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Railroad employees covered under the National Railway Carriers/UTU Health and Welfare Plan or the Railroad Employees’ National Health and Welfare Plan are being mailed a notification of the online open enrollment period that begins Oct. 1, 2016, and ends Oct. 31, 2016 at midnight. The enrollment site is available 24/7 during the enrollment period. The information should be specific to the current enrollment for you and your eligible dependents.
The online enrollment capability provides the ability to view your personal information, add, delete and update dependent information, view enrollment materials, enroll in benefits for next year, and receive an immediate confirmation statement. There is no need to mail in a paper enrollment form. However, if you need assistance, have questions or require a paper enrollment kit, call Railroad Enrollment Services at 800-753-2692.
The enrollment website can be found at https://www.yourtracktohealth.com.
You are encouraged to visit the online enrollment site and review all the information available. Use the login instructions at the end of this article to access and review your personal information and spend some time learning about the benefits and resources available on the site.
You will also be able to search medical provider networks.
It is required that covered dependent Social Security numbers (SSN) be provided to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Please supply the missing SSN on the Dependent Information screen.
If you are currently enrolled in the Health Flexible Spending Account, the election and yearly contribution will not rollover to the new plan year. You must enroll in your Health Flexible Spending Account every year.

Click “Login” located in the upper right corner of the screen.
If you have already registered, enter your username and password.
If you have not yet registered, select “New User?” at the bottom of the screen to complete your registration.

Once logged in, select the option to “Enroll Now for 2016,” located in the upper left corner of the screen.
Click here to view more information on the flexible spending account.

Tags Health Flexible Spending Account, healthcare, Your Track to Health

afl_cio The AFL-CIO just released a poll that shows a significant drop in support for Trump from Ohio union members. From Trump’s support of “Right to Work” laws aimed at dismantling unions, to Pence’s 99% record of voting against labor, the downward shift in labor support comes as no surprise. Read more here.

Tags aviation members, bus members, Pence voting record on labor, rail members, Right to Work laws, Sheet Metal, Unions rejecting Trump

Sisters and Brothers,
My most recent post generated some lively feedback and I spent quite a bit of time speaking to members on the phone and answering all the emails I received about our endorsement Of Hillary Clinton for president. To be clear, my role and our union’s role is to protect you and your job, which is what we do. Our constitution requires that our leadership evaluate candidates and make endorsements of those that we believe will best support our jobs and safety in our industry and that’s what we do. Our union’s only reason for existence is to fight for our members, and that’s what we do. We are your union and we do the best we can on issues that are directly related to you job.
Click here to read a good piece by John Nichols on what the Republican platform says about workers and unions. I attended the Republican convention and spoke to moderate Republicans who tried in vain to remove this anti-worker garbage from the Republican platform. We are up against forces that want to deunionize America so that they can drive down wages and eliminate defined benefit pension plans. We are fighting every day to try to make sure that doesn’t happen.
In solidarity,
John Risch
National Legislative Director
SMART Transportation

The Ohio State Legislative Board is pleased to announce a great new tool with the recent addition to the www.smart-oslb.com website:

Ohio Legislative Action Center

This is the first ‘State Specific’ – Legislative Action Center within SMART TD State Legislative Boards.
This is the same tool that you can use to access Congress on the SMART TD News website to:

Write Members of Congress in support of a federal issue
Call your Members of Congress in support of a federal issue
Sign a Petition for a federal issue
Write a Letter to the Editor
Compose tour Own Message to Congress
Find your Elected Officials

With the Ohio Legislative Action Center, you can use all of those tools to weigh in on key issues, understand what our issues are, and where we stand on those Issues. You will have the ability to find your House Representative and State Senator to write and call, and let them know how you feel.
Using the SoftEdge platform – Ohio Legislative Action Center offers our members, retirees and their families a comprehensive grassroots advocacy platform that is easy to use, and has up-to-date information on members of the Ohio Legislature.
Become a grassroots advocate for the Ohio State Legislative Board & the SMART TD by going to www.smart-oslb.com. Click on the heading: Ohio Legislative Action Center
You can then scroll through the issues that concern us:
Home Issues Directory Bills Votes Elections Media

HB 583 – Collective Bargaining

Please contact your Representative and tell them not to support HB 583:
To remove any requirement under the Public Employees Collective Bargaining Law that public employees join or pay dues to any employee organization, to prohibit public employers from requiring public employees to join or pay dues to any employee organization, to prohibit an employee organization from being required to represent public employees who are not members of the employee organization, and to make an appropriation.

Write your Legislators

HB 377 – Union Dues

Please contact your Representative and tell them not to support HB 377.
To prohibit any requirement that employees of private employers join or pay dues to any employee organization and to establish civil and criminal penalties against employers who violate that prohibition.

Write your Legislators

SB 229 – Train Crews

Please contact your State Senator to support SB 229 – to require the crews of freight trains to consist of at least two individuals.
This common sense bill is not only for the safety of those freight train crews, but also for the safety of the communities that those trains pass through.
Request that your Senator ask the Chairman of the Commerce & Labor Committee – Bill Seitz to schedule further hearings on this important safety bill.

Write your Legislators

HB 371 – Train Crews

Please contact your State Representative and ask them to support HB 371 – Train Crews: To require the crews of freight trains consist of at least two individuals. This common sense bill is not only for the safety of those freight train crews, but also for the safety of the communities that those trains pass through.
Request that your Representative ask the Chairman of the Commerce & Labor Committee to schedule further hearings on this important safety bill.

Write your Legislators

You may click on the Issue, use the message provided, or compose your own message to send to your State Legislator.
Please provide the following information, and the SoftEdge will address your message to your State Legislator:
Compose Your Own Message
Street Address *
ex: 123 Main St
Zip *
After you send your message, you may select the Media button, which will select up to 10 newspapers in your area. You can select up to six to send your message as a letter to the editor. The newspapers will usually call you to confirm that you sent the message.

Browse by state or last name

Lastly, please realize that this is a tool that can and will influence your State Legislators and your member of Congress. Legislator’s love to hear from their Constituents. They sometimes make their decisions based on the feedback they receive.

Tags Ohio Legislative Action Center

“Working Americans must act together, because the only things that can be done for workers must be done by workers – collectively. Like Washington, Jefferson and Adams, we don’t need a king – we need each other.” – Tom O’Brien. Read the article in its entirety at the Post-Gazette.com.

Tags aviation members, bus members, commuter rail, conductors, engineers, Freight rail, labor movement, rail members, union workers

David Pryor, Amtrak conductor and member of SMART TD Local 168, loves his job on the commuter rail and shared his sentiments and experiences in a recent interview with The Atlantic. Not only does the job provide him with the opportunity to travel, he also noted that being on the railroad continually restores his faith in humanity.
“In my 27 years, I’ve seen people helping complete strangers. It lets you see the world from a different perspective. There are still a lot of wonderful people in this world,” Pryor stated to Associate Editor, Bourree Lam. Read the complete article here.

Tags Amtrak, Amtrak conductor, commuter rail, commuter safety

By John Risch, SMART TD National Legislative Director
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m honored to serve as your elected National Legislative Director. I came from the ranks, starting in the track department on the Burlington Northern and went into train service, spending more than 30 years in freight and passenger service in North Dakota.
My father was a truck driver and my mother was a stay-at-home parent who raised three children and a cousin of mine. We grew up poor, which gave me a real appreciation for the pay and benefits that a good union job provided. My 30-plus years working on the railroad has given me a real perspective of the issues we face, and drives me to protect what we already have and work to make our jobs better.
The outcome of the Presidential Election will determine whether we make progress on improving our jobs or whether we lose ground.
The next president of the United States will set the tone, and will make important appointments to positions that directly affect you.
The head of the Federal Railroad Administration will decide:

Whether the two-person crew regulation is finalized or discarded
Whether we enact regulations requiring uniform speed signs on railroads
Whether there will be limitations on the use of inward facing cameras
What to do about fatigue in the freight rail industry

Appointees to the National Mediation Board will intervene in our contract negotiations and influence things like wages and work rules. They will also appoint arbitrators who decide if an unjustly fired member returns to work with or without back pay.
The head of the Motor Carrier Administration will decide how, or if, we will deal with the terrible problem of driver assault.

The next Chairman of the Railroad Retirement Board will determine not only how our pension is administered, but how our unemployment, sickness and disability benefits are administered as well.
I’m very concerned about Donald Trump, should he be elected as our next President. He has repeatedly said he will discard regulations and get rid of government bureaucracy. These are good sound bites and none of us want more government rules than are necessary, but when you look at the pending regulations affecting us, like two-person crews, fatigue and locomotive cameras, this rhetoric takes on a different meaning.
I have a note on my desk that says: “My most important job is to make sure that bad things don’t happen to our members.” I’m charged with the responsibility of protecting and improving the jobs of our members – an assignment I don’t take lightly. That job may be nearly impossible under a Trump administration.
Here is a book review of a recent book by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Cay Johnston. The book explains many of Donald Trump’s human failings. I know the hardcore Trump supporters in our ranks have by and large ignored these failings, but I cannot. I care about our hardworking members and our country, and quite simply put, Donald Trump is unqualified to serve as President of the United States.
If he is elected I’m afraid that he will appoint people to government that are equally unqualified, causing significant damage to the progress we have already made.
While I pledge to do the best I can to improve things for our members, I can’t do it on my own. I need your help at the ballot box. We’ve endorsed Hillary Clinton, she will support our union, our issues and the progress that unions have made. This is serious stuff and we all need to do our part in making our jobs better not just for us, but for those who follow. And that work starts with this election.
Anyone who wants to call and talk about this can call me at 202-543-7714. I work for you: What every one of you has to say matters to me.

Tags aviation, bus, commuter rail, Freight rail, presidential campaigns, presidential election, why trump is bad for unions

Members of SMART Transportation Division Local 1715 in Charlotte, N.C., overwhelmingly approved a new three-year contract, Friday, Sept. 9, reports Vice President Calvin Studivant.
“I would like to thank General Chairperson (GCA TMD) Hasson Trent, Vice General Chairperson Brenda Moore, LCA TMD Secretary Ruby Crosby and Local President Bruce Wright for the long hours and hard work that they each put in to reaching this agreement,” Studivant said.
Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) operators will enjoy more favorable work rules, paid travel time to the Tryon and Davidson garages and lower healthcare insurance deductibles. The contract also includes an increased pension cap and 7.5 percent in general wage increases with retroactive pay.

Managed by the Public Transit Department of the city of Charlotte, CATS is the largest transit system between Atlanta and Washington, with over 70 local, express and regional bus routes. The company also manages a light rail system, services for the disabled and vanpools.

Tags Calvin Studivant, CATS, Charlotte Area Transit System, Local 1715

Proposed rule: “Competitive Passenger Rail Service Pilot Program”

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register August 22. This proposed rulemaking from the FRA is a direct result of Section 11307 of the FAST Act which requires FRA to implement a pilot program for competitive selection of petitioners other than Amtrak to operate up to three long-distance routes currently operated by Amtrak. The final rule will establish the procedures for interested parties to submit bids and the information that petitioners must submit to FRA. It will also establish the procedures for the Secretary to evaluate bids, and select and notify selected petitioners, should there be any.

SMART TD, TTD and all of rail labor opposed this concept and other privatization mandates as the bill was going through the legislative process and fought to remove it or include conditions that would protect workers and create a level playing field if it ever went into effect. In the end, while the pilot provision stayed in the final bill, a number of conditions were attached to it at our request and it was limited to three long-distance routes. Given the political realities we face on the Hill and the opposition to Amtrak that exists, this was not an easy task.

TTD submits comments on proposed rule

Yesterday, September 6, the Transportation Trades Department (TTD) of the AFL-CIO commented on the proposed rule published by the FRA. Click here to read TTD’s comments.

National Legislative Director John Risch on TTD’s comments:

“The comments filed by TTD urge FRA to ensure that labor, service and Buy America rules that attach to this program are fully implemented. Specifically, TTD’s comments call on FRA to ensure that so-called 4R rail employee protections cover workers impacted by this program. As TTD notes in their comments, we think the law requires this result, but we need to make sure the FRA implements this in the right way. I should note that Rich Edelman, on behalf of the BMWE (which was not included in TTD’s comments since they are not members) also filed comments. Edelman, who has a strong background in this area of the law, goes into more detail on the legal background on the protections which should be helpful. It is important to note that both TTD and Edelman’s comments are on the same page. (Click here to read Edelman’s comments.) They demand 4R act protections and our comments have a whole section that talks about why they are legally needed to be applied and specifically ask that the proposed regulations be amended to require any winning bidder be responsible for those protections. We also are asking FRA to issue guidance to adopt them to this situation.

“TTD’s comments also urge FRA to adopt hiring preferences and procedures for Amtrak employees and to ensure that any new entity is covered by rail laws just like Amtrak is today.

“We all need to keep this in perspective. Amtrak receives preferential pricing from the Class 1’s to operate over their track, something the Class 1’s have for years decried as inadequate. A new entrant will not likely receive nearly as good an operating rate as Amtrak currently does. If there is a winning competitive bidder on any of these three routes they will only receive 90 percent of the funding that Amtrak currently receives to provide the service making the bidding process even harder.”

SMART TD Testifies before FRA

Today, September 7, the FRA held a public hearing on the proposed rule. SMART Transportation Division National Legislative Director John Risch was at the hearing and testified on behalf of SMART TD. Click here to read his comments.

Tags AFL-CIO, FAST Act, Federal Railroad Administration, FRA, John Risch, Transportation Trades Department, TTD

SMART Transportation Division wishes everyone a happy Labor Day. Read below to learn about the history of Labor Day.

Department of Labor on the history of Labor Day

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

Labor Day Legislation

Through the years the nation gave increasing emphasis to Labor Day. The first governmental recognition came through municipal ordinances passed during 1885 and 1886. From these, a movement developed to secure state legislation. The first state bill was introduced into the New York legislature, but the first to become law was passed by Oregon on February 21, 1887. During the year four more states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York — created the Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment. By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska and Pennsylvania had followed suit. By 1894, 23 other states had adopted the holiday in honor of workers, and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.

Founder of Labor Day

More than 100 years after the first Labor Day observance, there is still some doubt as to who first proposed the holiday for workers.
Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”
But Peter McGuire’s place in Labor Day history has not gone unchallenged. Many believe that Matthew Maguire, a machinist, not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday. Recent research seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York. What is clear is that the Central Labor Union adopted a Labor Day proposal and appointed a committee to plan a demonstration and picnic.

The first Labor Day

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.
In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a “workingmen’s holiday” on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.

A nationwide holiday

The form that the observance and celebration of Labor Day should take was outlined in the first proposal of the holiday — a street parade to exhibit to the public “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families. This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.
The character of the Labor Day celebration has undergone a change in recent years, especially in large industrial centers where mass displays and huge parades have proved a problem. This change, however, is more a shift in emphasis and medium of expression.
The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker.
Click here to learn more about Labor Day from the Department of Labor.

Tags Labor Day