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Railroads Have Short Memories: East Palestine 3 Years Later

Ohio State Safety & Legislative Director Clyde Whitaker reflects on the 3rd anniversary of the East Palestine derailment with a powerful commentary. Despite new laws and promises, the railroads are still playing the same dangerous games with safety. Read on to see how crews are still being pressured to ignore defect detector warnings and keep trains moving, proving that profits continue to come before people.

Education Department, Organizing Department hold course on organizing contractors

The Education Department, in collaboration with the Organizing Department, held its Organizing III class during the week of October 6–10, 2025, in St. Louis. This redesigned class focused on the “top-down” organizing strategy, with a specific emphasis on developing organizing campaigns targeting nonunion contractors.
Robert Campbell, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Canceled federal funding threatens SMART members’ jobs at port projects

In late August, President Trump’s Department of Transportation canceled $679 million in federal funding for 12 offshore wind projects across the country. That included fully taking back hundreds of millions of dollars in grant money for infrastructure work at Humboldt Bay Harbor District in Northern California — immediately throwing Local 104 members’ work opportunities into question, in the short and long term.