Sometimes it takes something major to happen for people to sit up and take notice. A wake-up call, if you will. From the standpoint of our national contract negotiations, our union got another wake-up call even before our first session that is scheduled for the last week in F [...]
The secretary & treasurer of SMART-TD Local 464 (Arkansas City, Kan.) rendered medical assistance to a teen who was found bleeding from a head wound on the side of the tracks in mid-February, saving the boy’s life. Jason Schwartz, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served in [...]
Virginia State Legislative Director Ronnie Hobbs reports that H.B. 440, the two-person freight crew bill that has passed the state House, is scheduled for a hearing Monday, February 17, at the state Capitol. “We’re asking all of our Virginia members and their fami [...]
A federal court in Texas ruled in favor of rail carriers this week, directing the SMART Transportation Division to negotiate over crew-consist without regard to moratoriums barring such negotiation. U.S. District Court Judge Mark T. Pittman, a January 2019 Trump appointee, is [...]
The incident earlier this month in which a two-person crew helped to save a 5-year-old girl in his state reminded SMART Transportation Division Minnesota State Legislative Director Phillip Qualy of a letter his state’s legislative board submitted in 2018 in response to [...]
The efforts of a two-person crew in East St. Paul, Minn., helped to save a wandering five-year-old girl and reunite her with her family. Near midnight Saturday, Feb. 1, SMART Transportation Division Local 1293 member Jarrod Campbell and BLET member Angela Knutson were operati [...]
SMART Transportation Division Alternate Vice President J. Scott Chelette, general chairperson of GO 927, was featured in a television news report about the rail industry’s intention to eliminate the conductor from the cab of freight trains in the wake of Class I freight [...]
On January 23, 2020, SMART Transportation Division and nearly two dozen General Committees brought suit against the National Mediation Board (NMB) challenging its 2-1 decision which granted a National Railway Labor Conference (NRLC) request to appoint an arbitration board mem [...]
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) in a 41-page report released Jan. 13th by its Office of Research, Development and Technology said what railroaders already know. Researchers at the Volpe Center over a period of years performed cognitive task analyses (CTAs) that exam [...]
A two-person crew bill has been introduced in the Missouri Legislature, and we’ll need the support of SMART members in the region to help get the legislation passed. H.B. 2229 was introduced January 16 by state Rep. Jim Neely (District 8), a Republican who is also a medical d [...]