Seeing a fiddle being constructed of wood is rare enough but those visiting this Nova Scotia boardwalk had a chance to see something even rarer — fiddles being made of copper and brass. The life-sized instruments were being made by sheet metal apprentices from across Canada w [...]
In last month’s SMART Members’ Journal, I discussed the importance of transparency in our Union. Concern about transparency cuts across a wide spectrum of topics, including foreign affairs, the environment, information gathering, corporate actions, product safety, union oper [...]
(Via Mark Gruenberg, Press Associates News Service) Corporate ineptitude on a big U.S. Navy shipbuilding contract in Mobile, Ala., is looming over the latest organizing drive among Austal shipyard workers there, a drive run by the AFL-CIO’s Metal Trades Department. As a [...]
CLEVELAND — The Transportation Division of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation International Association (SMART) and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET/IBT) have jointly announced that legislation requiring at least two crew members on all fr [...]
The SMART Transportation Division’s Anaheim, Calif., regional meeting began July 29 with a town hall forum at which SMART members were able to pose questions directly to the union’s leadership. More than 500 members, guests and presenters are attending the regional meeting. A [...]
The catastrophic crash of an oil-filled freight train in a small Quebec town should serve as a warning to every community across North America about the dangers that come with transporting hazardous freight. Especially with inexperienced crews. Right now, five bodies have be [...]
OTTAWA — Transport Canada July 23 announced an emergency directive pursuant to section 33 of the Railway Safety Act to increase rail safety, banning one-man crews on trains hauling one or more cars loaded with hazardous materials. Although the cause of the accident in Lac-Még [...]
In the spring of 1999, Greg Barnes was a senior at Columbine High School when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 12 students and one teacher and injured 24 others. Always good at math and problem solving, Barnes didn’t take to classroom learning, and when his last days of [...]
“If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan.” President Obama spoke those words in the midst of the 2009 health care debate. But more than 26 million Americans covered by multiemployer health plans are at risk of losing their benefits al [...]
In the works since the late 1990’s, the Veterans Affairs Hospital proposed for Aurora, Colorado is now $200 million over budget and unlikely to be open in the Spring of 2015 as hoped. After endless changes to the plans, construction ground was broken in 2009, yet constructio [...]
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