Author: alyssahansen

Whether it’s on the rails or on the road, SMART-TD prioritizes the safety of our brothers and sisters.  
 
This isn’t just something that we preach: our members’ actions speak louder than words. 
 
From fighting to ensure that Massachusetts law covers public transit workers employed by private companies, to securing permanent funding for the Office of Railroad Safety in Colorado just last week, this union’s presence and commitment to protecting its members is evident in statehouses across the country. 

String of Legislative Victories Spotlight Safety

SMART-TD members have racked up an impressive number of legislative wins centered on securing or strengthening safety protections this year. These include:

• Passing a monumental transit safety bill in Maryland that protects bus and passenger rail workers from violent assaults by requiring the Maryland Transit Administration to form a safety-focused workgroup in consultation with SMART-TD and several other unions. Together, they will create a passenger code of conduct and roll out a variety of internal safety improvements.  
• Securing permanent funding for the Office of Railroad Safety in Colorado after more than two years of tireless organizing, lobbying, and standing firm in the face of corporate and political games.  The Office is charged with collecting and analyzing safety data, including the impact of train length, crew size, and scheduling on accident rates—key areas the carriers and the Association of American Railroads (AAR) have consistently claimed lack “data to support.”  
• Passing a second new law in Colorado that enacts “Transit Worker Assault and Training Requirements,” which widens the definition of a transit worker and imposes harsher penalties for transit assaults. 
• Successfully broadening the definition of “public employee” and “assault” to cover transit workers employed by private companies in Massachusetts to close an unintended loophole that barred them from the same level of protection as public transit workers. 

A safety-related bill doesn’t necessarily need to pass to make headway. Organizing a coalition to move a piece of legislation out of committee or securing another co-sponsor to build support for a new law are part of how the work gets done. Each milestone means that lawmakers are coming to support our members’ priorities. While some laws take several years to pass, the members of SMART-TD and our advocates are relentless in the fight for safety.  
 
This is just a small snapshot of the safety-focused legislation that SMART-TD members have championed over the past few months. The theme is clear: safety on the job has and will always be this union’s top priority, even in the face of repeated attempts by the carriers to make that goal more difficult to achieve.

Carriers, Some Lawmakers Attempting to Cut Corners 

Short-term attempts to save a buck at the expense of workers’ safety are happening across the country. 

At the federal level, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) requested a repeal of the federal two-person crew rule (2-PC), claiming that it will save them over $260 million. But at what cost?  

Securing permanent funding for the Office of Rail Safety in Colorado was anything but a smooth ride.  A state senator tried to force employees’ unions to split the bill with the carriers. The office itself was created as a way to steal progress from defeat. 

The original legislation sought to limit train lengths to 8500 feet and cap blocked crossings at 10 minutes.  After 10 months of cooperation between the union and bipartisan legislative sponsors, railroad lobbyists stepped in at the last minute to threaten an unrelated passenger rail initiative. The original bill, if passed, had a good chance of being vetoed. The Colorado team pivoted to create the Office of Rail Safety instead.  
 
The proposal to share the cost was defeated, but the message was loud and clear: safety is secondary to financial savings, and our opposition is willing to do what it takes to erode the powers that hold them accountable.  

The contrast between our priorities and those of the carriers is clear. Our bottom line is this: no price tag can ever be put on our members’ safety.

Keeping Our Priorities in Line 

Whether it’s a major victory or an incremental step forward, SMART-TD will never lose focus of our central duty: ensuring our mutual well-being, and that our employers are held accountable for any harm caused by their greed.  
 
It takes grit to be on one of our state legislative boards. Political savviness and tireless determination are essential to building stronger protections in the face of ceaseless industry lobbying.  But grit and determination are what it means to be union. We’re used to hard work, and we will never stop. Our brothers and sisters, in every state and across every craft, will continue to fight tirelessly, day after day, to stand up for one another and protect what’s right.

In 2024, SMART-TD members in Colorado fought for and won the creation of the Colorado Office of Rail Safety, a monumental step forward after a string of horrifying derailments.  

This life-saving watchdog represents our Colorado brothers and sisters’ victory in getting state-level eyes on safety hazards that federal regulators often miss or ignore. When operational, it will empower Colorado to gather real data, hold railroads accountable, and finally start shifting the balance toward safe, reasonable working conditions. 

Earlier today, a follow-up bill to secure permanent funding for the Office passed the House on a voice vote and awaits the Governor’s signature. 2025 is a tight-budget year with fierce corporate railroad opposition. With only seven days left in Colorado’s legislative session, completing this legislative clean-up is still a battle. 

To complicate matters for this bill, Senator Byron Pelton (R-Sterling) and Representative Ken DeGraaf (R-Colorado Springs) stepped in with the most ridiculous amendment SMART-TD’s Legislative Office has ever witnessed. 

Amendment: “Let Workers Pay for Their Own Safety” 

During a Senate floor debate on SB25-162, (the bill funding the Office of Rail Safety), Pelton introduced Amendment L022, suggesting that the Office be funded 50% by the railroads and 50% by the employees via their union dues. 

Yes. He really said that. 

“…if you’re gonna have skin in the game, you should have skin in the game on both sides, not just the business,” Pelton argued, in what appeared to be an attempt to sound reasonable. 

Our members already have plenty of skin in the game. It gets shredded, bruised, burned, and buried. We’re talking about working men and women who live every day on the razor’s edge of life-altering safety hazards. We’re forced to operate trains with skeleton crews, unsafe equipment, and impossible schedules. All because billion-dollar corporations decided profits matter more than people. 

And now, Pelton wants us to pay cash to buy the safety that’s being denied to us? 

Today, a similar situation played out in the House.  
 
During the discussion on the amendment in the lower chamber, Representative Anthony Hartsook (R-Parker) took to the well to argue that requiring workers to help foot the bill wouldn’t be a heavy lift, especially when unions have such supposedly deep pockets.   
 
“Unions are just like any other big business out there,” Hartsook claimed. “If we are going to look at worker safety, and we want to work with both the Railroad industry and the unions that are representing the workers,…then both of them should be at the table and paying,” 
 
We know the truth, and Representative Hartsook’s statement could not be further from it.

Fellow Lawmakers Were Stunned 

In the upper chamber, Senator Lisa Cutter (D-Jefferson County) didn’t hold back: 

“Did the good Senator from Sterling just suggest that employees pay for their own safety? I’m shocked by that.” 

Then came Senator Chris Kolker (D-Centennial), who sounded equally baffled: 

“This is the cost of doing business for multi-billion dollar corporations — they’re doing just fine.” 

To recap: Pelton stood on the Senate floor and suggested that we, the workers, should split the bill for regulating the corporations that made those jobs so dangerous in the first place. 

That’s like asking firefighters to pitch in for the water bill before entering a burning building. 
 
After almost entering into a shoving match with Representative Hartsook in the House, bill sponsor Representative Javier Mabrey (D-Denver) pushed back on his colleague’s absurd claims. 
 
“The purpose of unions is to give workers an opportunity to come together and fight back against an economy that is rigged against workers. An attack on workers is an attack on unions.” 

Not the first time we have been insulted

This isn’t the first time rail workers have been insulted by suits who’ve never set foot on ballast. During the 2022 Presidential Emergency Board hearings, the National Carriers’ Conference Committee (NCCC) submitted a written statement declaring: 

“Labor does not contribute to profits.” 

It was directed at us. Railroad workers. The same workers who generate every dollar railroads earn, who move the goods, who fix the tracks, who show up when no one else will. Now, Senator Pelton is singing the same tune: Railroads get the profits. Workers get the invoice. 

We call B.S. 

The Facts: Who’s Really Responsible for Safety?

Here’s the truth Pelton, DeGraaf, and Hartsook are ignoring: providing a safe workplace isn’t the worker’s responsibility. It’s a corporate obligation. The unsafe conditions we’re trying to fix were created by railroad executives chasing profits, not by union members working themselves to the bone. 

And as Senator Kolker reminded everyone, multiple other states already have similar safety offices, and all are paid for by the railroads. Because that’s what “cost of doing business” actually means. 

Rail Workers Are Watching — And We’re Not Footing the Bill 

Let’s be very clear: SMART-TD’s Colorado members fought for this Office. We earned it. We know it’s our best shot at forcing accountability. We did the work to get it passed, and we’ll do the work to see that it is funded properly. 

What we won’t do is let politicians like Senator Pelton get away with sticking us with the railroads’ bar tabs. 

Railroad workers already pay more than our fair share with our health, our family time, and far too often, our lives, and limbs. Asking us also to pay the bill for regulating the companies that made railroading unsafe in the first place is as stupid as it is insulting. 

The amendment failed in both chambers, but the fight continues. The workers, who are the real stakeholders in rail safety, will not forget who stood with us or who stood in our way.