Tell President Obama Not to Sell Off the TVA

The Tennessee Valley Authority has provided tens of millions of people with consistently good service for eight decades. Its prices are lower than those of many private corporations.  And it has provided good jobs and career training opportunities for generations of working p [...]

Chicago Rail Link employees get six-year deal

Trainmen and engineers represented by the SMART Transportation Division and employed by Chicago Rail Link have ratified a new six-year agreement, with 95 percent of the affected employees voting in favor of the deal. The agreement provides for annual wage increases with full [...]

Former Associate General Chairperson Carstens dies

Former Burlington Northern Railroad Associate General Chairperson Harold “Jack” Carstens, 94, died March 19. Carstens, a member of SMART Transportation Local 1637 at Wishram, Wash., was the conductors’ griever for General Committee of Adjustment GO 386. Born Dec. 27, 1919, in [...]

Train operator in Chicago crash had fallen asleep

CHICAGO – The operator of a Chicago commuter train that crashed at O’Hare International Airport acknowledged she dozed off before the accident and had also done so last month when she overshot a station platform, a federal investigator said Wednesday (March 26). Before [...]

FRA proposes rule for passenger side door safety

The Federal Railroad Administration is proposing to improve the integrity of passenger train exterior side door safety systems and promote passenger train safety overall through new safety standards relating to the safe operation and use of passenger train exterior side doors [...]

Metal Trades Look to Make Inroads Into Gulf Coast Shipyards

Rapid business growth may be the key to finally unionizing shipbuilding workers in Mobile, Ala., where an Australia-based defense contractor has successfully fought union organizing for more than a decade. That’s the estimation of Ron Ault, President of the AFL-CIO’S Metal Tr [...]

Emergency brake failed to stop Chicago train

CHICAGO – An emergency track-side braking system activated but failed to stop a Chicago commuter train from jumping the tracks and barreling to the top of an escalator at O’Hare International Airport, a federal investigator said Tuesday. The events that led to Monday [...]

Obama Announces Second PEB in LIRR Dispute

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama, March 20, signed an executive order creating a second Presidential Emergency Board to help resolve an ongoing dispute between the Long Island Rail Road and some of its unionized employees. The appointment of a second PEB means that a strik [...]