SMART UnionRoss Capon, the face of the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP) for 39 years on Capitol Hill, is stepping down from his role as president, and apparently will retire from the organization at year’s end.
Dr. Larry Scott will serve as NARP acting president while the organization conducts a search for a permanent successor. Capon will serve as assistant to the president for the remainder of the calendar year.
Read the complete story at Railway Age.
Jim Chase, North Dakota State Legislative Director of the SMART Transportation Division, submitted the following letter to the editor of The Bismarck Tribune. It was published Feb. 28, 2014.
Since the 1880s, North Dakota’s railroads have played an essential role in developing our state and our economy. Today’s railroads continue to provide vital passenger service and freight transportation across our state, and in the past two years have been the primary way we ship Bakken crude oil to market.
Without rail transportation, we would not have an oil boom in North Dakota today. And we would not have the incredible state budget surpluses we use to fund all sorts of worthy things.
Amtrak, our state’s only rail passenger service provider, has been providing that service since 1970. A recent statewide survey conducted on behalf of our union, SMART-Transportation Division (formerly the United Transportation Union), found that a strong majority of North Dakotans are very supportive of 1), Amtrak and 2), taking action to assure railroads continue to operate safely.
North Dakotans are not alone in their support for Amtrak; nearly identical poll results across the country reflect its growing popularity.
Ridership is at an all-time high, reaching 31.6 million last year. Indeed, one of the only places where Amtrak is not enjoying increasing favor is Washington, D.C., where some congressional leaders are still pushing to de-fund or privatize Amtrak. It is a position clearly out of step with Americans of all political persuasions.
With Congress preparing to rewrite the law that governs Amtrak and rail safety legislation, now is the time for elected officials to listen to their constituents and provide adequate funding for Amtrak to ensure that our nation’s railroads operate at the highest levels of safety. Seventy-one percent of North Dakotans favor federal legislation requiring a minimum of two-person crews on trains, which is one of the most effective ways to prevent accidents.
In the past, Amtrak was never a partisan issue. In fact, Amtrak had no greater friend and supporter than former Republican U.S. Senator Mark Andrews of Casselton, N.D. And as current polling across the country shows, Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike strongly support Amtrak in almost equal numbers.
Rail safety has taken on more urgency in the wake of several deadly train accidents in the last year. Last July, a single-person crew left a train unattended and it rolled away, destroying the center of a town in Quebec and killing 47 people. Other recent deadly passenger train accidents in Spain and New York occurred with only one person in the locomotive cab.
North Dakota recently had its own newsworthy train accident just west of Casselton, when a train carrying crude oil collided with another train carrying soybeans. Several cars became derailed and burned. Thankfully, both trains had more than one crew member on board who were able to respond to the situation, with no loss of life.
Every one of the accidents just described illustrates the need for a minimum of two persons on a train crew; however, requiring two-person train crews must be legislated. The railroads would prefer zero crew members on a train and want the power to reduce their train crews to the bare minimum at their personal discretion. Safety is our biggest concern; profit is theirs.
Congress can help secure safe rail service across our country by adequately funding Amtrak and by passing The Safe Freight Act, HR3040, a bill to require every freight train to have two crew members on board.
We as North Dakotans rely on freight rail to transport our Bakken crude oil and farm commodities to market, and we rely on Amtrak as an essential passenger transportation option. North Dakota depends on having safe rail service.
Robert D. Kerley, the senior vice president of the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, has retired, effective Feb. 28. The vice president vacancy in the Transportation Division will be filled by the elevation of Alternate Vice President Jeremy Ferguson by action of the Transportation Division’s board of directors.
Kerley is a member of Local 303 at Springfield, Mo. He began his railroad career as a brakeman for the former St. Louis San Francisco in 1971. He was promoted to conductor in 1973, fireman in 1977 and locomotive engineer in 1978. He served the members of his local as fireman’s local chairperson in 1977, 1979 and 1983. He was elected full-time associate general chairperson on BNSF Railway (GO 001) in 1983 and re-elected to the post until 1999, when he was elected general chairperson.
While continuing to serve as general chairperson, Kerley was elected alternate vice president-West, by delegates at the United Transportation Union’s convention in 2003, and served as secretary of the UTU District No. 1 General Chairperson’s Association for two terms. Since 2004, he has served on the UTU National Negotiating Committee. He also is a member of the UTU Wage and Rules Panel, which works to address ongoing collective bargaining issues at the national level. He was elected full vice president in 2007 and re-elected to that position in 2011. He also has served on the UTU Board of Directors since 2008 and was a member of the SMART General Executive Council.
Reflecting on his career with UTU and SMART, Kerley said “I have thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of both my railroad and union careers and truly appreciate the many opportunities this organization has given me to provide for my loved ones and to serve the membership. I will certainly miss the many friends and colleagues I leave behind, and I wish you all the best in your continued efforts on behalf of working people.”
Ferguson, a member of Local 313 in Grand Rapids, Mich., was born in 1970. He started railroading in 1994 as a conductor on CSX at Grand Rapids. He was promoted to engineer in 1995.
Ferguson was elected local legislative representative in 1995, local chairperson in 1996, and secretary of his general committee, CSX GO 049 in Jacksonville, Fla., in 2007. He was elected second vice general chairperson in 2008 and first vice general chairperson in 2011. He has also served as special representative and organizer for the UTU International starting in 1997.
He is the father of two children and resides in Jacksonville, Fla.
To fill the vacancy created by Ferguson’s elevation, the board of directors has appointed Long Island Rail Road GO 505 General Chairperson Anthony Simon to the office of alternate vice president.
Simon was born June 11, 1963, and raised in the Richmond Hill neighborhood of Queens, New York.
As GO 505 general chairperson, he represents the crafts of conductor, track worker, building and bridge worker, special service attendant, track supervisor, car repairman and car appearance personnel on New York’s Long Island Rail Road. He also serves as the chairperson of the Transportation Division’s Association of General Chairpersons District 1.
Simon hired on with LIRR in 1990 as a station cleaner and was promoted to assistant conductor in 1993. He was certified as a conductor in 1997 and began his career as a union leader soon after.
He first served as a local committee of adjustment secretary and was elevated to the office of local secretary & treasurer in 2000. In 2006, he ran unopposed for the position of general chairperson of the largest union on the LIRR. Simon also served on the Constitution Merger Committee of SMART.
Simon served on the Passenger Hour of Service working group with the Federal Railroad Administration’s Safety Advisory Committee. He organized and implemented a Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund to benefit railroad families in need following the storm and hosts an annual golf fundraiser in support of families on Long Island affected by autism.
He and his wife, Ann, reside in Bethpage, N.Y., with their children, Nicole and Anthony Jr.
The Rail Workers Hazardous Materials Training Program announces three HazMat/Chemical Emergency Response Training Programs will be held this spring in Houston, Texas.
These programs address U.S. Department of Transportation and the Occupational Health and safety Administration required training in addition to procedures, levels of response and worker protection in a hazardous materials emergency or release, weapons of mass destruction awareness and the incident command system. The training also provides completion of the OSHA 10-Hour General Industry Outreach requirements.
The programs are delivered using interactive classroom instruction, small group activities, hands-on drills and a simulated hazmat response in full safety gear.
The Rail Workers Hazardous Materials Training Program is funded to provide this training by a federal grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).
These five-day hazmat training courses will provide rail workers the essential knowledge, skills, and response actions in the case of an unintentional release. These tools will allow rail workers to protect themselves, their co-workers and their communities.
The funding provides the following student expenses: air travel, lodging and meals. In addition, an incentive of $600 per week is available to all training participants of these programs, except those who are able to secure regular pay through their employer, or are paid union officers.
Training will be conducted at the Houston Fire Department’s Val Jahnke Training Facility, 8030 Braniff St. Houston, TX 77061. Programs begin Sunday evenings at 7 p.m. and conclude Fridays at 1 p.m.
Students may be asked to travel on Saturdays to meet program start times or where substantial reductions in airfare warrant.
Register now by completing the attached application form and emailing it to bsafe2day@gmail.com, or send by U.S. mail to: Henry Jajuga, Director, RWHMTP, 17530 Bering Bridge Lane Humble, TX 77346, Please make sure to select one of the following dates: April 27-May 2, 2014, June 1-6, 2014, or June 8-13, 2014.
For additional information, please contact Henry Jajuga via email. For telephone inquiries, please call (281) 812-6436, Monday through Friday, between the hours of 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. central standard time.
First Transit, Inc., and members of the SMART Transportation Division have agreed on mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment and signed a collective bargaining agreement, according to the National Labor Relations Board.
The transportation management company, which operates throughout the United States, obtained a transit contract in 2011 to operate Red Apple Transit, a passenger bus company in Farmington, N.M. All the full-time and regular part-time drivers at Red Apple Transit were represented by the SMART TD.
On May 13, 2013, the board authorized NLRB Region 28 to pursue an injunction against First Transit Inc. for withdrawing recognition from the Union. First Transit also made unilateral changes in the terms and conditions of Red Apple Transit drivers’ employment – including cuts in wages and benefits – without giving the union an opportunity to bargain on the proposed changes. In addition, they failed to provide relevant information the union requested for the purpose of carrying out its representational duties.
On June 13, 2013, after the Section 10(j) petition had been filed in the district court, the parties agreed to a settlement, with First Transit agreeing to cease and desist its unfair labor practices, to recognize and bargain with the union, to provide the requested information to the union and to rescind the unilateral changes they had made in terms and conditions of employment of Red Apple Transit’s drivers.
WASHINGTON – Rail tank cars being used to ship crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken region are an “unacceptable public risk,” and even cars voluntarily upgraded by the industry may not be sufficient, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday.
The cars, known as DOT-111s, were involved in derailments of oil trains in Casselton, N.D., and Lac-Megantic, Quebec, just across the U.S. border, NTSB member Robert Sumwalt told a House Transportation subcommittee hearing.
Read Joan Lowy’s complete Associated Press article at the Huffington Post.
President Barack Obama came to St. Paul on Wednesday to showcase the city’s newly refurbished Union Depot transit hub as an example of the kinds of transportation development he wants for the rest of the nation.
“This project symbolizes what’s possible,” Obama told a standing-room-only crowd of 1,300 ticketed enthusiasts in the 90-year-old Lowertown depot’s ornate concourse.
Read the complete story at St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Federal regulators issued an emergency order Tuesday requiring more stringent testing of crude oil before shipment by rail to determine how susceptible the cargo is to explosion or fire, a response to a string of train accidents since last summer involving oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana.
The order also would place crude oil under more protective sets of hazardous materials shipping requirements, rather than allowing some shipments to be treated as less dangerous, the Transportation Department said.
Read the complete story at ABC News.
Hersman Announces Slight Rise in 2012 Transportation Fatalities; Aviation, Pipeline and Marine Deaths Drop
February 14
Washington, DC – Transportation fatalities in the United States increased by three percent in 2012 from 2011, according to preliminary figures released today by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The data indicate that transportation fatalities in all modes totaled 35,531 in 2012, compared to 34,551 in 2011. Although marine, aviation and pipeline, deaths declined, highway and rail fatalities showed an increase.
“We have a serious public health and safety epidemic on our highways,” said NTSB Chairman Deborah A. P. Hersman. “With our Most Wanted List, the NTSB highlights common-sense solutions to these safety issues that can improve safety and reduce the loss of life on our roads, rails, and waterways and in our skies.”
The 2012 statistics show:
Deaths on U.S. roadways, which account for nearly 94 percent of all transportation deaths, increased from 32,479 in 2011 to 33,561 in 2012. Highway fatalities increased in all categories except buses, which are down from 55 fatalities in 2011 to 39 in 2012.
Railroad deaths also increased six percent from 757 to 803. The vast majority of these fatalities were persons struck by a rail vehicle.
Aviation deaths decreased from 498 to 449. Nearly 96 percent of aviation fatalities occurred in general aviation accidents (432), but they still represented a decrease from the previous year (448). In 2012, air taxi fatalities dropped from 41 in 2011 to 15.
Marine deaths also dropped in 2012, from 803 to 706. The vast majority of the fatalities, (651), occurred in recreational boating
Aviation statistics are tracked and compiled by the NTSB. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security provides marine statistics, and the U.S. Department of Transportation provides statistics for all other modes.
A previously quiet increase in the amount oil moving through Albany by train is escalating into a rather loud controversy.
One reliable sign: A meeting at an elementary school on Feb. 12 about the volume of North Dakota crude moving through the capital drew a crowd of hundreds to protest and ask questions.
Read the complete story at www.capitalnewyork.com.