle with cancer. A member of our union since 2006, Brother Patterson was a conductor for BNSF, and he had s [...]SMART Condemns January 6 Assault on American Democracy
We have just witnessed a sad day in American history. Leave no doubt, these violent, anti-democratic actions were sown by the incitement of the current president and his elected apologists, who have misled their supporters for far too long. SMART, along with our sisters and [...]
UPDATED: Local 584 member killed in on-the-job accident in Tupelo, Miss.
Our union lost another member late last month in an accident. Tyrone Davis, 40, of Local 584 (Meridian, Miss.), passed away the morning of Dec. 23 in Tupelo, Miss., after an on-the-job accident. Known as “Mr. T” by co-workers, he had been a SMART-TD member since A [...]
RRB update from the labor member: 2021 Covid and budget notice
Brothers and Sisters, It has been one challenging year for us all and many of you have been hit extremely hard by COVID-19 – if not by the virus itself, by the impact it has had on the railroad industry. As you may have heard, Congress recently enacted legislation to pr [...]
A holiday message from TD President Jeremy Ferguson
Brothers and sisters, The losses and challenges of 2020 have tested us — yet, in the very definition of unity, we’ve stuck together. I could not be prouder of our organization as we look ahead to a new year. We never shied away from anything the past year threw at us. We stoo [...]
FRA roundup – several actions published in Federal Register
Over the past 1.5 weeks, the Federal Railroad Administration has published several notices in the Federal Register. Below are portions of those postings, including: Drug and alcohol testing: Determination of minimum random testing rates for 2021 (notification of determination [...]
ERMA lifetime maximum benefit to increase in 2021
The lifetime maximum benefit for the Railroad Employees National Early Retirement Major Medical Benefit (ERMA or GA-46000) Plan will increase from $171,100 to $175,700 beginning Jan. 1, 2021. At the end of 2001, labor and management had agreed on various procedures to adminis [...]