The spring 2024 Belonging and Excellence for All (BE4ALL) challenge asked SMART members to tell their union story, prompted by the question: Why are you proud to be a SMART member? For Paul Garner, a longtime Local 55 sheet metal worker out of Boise, Idaho, the answer boils down to our union’s tradition of mentorship and solidarity.
SMART sheet metal apprentices from across Ontario gathered in Thunder Bay on September 11–12, 2024, participating in the 51st Ontario Sheet Metal Workers Apprenticeship Competition.
NABTU named SMART Local 276 (Victoria, B.C.) and International Women’s Committee member Amy Carr one of four Tradeswomen Heroes Award-winners in September.
In late September, SMART announced a brand-new, union-wide maternity leave benefit fund — part of our union’s wholesale commitment to supporting, welcoming and retaining women and new mothers in the sheet metal industry.
In fall 2024, CSX Railroad announced plans to change how the carrier moves freight between Chicago and the East Coast; a plan that would have forced more than 120 SMART-TD members to choose between relocation to either Buffalo, N.Y., or Willard, Ohio — or be laid off. SMART-TD and former Senator Sherrod Brown took action in response.
Hundreds of workers gathered at Boston’s historic South Station to rally for a fair contract in a joint action by SMART-TD, the AFL-CIO, IAM, ATDA, BRS, TCU, and IBEW. They confronted Keolis, the French-owned passenger rail carrier, who have neglected MBTA contract negotiations since July 1, 2022.