New Jersey State Legislative Director Ronald E. Sabol reports that the N.J. State Legislative Board (SLB) has announced their endorsements for candidates running for election Nov. 7, 2017.
“The NJSLB would like to remind all of our N.J. members Election Day is November 7th and that they will be voting for governor as well as all N.J. Senate and Assembly seats,” Sabol said. “Anyone wishing to see the NJSLB’s election recommendations can do so by visiting our website.”
Click here to view their endorsements. Click here to visit the NJ SLB & Local 60’s website.
Author: amyr
Net Earnings: $459 million or $0.51 per share, up from $455 million or $0.49 per share for the same period last year
Revenue: Increased 1 percent to $2,743 million
Operating Income: Improved 4 percent to $876 million
Operating Ratio: Improved 90 basis points to 68.1 percent
Click here to read CSX’s full earnings report.
Net Earnings: Increased to $130 million or $1.23 per diluted share
Revenue: Increased 9 percent to $657 million
Operating Income: Increased 17 percent to $234 million, a third quarter record
Operating Ratio: Improved 2.5 points to 64.4 percent, a third quarter record
Click here to read KCS’s full earnings report.
Net Earnings: Increased 47 percent to C$510 million or 50 percent to C$3.50 diluted earnings per share
Revenue: Increased 3 percent to C$1.6 billion, up from C$1.55 billion
Operating Income: Increased 5 percent to C$690 million, up from C$657 million
Operating Ratio: Improved 100 basis points to 56.7 percent from 57.7 percent
Click here to read CP’s full earnings report.
Net Earnings: Increased to $1.2 billion or $1.50 per diluted share
Revenue: Up 5 percent from $5.4 billion
Operating Income: Increased 3 percent to $2.0 billion
Operating Ratio: Increased 0.7 points to 62.8 percent
Click here to read UP’s full earnings report.
Net Earnings: Decreased 1 percent to C$958 million, while diluted earnings per share increased 2 percent to C$1.27
Revenue: Increased 7 percent to C$3,221 million
Operating Income: Increased 4 percent to C$1,459 million
Operating Ratio: Increased 1.4 points to 54.7 percent
Click here to read CN’s full earnings report.
Net Earnings: Up 10 percent to $506 million or diluted earnings per share up 13 percent to $1.75
Revenue: Increased 6 percent to $2.7 billion
Operating Income: Up 11 percent to $911 million
Operating Ratio: 65.9 percent, a quarterly record
Click here to read NS’s full earnings report.
Note: Operating ratio is a railroad’s operating expenses expressed as a percentage of operating revenue, and is considered by economists to be the basic measure of carrier profitability. The lower the operating ratio, the more efficient the railroad.
Amtrak conductor and Local 1933 member Amanda “Mandie” Brillhart has been in the hospital more than a month and continues to undergo surgeries after Florence, S.C., sheriff’s deputies said her husband, Charles Durell Nethercutt, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire in their home in September.
As a result of the attack, Brillhart received severe burns to her torso, arms, legs and feet and has had extensive surgeries.
Online fundraisers at GoFundMe.com are ongoing to help her family with medical costs.
In an update on GoFundMe posted Oct. 19, Brillhart’s mother, Annette Brillhart, said that Mandie, 27, the mother of a one-year-old son, was going to undergo her 12th surgery and was being kept in a sterile environment in intensive care.
“I cannot tell you how grateful that we as a family are for the support that you all have shown for her and us as well. I am reading all the wonderful thoughts and prayers for her and I am overwhelmed,” Annette posted on GoFundMe. “Please continue to pray for her and leave your well wishes on this site or you may send a card or letter of encouragement to our home.
“When she finally gets out of ICU, I can bring them to her and she can read them and get a better understanding of how much she means to people, even the ones she does not know.”
To contribute online, visit https://www.gofundme.com/yasvcw-support-for-mandie.
To send cards or letters, address them to:
Annette Brillhart
102 Red Coat Lane,
Columbia, SC 29223
Police tracked Nethercutt down in Yonkers, N.Y., and took him into custody in mid-November. He faces charges of attempted murder and others.
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The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Taylor M. Wilson, 25, of St. Charles, Mo., was detained by Amtrak staff after he pulled the emergency brake while aboard an Amtrak train traveling southwest through Nebraska.
It was discovered that Wilson was armed with a loaded Smith and Wesson .38-caliber revolver and a speed loader. Two bags were seized containing three more speed loaders, a box of ammo, a knife, tin snips, scissors and a ventilation mask.
Wilson is charged with felony criminal mischief and possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony and is being held on $25,000 bond.
The Amtrak train was carrying 175 passengers at the time of the incident.
Click here to read more from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Beginning Oct. 15 and running through Dec. 7, 2017, the open enrollment period allows Medicare-eligible patients the option of changing their coverage for 2018. Your 2018 Medicare & You Handbook should have arrived via the postal mail, and it’s important that you read this guide as you are making your decision. Every year, open enrollment is the chance to decide if you want to keep your current plan, or change to a Medicare Advantage Plan, or other health plans. If you were eligible for but not enrolled in Medicare Part B last year, you can sign up for coverage with Original Medicare or a Medicare Advantage Plan. Open enrollment is also the time to sign up for or change your prescription drug coverage, if you need to.
While the Part B premium and deductible have not yet been published, Part B (which includes Railroad Medicare) works as the following:
- You pay a Part B premium each month (most people will pay a standard amount).
- You may pay more if your adjusted gross income on your income tax return from two years ago is above a certain level.
- For most services, you have a 20 percent copay.
If you need help determining the best plan for you, we encourage you to contact your State Health Insurance Program, also called ‘SHIP’. SHIP is available in all 50 states and U.S. territories. It may be called something slightly different in your state (California’s SHIP is called the ‘California Health Insurance Counseling & Advocacy Program’ (HICAP)). However, they function the same way. You can find the contact information for the SHIP in your state by visiting Palmetto GBA’s website at www.PalmettoGBA.com/RR/Me/SHIP.
If you have questions about SHIP, you can call Palmetto’s toll-free Beneficiary Customer Service Line at 800-833-4455, Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. EST. For the hearing impaired, call TTY/TDD at 877-566-3572. This line is for the hearing impaired with the appropriate dial-up service and is available during the same hours customer service representatives are available.
Palmetto GBA invites you to join their listserv/email updates. Just select the ‘listservs’ link at the top of their main webpage at www.PalmettoGBA.com/RR/Me.
The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic (MMA) employee in charge of safety and training at the railroad testified that a minimum of nine handbrakes should have been used on the train that destroyed the town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in 2013. Michael Horan testified that only seven handbrakes had been set.
What’s more, in a distinct disregard for safety, Horan’s testimony revealed that he was never trained in how to teach safety standards to employees. He also testified that MMA had instituted one-man crews shortly before the Lac-Megantic tragedy.
Click here to read more about Horan’s testimony from CBCNews.
In early 1998, a Federal task force was created to examine railroad switching fatalities. Coordinated by the FRA, this working group consisted of representatives from both rail labor and carrier industry management.
For 22 months they poured over data from the 76 switching deaths that occurred between 1992 and 1998, as well as reviewed the limited data collected from similar fatal events from 1975 – 1991. Every conceivable factor involving each member’s fatality was charted, analyzed and examined in this exhaustive effort to determine the factors that contributed to our deaths as railroad workers.
On October 28, 1999, the very first Switching Operations Fatalities Analysis (SOFA) report containing the Findings and Recommendations of this group was made public. Click here to view the first report.
This first SOFA report contained five major railroad operating recommendations designed to prevent critical injuries and fatalities among our craft, later titled the “Five Lifesavers;” the very first recommendation – SOFA number 1 began with these two sentences:
“Any crew member intending to foul track or equipment must notify the locomotive engineer before such action can take place. The locomotive engineer must then apply locomotive or train brakes, have the reverser centered, and then confirm this action with the individual on the ground.”
Sound familiar?
Now, some members have reported that they have been told to go between rail cars without establishing any such protection (3-step, Red Zone, etc.) and that they would face discipline for delaying trains if they took the time to do so.
But it so happens that over the past two decades, some members also have been disciplined and terminated over alleged failures to obtain such protection when fouling tracks.
This chaos imposed upon a good portion of our membership affects all of us. Couple this with today’s prevailing political philosophy against the supposed evils of regulatory oversight of corporations, especially concerning industrial occupational safety, and we find that protecting ourselves on the job is up to us — now more than ever!
Further, it’s a pretty safe bet that all of us know someone who was injured or worse while railroading. We all understand the hazards associated with our line of work, and we are all familiar with the old saying “the rules are written in blood.” Contrast this with those reports mentioned above that exhibit a blatant intentional disregard of safe working procedures that have been browbeaten into our conscience from our first day in railroad training, and we have no choice but to lead.
Our union’s structure is built upon our ability to look out for each other, and each local has a legislative representative (LR) who is our first line of safety.
Legislative representatives were around long before the carriers started forming company-run safety committees.
We do not oppose these safety committees, and we do rely on the carriers to live up to their responsibility for safety. But remember: We are the leaders in safety — always have been, always will be!
Your Safety Task Force encourages and urges you to work through your local LRs to ensure unsafe conditions and practices are documented, reported and corrected. Email us any question, condition, unsafe trend etc., and we will work to find a resolution.
It is time to lead,
SMART Rail Safety Task Force
email: s_taskforce@smart-union.org
https://www.smart-union.org/safety/smart-rail-safety-task-force
Do you love to cook? MasterChef is looking for railroaders who love to cook in their free time and who have never cooked professionally.
Judged by award-winning chef Gordon Ramsay along with two others, the show is currently looking for contestants for season nine. The top 40 contestants are put through a series of challenges and elimination rounds in order to turn one home cook into a culinary master.
Click here for more information about casting calls. Click here to apply.
Season eight of MasterChef currently airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on FOX.
Photo submissions for the 2018 SMART TD Alumni Association calendar are due by 9 a.m. EST, Monday, Oct. 9, so that the SMART TD PR department may get to work on choosing which photos to feature in the 2018 calendar.
SMART Transportation Division is seeking quality railroad, bus and airline photos, taken by members, for placement in the annual SMART TD Alumni Association calendar and for other uses.
High-resolution digital photographs should be emailed to: “news_TD@smart-union.org.”
Printed photographs should be mailed to SMART TD News, 24950 Country Club Blvd., Suite 340, North Olmsted, OH 44070.
Be sure to include the photographer’s name and local number, the name(s) of the person(s) in the photograph (left to right) and any other pertinent information, such as the date and location where the photograph was taken.
Due to federal or state regulations, or company restrictions on employees’ use of personal electronic devices, including cameras, on company property or while on duty, all members are advised to never take photos while on duty and to only take photos from a clear point of safety and in compliance with all applicable company rules.
All photographs submitted become property of SMART Transportation Division.
Independence, Ohio, October 5 — Rail Unions making up the Coordinated Bargaining Group (CBG) announced today that they have reached a Tentative National Agreement with the Nation’s Freight Rail Carriers. The CBG is comprised of six unions: 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; the National Conference of Firemen and Oilers / SEIU; and the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART TD).
On Wednesday, October 4th, the CBG’s full Negotiating Team met in Independence, Ohio for a review of the terms of the proposed voluntary agreement. Following that review, each of the CBG Unions’ Negotiating Teams unanimously endorsed the Tentative Agreement. On Thursday, October 5th, the involved General Chairpersons of SMART TD, BRS and BLET met as well and those groups also unanimously endorsed the Tentative Agreement for consideration by the respective membership of each Union.
The Tentative Agreement, which will be submitted to the memberships of each involved Union in the coming weeks, includes an immediate wage increase of 4%, with an additional 2.5% six months later on July 1, 2018 and an additional 3% one year later on July 1, 2019. In addition, wage increases of 2% effective July 1, 2016 and another 2% effective July 1, 2017 will be fully retroactive through implementation, for a compounded increase of 9.84% over an 18-month period and 13.14% over the 5-year contract term (this includes the First General Wage Increase of 3% implemented on January 1, 2015).
All benefits existing under the Health and Welfare Plan will remain in effect unchanged and there are no disruptions to the existing healthcare networks. While some employee participation costs are increased, the tentative agreement maintains reasonable maximum out-of-pocket protections for our members. The TA also adds several new benefits to the Health and Welfare Plan for the members of the involved unions and, importantly, it requires that the Rail Carriers will, on average, continue to pay 90% of all of our members’ point of service costs.
On a matter of critical importance, the employees’ monthly premium contribution is frozen at the current rate of $228.89. The frozen rate can only be increased by mutual agreement at the conclusion of negotiations in the next round of bargaining that begins on 1/1/2020.
In addition, the CBG steadfastly refused to accept the carriers’ demands for changes to work rules that would have imposed significant negative impacts on every one of our members. As a result of that rejection, the Tentative Agreement provides for absolutely no changes in work rules for any of the involved unions.
“This Tentative Agreement provides real wage increases over and above inflation, health care cost increases far below what the carriers were demanding, freezes our monthly health plan cost contribution at the current level, provides significant retroactive pay and imposes no changes to any of our work rules,” said the CBG Union Presidents. “This is a very positive outcome for a very difficult round of negotiations. We look forward to presenting the Tentative Agreement to our respective memberships for their consideration.”
# # #
Collectively, the CBG unions represent more than 85,000 railroad workers covered by the various organizations’ national agreements, and comprise over 58% of the workforce that will be impacted by the outcome of the current bargaining round.
Click here for a pdf of this letter.
Click here for the Tentative Agreement.