August 11, 2022 | 2-man Crews, FRA, Headlines, SMART-TD
(Source: SMART-TD press release, August 10, 2022) Federal Railroad Administrator Amit Bose didn’t elaborate on the proposed two-person crew rule that his agency recently put forth for the public to weigh in on, but he made it clear as he spoke on the second day of the...
May 24, 2022 | Headlines, Hi-Viz, SMART-TD
(Source: SMART-TD press release, May 23, 2022) Members of the SMART Transportation Division and other unionized rail workers came together for a day of protest May 10 outside the North American Rail Shippers (NARS) annual meeting in Kansas City. They wanted to draw...
May 2, 2022 | BNSF, Headlines, SMART-TD
(Source: SMART Transportation Division press release, April 30, 2022) OMAHA, Neb. — While Berkshire Hathaway shareholders sat April 30 in comfort and national cable-news networks live-streamed and deified wealth hoarder Warren Buffett and his executive cronies at the...
April 21, 2022 | Contract Negotiations, CSX, Headlines, SMART-TD
(Source: Railway Age, April 20, 2022) NEW YORK — CSX on April 19 reached what it’s calling a “tentative agreement” with the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, Transportation Division (SMART-TD) to provide SMART-TD Trainmen and Yardmasters with “monthly...
April 6, 2022 | FRA, News, PSR, SMART-TD
CLEVELAND (April 6) — Leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure are asking the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to take action on a 2008 Congressional mandate to address rail worker fatigue at Class I carriers,...
April 6, 2022 | AFL-CIO, BNSF, News, SMART-TD, TTD, Unions
CLEVELAND, Ohio (April 6) — The nation’s two largest railroad unions continue to gather allies and momentum as they oppose the imposition of precision scheduled railroading (PSR) tactics by Class I carriers that put safety and the health and lives of working people at...
April 5, 2022 | BNSF, News, PSR, SMART-TD
CLEVELAND, Ohio (April 5) — Five Republican U.S. representatives have contacted the BNSF Railway and encouraged its CEO to reengage with its operating unions to alter the highly-restrictive and punitive Hi-Viz attendance policy. In a letter to Brotherhood of...
April 5, 2022 | Headlines, PSR, SMART-TD
(Source: Trains Magazine, April 4, 2022) WASHINGTON, D.C. — Ongoing service problems related to crew shortages on the U.S. Class I railroads are entirely self-inflicted due to the implementation of Precision Scheduled Railroading, the SMART Transportation Division...
March 28, 2022 | CP, National Negotiations 2019, News, SMART-TD, Teamsters Canada
By Dennis R. Pierce, BLET National President (BLET Editor’s Note: The following message from President Pierce has been excepted from the January-March 2022 issue of the Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen News.) INDEPENDENCE, Ohio, March 28 — In the piece that I wrote...
March 24, 2022 | BNSF, Headlines, SMART-TD
(Source: Associated Press, March 23, 2022) OMAHA, Neb. — BNSF’s two largest unions will ask an arbitrator to throw out the railroad’s strict new attendance policy instead of appealing a court order preventing them from striking. Full story:...
