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:...
March 16, 2022 | 2-man Crews, Contract Negotiations, Headlines, SMART-TD
(Source: SMART Transportation Division press release, March 15, 2022) CLEVELAND, Ohio — Class I railroad carriers BNSF and NS declared an impasse this week in the mandatory bargaining over crew size under Section 6 of the Railway Labor Act (RLA). In declaring an...
March 10, 2022 | AFL-CIO, BNSF, Headlines, SMART-TD, TTD
(Source: Associated Press, March 8, 2022) OMAHA, Neb. — The unions that represent roughly half of BNSF’s workers continue to fight against the railroad’s new attendance rules that they say penalizes them for missing work for any reason even though a judge...
March 7, 2022 | AFL-CIO, DOT, News, PSR, SMART-TD, TTD
CLEVELAND, Ohio (March 7, 2022) — In conjunction with the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD), the SMART Transportation Division (SMART-TD) and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) urge all members to engage in a petition drive to...
March 4, 2022 | News, SMART-TD
Attention all SMART-TD and BLET members! Tonight at 7:00 p.m. central standard time, SMART-TD President Jeremy Ferguson and BLET President Dennis Pierce will be airing a joint interview on the Rails Tails & Trails YouTube channel, which can be viewed at the...
