Category: Washington
Union workers shut down right-to-work bill in N.M.
Thanks to scores of union members who showed up at a committee hearing in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a right-to-work measure was effectively shut down and cannot be reintroduced for the remainder of 2017. Read the complete story published by PeoplesWorld.com, here.Feds set back to Caltrain project; contractors step up
Railway Age reported that contractors on Caltrain’s Peninsula Corridor Electrification Project (PCEP) agreed to extend the deadline for first day of construction from March 1, 2017 to June 30, 2017. This announcement was issued just days after the Federal Transit Admin [...]SMART TD opens registration for 2017 regional meetings
SMART Transportation Division has opened registration for the San Antonio and New York City Regional Meetings. Pre-registration cost for both meetings is $150 per person, per meeting; children 11 and under are free. Persons who do not pre-register, but choose to register afte [...]
Calls for 2-person crews in response to amphibious vehicle fatalities
The Portland Press Herald reported that as amphibious vehicles (duck boats), designed to traverse land and water, have increased in popularity over the years, so has the number of accidents and fatalities involving these complicated vehicles. Advocates for increased safety m [...]
SMART Union Celebrates Black History Month
As we celebrate Black History Month in February 2017, read about the groundbreaking inventions from African-American inventors that had a major impact across all American labor sectors, including the transportation industry: Andrew Jackson Beard, born a slave in Alabama, beca [...]
Why Right-to-Work is wrong for union and non-union
Tire builder Jesse Isbell outlines in his recent blog post how the Right-to-Work bill is nothing more than a pack of lies intended to break unions and make the rich richer. Isbell and thousands of his co-workers lost their jobs when the Oklahoma City Bridgestone Tire plant th [...]
OSHA finds Amtrak in violation of Federal Railroad Safety Act
BOSTON – The National Railroad Passenger Corp., better known as Amtrak, retaliated against a supervisory special agent in its inspector general’s office when he raised concerns about railroad safety, fraud and abuse involving an Amtrak contractor and when he suppo [...]
Ann Begeman replaces Elliott as STB Chairman
President Donald J. Trump has appointed Ann Begeman to serve as Acting Chairman of the Surface Transportation Board (STB). Begeman is currently serving a second, five-year term as a Member of the Board following her recent nomination by President Barack Obama Dec. 7, 2016, an [...]