SMART Transportation Division is mourning the loss of two members who were killed in a deadly train collision that occurred Oct. 4 west of Cheyenne, Wyo.
Benjamin Brozovich, 39, of Lusk, Wyo., and Jason V. Martinez, 40, of Cheyenne, died when their Union Pacific freight train collided into the back of another stopped UP train.
Martinez was a 12-year member out of Local 446. Brozovich had been a member of the same local for three years.
Members of the SMART TD National Safety Team were dispatched and assisting the National Transportation Safety Board in its investigation, said Vice President John England.
Wyoming State Legislative Director Stan Blake described the crash as “horrific.”
The investigation is continuing.
Tag: Union Pacific
Brother Nicholas A. Vosejpka, of Hampton, Minn., a switchman with SMART TD Local 1614, died while on duty Dec. 30, 2017, as he worked as a yard foreman at Union Pacific’s Hoffman Yard in St. Paul, Minn.
Vosejpka, 35, was walking in the yard performing an air-test in temperatures well below zero with gusting wind at approximately 7:30 p.m. CST, Local 1614 Chairman Brad Nelsen reported. A student and new-hire switch person were with Brother Vosejpka when he collapsed, Nelsen said.
Emergency personnel responded and were unable to revive Vosejpka. UP yard crews were tied up thereafter.
“Brother Vosejpka was a hard worker, good man and a good rail worker,” said Nelsen.
Brother Vosejpka is survived by his mother, Brenda, young children Carter and Madison and extended family.
Funeral services will be at Rejoice Church in Dundas on Friday, January 5, 2018, beginning at 11 a.m. Visitation will be Thursday, January 4, 2018, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Bierman Funeral Home and one hour prior to the service in the church. Burial will be at Calvary Cemetery in Lonsdale. In lieu of flowers, memorials are preferred.
A full obituary is available here.
Brother Vosejpka was the seventh SMART TD member who died while on duty in 2017.
By a margin of nearly four to one, SMART Transportation Division members have voted to APPROVE the new National Rail Contract. The voting was conducted by BallotPoint Election Services, who certified the following results for each craft eligible to vote:
| CRAFT | ACCEPT | REJECT |
| Conductors | 79.89% | 20.11% |
| Brakemen | 78.98% | 21.02% |
| Engine Service | 76.58% | 23.42% |
| Yardmen | 79.97% | 20.03% |
| Yardmaster | 86.68% | 13.32% |
| Combined | 79.57% | 20.43% |
The approved contract will have an effective date of December 1, 2017, with implementation of new pay rates and employee healthcare cost-sharing modifications planned for January 1, 2018. Employees’ monthly healthcare contributions will remain frozen at $228.89 for the life of the contract.
The term of the agreement is for five years, from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2019. In addition to a 3% increase previously negotiated and already implemented on January 1, 2015, the contract provides for full retroactive pay of 2% from July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2017, and 4% from July 1, 2017, until implementation of the new rates. Thereafter, affected members will receive a boost in wage rates of 2.5% on July 1, 2018, and 3% on July 1, 2019.
The ratified contract will cover over 35,000 SMART TD members employed by BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Kansas City Southern, Union Pacific and numerous smaller carriers, all of whom were represented in this round of bargaining by the rail industry’s National Carriers’ Conference Committee.
The SMART TD negotiating team was led by President John Previsich, who was assisted in the negotiations by Vice Presidents David Wier, John Lesniewski, Troy Johnson, John England, Doyle Turner and Jeremy Ferguson, along with General Chairpersons Danny Young (BNSF), Mark Cook (NS), Brent Leonard (UP) and Steve Mavity (CSX), all four of whom are nationally elected TD officers in addition to serving as General Chairpersons.
For this round of bargaining, SMART TD joined forces with five other unions to form the Coordinated Bargaining Group. The other unions in the CBG are the American Train Dispatchers Association; the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (a Division of the Rail Conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters); the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen; the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers, and Helpers and the National Conference of Firemen and Oilers/SEIU.
President Previsich commented: “I believe that our negotiating team, along with the teams from the other unions in the CBG, are to be commended for staying the course during a long and tedious round of negotiations. The easy thing for them to do when the going got tough was to declare defeat and walk away from the negotiating table, as others have done, but our team never wavered. By rejecting the carriers’ unreasonable demands while staying at the table and continuing to negotiate, the team was successful in obtaining an agreement that achieved an approval rate of 79.57%.”
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The SMART Transportation Division, formerly the United Transportation Union, is the largest rail union in the United States representing members in all operating crafts, including engineers, conductors, trainmen, switchmen and yardmasters.
A ride on a UTV in September nearly turned fatal for Shane Leach when he severed an artery in his arm and nearly bled to death in the desert.
While out with a friend, Leach’s vehicle tipped on a turn. It rolled onto his arm, pinning it between the UTV and the ground.
About a month in intensive care followed, as did about 15 surgeries in which doctors were able to reconstruct and eventually save his left arm.
“I was in surgery almost every other day just to work on my arm,” the 21-year-old from Las Vegas said.
And Leach, a new hire as a conductor in April for Union Pacific, said that he was about two weeks short of receiving full union benefits when the accident happened.
“It put me in a spot where I had to just figure things out,” he said.
But SMART Transportation Division Nevada State Legislative Director Jason Doering, Local 1117 President Wyatt Kelly, and Vince Ybarra, chairman of Local 1117, in Las Vegas, Nev., and others weren’t going to let Leach figure it out alone. They visited Shane in the hospital before his November discharge and helped to lift his spirits.
“They’ve called and checked in on him,” said Brenna Bristol Leach, Shane’s mother. “He really wants to go back to work, he really enjoyed the culture. The outreach from the guys has solidified that.”
Shane Leach said a recent drive past a local railyard reminded him how he can’t wait to get back aboard.
“I just thought – I loved my job when I got it,” he said. “It was really tough in the hospital to have that taken away. It just motivates me to do as much work as I can to get back.
“It really showed me how much I really enjoy being a railroader.”
Bristol Leach said the doctors who cared for Shane in the hospital have said that he’ll recover use of his arm, but a timeline has not been defined – there’s still physical therapy and orthopedic exams for Leach to power through, which means more time away from work and more stress on his depleted savings.
“It could be six months, it could be less, it could be more,” Bristol Leach said.
But the major surgeries and skin grafts have been successful for Shane, she said, and her son remains upbeat for an eventual return to the railroad alongside his future SMART TD brothers and sisters.
“It really makes me feel good that they haven’t given up on me, and it motivates me to get through the therapy and get back out on the rails,” Leach said.
A GoFundMe online fundraiser has been set up at https://www.gofundme.com/shanes-medical-fund-recovery as Shane continues to recover. Any help would be appreciated.
The National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) announced Oct. 12 that it ruled that a collision between a pair of Union Pacific trains in Texarkana, Texas, in September 2015 was probably caused by crewmembers who did not respond to wayside signal indicators because they had fallen asleep.
The board also said that the lack of a functioning positive train control was a contributing factor in the collision.
At 12:34 a.m. Sept. 8, 2015, when a westbound UP engine on the Pine Bluff Subdivision struck a northbound UP train that was traveling on the Little Rock Subdivision, the board said.
Data from the locomotive event recorder of the striking train showed that the train slowed from 19 to 6 mph after the engineer applied the emergency brakes, the board said.
The engineer and conductor of the westbound train were treated for minor injuries, and there were no injuries to the crew of the northbound train, the board said.
Both of the westbound train’s locomotives derailed, spilling 4,000 of diesel fuel, while seven cars of the train that was struck left the tracks, the board said.
The NTSB said damage to the trains was estimated at $4.66 million.
The board also announced Oct. 17 that it was to convene Nov. 14 to determine probable cause of a collision that happened April 3, 2016, between an Amtrak train and a backhoe that killed a pair of rail workers who were repairing track ballast in Chester, Pa.
A total of 41 passengers were taken to the hospital after the collision, the board’s preliminary report said.
Union Pacific switchman, Jon Beckman, 48, was killed when he was struck by a train Friday, Sept. 22. He was working in Arlington, Texas when the accident occurred.
Beckman was a member of Local 243 in Ft. Worth, Texas, for 19 years. He served the local as president since 2007 and local chairperson since 2012, and was also the local’s delegate.
The SMART TD National Safety Team has been dispatched to the scene and is helping the NTSB with the investigation.
SMART TD extends its deepest condolences to the Beckman family and to all who knew him.
Earlier this year, Union Pacific instituted a revised attendance policy for transportation employees. This new policy contained the following provision which allowed them to discipline employees who utilized their collectively bargained compensated leave days (personal leave, vacation, etc.):
Q: 7. Are personal leave or single vacation day(s) subject to review under the Attendance Policy?
A: Personal leave and/or single vacation days may be subject to review if the use of these days indicates a frequency or pattern of avoiding work and failing to protect one’s employment on a full time basis.
Such compensated time is part of the collective bargaining/agreement bedrock guaranteed to operating employees. Unilateral changes to how such compensated time is utilized is highly improper under the Railway Labor Act.
In response, SMART TD General Chairpersons Brent Leonard representing GO 953, Al Nowlin representing GO 569, Jerry Kalbfell representing GO 225, Roy Davis representing GO 577, Steve Simpson representing GO 927, and Gary Crest representing GO 887, worked together in solidarity, serving a single notice of SMART Transportation Division’s intent to initiate a strike unless Union Pacific removed this egregious new provision from its attendance policy.
Upon reviewing the Organization’s position, Union Pacific removed the policy provision restricting the use of compensated leave, and SMART Transportation Division members will not lose time over a work stoppage due to this issue. This is a precedent-setting victory in the protection of member’s use of their compensated vacation and leave days.
Union Pacific (UP) announced that they plan to layoff 500 managers (8 percent) and 250 railroad workers in an effort to cut costs. Most of the manager jobs being cut are located at UP headquarters in Omaha, Neb.
Click here to read more from ABC affiliate KETV 7.
According to a press release from Union Pacific (UP), the railroad’s safety programs have contributed to a 5 percent decline in vehicle-train collisions at crossings for the first half of 2017, as compared to last year.
Click here to read more from Union Pacific.
NORTH PLATTE, Neb. – The North Platte Telegraph reported that of the 4,600 Union Pacific Railroad (UP) workers that were furloughed in April of 2016, nearly 3,000 of those workers have been rehired. The jobs that were cut last year were mostly train, engine and rail yard positions.
The article also included a link to new rail jobs at UP, also based out of North Platte. Click here for more information. To read the complete article, click here.