Author: bnagy

Home>Articles by: bnagy

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is looking into Union Pacific and its management for painting an inaccurate picture about its safety strategy.  SMART Transportation Division members were coerced to paint a rosy picture of their employer.

All SMART-TD members who took part in this survey should get on record with their local chairperson, then call UP’s ethics hotline. That number is (800) 998-2000.

East Palestine raises railroad safety awareness

When Norfolk Southern’s freight train lit up the horizon of East Palestine, Ohio, on February 3, 2023, it woke up more than the sleeping residents of Southeast Ohio. Federal regulators, legislators, the press and the general public all became instantly aware that dangerous materials were being hauled in mass quantities through their communities.

This prompted the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to conduct a safety culture analysis of Norfolk Southern and all other Class I railroads.

Norfolk Southern and its management team were cooperative. NS CEO Allen Shaw and his board cooperated with FRA and a valid and thorough safety evaluation. 

Union Pacific has chosen a more dangerous approach.

FRA says Union Pacific coached employee responses

On Friday, April 26, FRA served UP’s management team with written notice that it was suspending the assessment, suggesting that things are about to get ugly for the Omaha, Nebraska-based corporation.

The FRA safety evaluation begins with an employee survey to get the perspective of front-line workers.  The administration is looking for unvarnished answers and observations from our members. This creates a baseline for their investigation.

In his letter to Union Pacific, FRA Associate Administrator Karl Alexy shared that he suspects that, instead of allowing employees to speak freely and without fear of retribution, several employees were “coached to provide specific responses to FRA questions if they were approached for a safety culture interview.”

Survey manipulation widespread; workers fear retaliation

Alexy’s letter said that reports of management “coaching” workers “span the UPRR system and railroad crafts,” putting the objectivity of the information in jeopardy.

Workers during the process also expressed reluctance and a “fear of retaliation,” according to FRA.

Workers also had to report to their supervisor if they took part in the data gathering. Data integrity and confidentiality were thus not assured, Alexy wrote. “With widespread evidence that these fundamental elements have been jeopardized, FRA has no choice but to end data collection activities,” he wrote.

Union Pacific appears to violate its own policies

Two things jump out at SMART-TD about this situation. First, the study being conducted by FRA concerns the safety culture at UP. According to the railroad’s propaganda “Safety is Union Pacific’s No. 1 Responsibility.”  The obvious question is, what would CEO Vena and UP have to hide and why would they need to coach its workers if safety was its top responsibility?

Secondly, what happened to UP’s “Statement of Policy on Ethics and Business Conduct,” which is prominently featured in their rule book?

pdf_up_govern_bus-conductDownload

UP’s policy clearly says that “No employee should take advantage of any party through manipulation, concealment, abuse of confidential information, misrepresentation of material facts or any other unfair practice.”

An effort to deceive a federal regulator and threaten/bully its employees into taking part in its scheme appears to violate all of those rules.

Another interesting quote from UP’s Ethics and Business Conduct Policy is that “Communicating this policy and OVERSEEING COMPLIANCE is the responsibility of the Chief Executive Officer and officers of the Company.”

FRA stopped collecting safety data from the carrier due to its discovery of manipulation, according to Alexy. It may try to restart the process later.

Ramifications

As far as SMART-TD is concerned, if FRA’s allegations are proven to be true, UP CEO Jim Vena and his executive team have violated their own Ethics and Business Conduct Policy. Either he was part of this scheme to mislead FRA or he was derelict in his duty to oversee the compliance of the ethics policy according to his company’s policy. Moreover, such conduct does not show a responsible approach to safety that the company says it adheres to.

No matter how this situation between the FRA and UP plays out, it is in the best interest of all SMART-TD members who have taken part in this survey to get on record with your local chairperson and the carrier’s ethics hotline. That number again is (800) 998-2000.

Your union will keep you informed as this situation progresses.

2024.04.30_UP_notification_from_FRADownload

SMART Transportation Division and the trustees of the Discipline Income Protection Program (DIPP) are pleased to announce a reduction in monthly assessments for participants.

Effective July 1, 2024, the monthly assessment for participants will be reduced from 50 to 32 cents per $1 of daily benefit coverage. This reduction and a 90% + approval on all new claims make DIPP the premier option in the industry.

Daily benefit $100$150$200$250
SMART DIPP$32.00/mo.$48.00/mo.$64.00/mo.$80.00/mo.
BRCF$32.50/mo.$48.75/mo.$65.00/mo.$81.25/mo.
LECMPA
(No. 16)		$44.63/mo.$65.63/mo.$87.94/mo.$110.25/mo.
SMART’s Discipline Income Protection Program surpasses the alternatives in member value and protection.
2024.07.01_DIPP_Sched_of_BenefitsDownload

DIPP coverage ranges from $6 to $250 per day, ensuring that a participant covered by the plan who is suspended, dismissed, or removed from service by a carrier for alleged violation of rules or operating procedures will continue to receive income.

Participants can also elect to increase their benefit level or modify their coverage at any time by submitting the appropriate form to the DIPP office.

This announcement is informational, and participants do not need to take any action now. However, the reduction in assessments will be communicated to local treasurers so that the necessary changes to current participants’ payroll deductions can be made in a timely manner before July 1.

DIPP trustees are SMART General President Michael Coleman, SMART General Secretary-Treasurer Joseph Powell, and SMART-TD President Jeremy R. Ferguson. For more information on DIPP, visit the SMART website or email DIPP_TD@smart-union.org for further details.

Editors are entitled to take liberties with what they put in their columns. This is not new to the editorial pages, and the SMART Transportation Division (SMART-TD), the nation’s largest freight rail union, is never shy about expressing its opinion, either. But there is a distinct difference between an intelligent editorial based on facts and an unhinged hit piece on a public figure with different views than your newspaper’s.

On April 24th, the Denver Gazette and owner Phil Anshutez, who also has ownership ties to the Union Pacific Railroad in addition to former ownership of both the Southern Pacific Railway and the DRGW Railroad, crossed that line.

SMART-TD Colorado State Legislative Director Carl Smith
SMART-TD Colorado State Legislative Director Carl Smith

Omitting the fact that this newspaper is owned by a man who has owned up to 6% of the UP is not a crime. It is noteworthy and shaky from a journalistic and editorial perspective. Mr. Anshutez, like every American, has freedom of speech as given to him by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. This right entitles him to publish whatever he would like without being punished by imprisonment. It does NOT, however, entitle him to publish unfounded, ignorant statements about the SMART Transportation Division’s leaders without receiving a response.

The editorial “Radical bill seeks to regulate trains” targets Colorado House Bill 1030 and, more personally, myself. I serve as SMART-TD’s Colorado State Legislative Director and am the “union boss” referred to. I also have worked on the railroad since 1995.

What has Anshutez angry is that the bill’s goals are to limit train length in a state that famously features the Rocky Mountains as well as to clarify that union representatives have the right to be on-site and involved during investigations of rail accidents. Anshutez and his editorial board said these provisions were “concocted by union bosses, who fund Democratic campaigns to give them more power and control over what they don’t own.”

The first part of this statement and the last part are 100% true. The SMART-TD’s Legislative Board think our crews should not be doubling up five tracks and pulling 14,000-foot trains through mountains on 2% grades. Nobody denies that. And when our members are involved in a derailment, and the company is investigating to determine the cause, you are damn right SMART-TD has a dog in that fight. We believe wholeheartedly that workers have the right to be represented during any investigation to make sure they don’t become the railroad’s scapegoat for management’s failings.

Additionally, Anshutez is correct in saying that we (SMART-TD) don’t own the railroads. If we did, they wouldn’t be the hot mess they are today. Any reasonable railroad worker would not ask another to risk personal safety or that of the communities they travel through to make a few extra dollars for Wall Street investors to pad their dividend. Management, on the other hand, would if it saw a self-serving benefit — similar to an editorial being written at the behest of the owner of the publication.

The rest of the Gazette’s column is both ridiculous and false. There’s a clumsy comparison of our rail safety bill to Jim Crow laws. It concludes with a dire warning about taking free speech away from “wedding artists.” In the midst of the disjointed ramblings, rail labor and HB 1030’s rail safety provisions enter the mix as do pleas to prevent corporate victimhood. The column was long, with no rhyme or reason for how it was built — much like the trains UP and BNSF send to run through the mountains of Colorado with a hope and a prayer that it would stay together and reach a successful conclusion without breaking apart to please the boss and live to work another day.

As for the allegation that this bill is being pushed by “radical legislative Democrats” and that it was “concocted by union bosses, who fund Democratic campaigns,” Anshutez, the railroads’ and the Associations of American Railroads’ agenda come clear.

Labor — the people who do the work — are the driving force behind this legislation. But make no mistake, the people whom this union represents, cannot be confused with radical leftists. This union is very clear that we support candidates on both sides of the aisle. We classify office holders and candidates as “With us” or “Against us,” not Republican or Democrat. W’s and A’s matter. D’s and R’s do not in our organization.

We don’t have time to waste on blanket ideology, and our members are all over the political spectrum. SMART-TD endorsed Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Braun for the governor’s race in Indiana recently, and we have a higher percentage of our PAC dollars going to Republicans than other unions, even within rail labor.

A bill similar to HB 1030 is gathering momentum in Nebraska as we speak. By the Denver Gazette’s logic, Nebraska must also be run by “radical legislative Democrats!” Either that or, much like Colorado, this bill is what happens when SMART-TD has good leadership in place who push for legislation based on common sense that makes our members safer on the job.

In short, Anshutez and his newspaper have no idea what they are talking about.

HB 1030 has momentum in this session based on being chosen as one of five priority bills by a bipartisan committee made up of both House Representatives and Colorado Senators known as the Transportation Legislation Review Committee (TLRC).

The difference between this Colorado Subcommittee and the owner of the Denver Gazette/railroad shareholder is that the committee is made up of people with years of experience in transportation issues whose goal is to better the lives of the people of the state. The Denver Gazette’s goal is to sell newspapers and ad space to companies. Anshutez wins when railroads such as UP and BNSF.

That editorial moves the ball toward those goals. For the worker, the public and the supply chain at large, not so much.

Carl Smith has been the SMART Transportation Division’s state legislative director for 12 years.

After the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) flip-flop last week led to it becoming the second Teamsters union deciding to buy in with a hedge fund, everyone wondered what its leadership thought they would get out of the deal. 

It has now come to light that the BLET has entered into a “memorandum of understanding” (shown below) with Ancora’s aspiring Norfolk Southern (NS) management. This group has no authority on NS and the deal for BLET is based solely on promises “if” successful in a takeover bid.

2024.04.26_BLET-Ancora_memoDownload

They’re hopeful that by cheerleading this hostile takeover that Ancora will give them what SMART-TD already has achieved. Our NS general chairpersons’ professionalism and quality leadership have achieved superior agreements to what the BLET has. They’ve decided to sell out to catch up.

The attached memorandum shows BLET’s desperate attempts to take over certain remote-control operations already belonging to SMART-TD. BLET is also attempting to inject their officers into the conductor new-hire training process and the locomotive engineer training process. SMART-TD already holds the contracts on these arrangements.

Furthermore, they are also trying to get “me-too” improvements to their on-property agreements following SMART-TD’s successful negotiations of Articles 6 & 7 in the 2022 National Agreement. 

BLET and BMWED have chosen to blatantly sell out SMART-TD AND the 10 other rail labor groups who oppose Ancora’s takeover. Most importantly, they are selling out RAIL SAFETY and QUALITY OF LIFE for thousands of workers to serve their own purpose.

Ancora promised to hand BLET President Eddie Hall and the BLET GCs everything SMART-TD worked to gain. All he had to do was sell out the men and women working for Norfolk Southern. 

BLET TOOK THE DEAL!

Here are the repercussions

Ancora hasn’t hidden that, if successful in their hostile takeover, they are bringing Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) back big time. SMART-TD and the majority of rail labor unions (and BLET — up until two days ago) had stood together in solidarity for two months and said no. Meanwhile, BLET is playing Judas and has chosen to sell out workers so they can get a do-over on past negotiations their organization fell short on with NS.  

Eddie Hall and everyone associated with BLET’s decision should be ashamed. They were willing to hand over everything our movement has done to defend our men and women against PSR at NS. 

A display of blatant hypocrisy

For the record, less than one day before BLET announced they were backing Ancora, they had given their word to the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department that they were standing with us. Apparently, the attached agreement was an effective sweetener. Eddie Hall and his NS general chairpersons have turned on us. 

Prior to succumbing to Ancora’s temptation, BLET’s stance was clear. Featured on their website since late February and even after the April 26th announcement went public was an infographic of BLET General Chairman Dewayne Dehart with the quote, “Ancora would be bad for investors. It’s easy to imagine a train wreck under their proposed plans, both literally and figuratively speaking.” A second quote from Dehart says, “I can assure you I will be voting all shares in favor of Alan Shaw and his team.”

The two other BLET GCs shared similar sentiments in a Feb. 29 press release. All three were highly critical of Ancora’s executive selections, including proposed COO Jamie Boychuk, a former CSX executive.

“From our vantage point and from what we’ve learned from our union brothers and sisters at CSX, Boychuk was reckless and ran CSX operations into the ground before he was run out by CSX’s management team,” said BLET General Chairman Scott R. Bunten (NS-Eastern Lines GCA). “Ancora wants to turn back the clock and return to the failed Precision Scheduled Railroading business model with Boychuk’s help that the other Class I railroads are now abandoning.”

“Ancora has been pointing to the East Palestine derailment as a failure by Alan Shaw and his team, but we believe that the PSR model is directly linked to the East Palestine failure. Shaw was only on the job for a few months prior to the disaster. Since the derailment last year, NS’ CEO has risen to the occasion and, through his leadership, NS has become a safer, more efficient and customer focused company again,” said BLET General Chairman Jerry G. Sturdivant (NS-Southern Lines GCA).

“Having a CEO like Barber with zero railroad experience and a Chief Operating Officer such as Boychuk wedded to the worst aspects of PSR would likely lead to more, not fewer costly train wrecks,” said Sturdivant.

Dehart also had seemed very steadfast in the February statement, adding:

“I am a shareholder and I also vote hundreds of thousands of shares of NS stock for BLET as a fiduciary of the BLET NS 401(k) Plan. I can assure you I will be voting all shares in favor of Alan Shaw and his team. The leaders of our union and our members see the potential for increased revenue for Norfolk Southern with him at the helm,” said BLET General Chairman Dewayne L. Dehart (NS-Northern Lines), who has been with Norfolk Southern for 28 years.

But a private closed-door meeting with Ancora out of sight of its members changed their minds and made them flip the switch to support the group they had demonized.

Said BLET President Hall in an April 26th statement published by Trains Magazine attributed to him: “BLET’s three elected General Chairmen representing locomotive engineers and trainmen at Norfolk Southern met with Ancora’s leadership team yesterday and determined that they are the right leaders for Norfolk Southern moving forward. After the railroad’s CEO Alan Shaw hired COO John Orr and following the public comments of both those executives on their strategy for NS, our General Chairmen determined that a change at the top is needed. Although this decision was not easy, the General Chairmen believe it is necessary.”

A failure to communicate and serve its membership

What is not featured on the BLET website is any reference to the announcement they made switching their allegiance to Ancora. One would think that a labor organization making that big of a change in direction would want to inform its members, rather than having them find out from the press.

BLET appears to not want to talk about this abrupt decision, nor to be transparent to members who pay union dues for their protection and representation.

In contrast, their membership has been willing to talk about it this weekend. A 36-year BLET Division 110 Member, engineer Scott Pendygraft, spoke to one of our NS general chairpersons over the weekend and said,“I cannot pay dues to a union that would sell out for what’s probably an empty promise and not consider all of the membership.” 

Brother Pendygraft has joined SMART-TD Local 1190.

Please take the time to read the signed agreement between BLET and Ancora below to see what a backroom sellout of rail labor looks like. 

2024.04.26_BLET-Ancora_memoDownload

Our lines of communication are open.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA) Board activated emergency procurement procedures this week to expedite the installation of protective barriers for bus operators.

John Ellis, general chairperson of GO 875, which represents our members who work on LACMTA, issued the following statement April 25:

General Chairperson John Ellis of GO 875, which represents LACMTA workers.

“We have reached a critical milestone! After countless hurdles, on Thursday, April 18, 2024, I viewed the completed prototype enclosure and requested the execution and mass production of the implementation of the driver enclosures. I drove the bus for 35 years and I understand what our members are all up against daily.

“No one can begin to comprehend what an operator faces during these unpredictable times. Rest assured, I will continue to advocate the safety that is owed to our members. I will not stop fighting until all enclosures are on all the buses. Metro, law enforcement and the union as a whole must remain vigilant to this plague affecting our brothers and sisters. Their physical well being and mental stability is of the upmost priority to our members and their families.

“At today’s (April 25) Board of Directors meeting, the board approved and authorized the emergency procurement designation to expedite the completion of the installation of the retrofit barriers on Metro’s fleet by the end of December. I anxiously await the retrofit buses to start making headway for the safety of our transportation heroes — it can’t happen fast enough.

“Furthermore, more new assaults have been reported. When it’s not a valued member, it’s an innocent patron being attacked. The current contracted agencies of law enforcement are not sufficient! We need a dedicated Metro police system for transportation.

“This is a vital and legitimate request I am proposing to Metro. It will create a better safety transportation system, dedicated police taking care of nothing BUT transit! No ifs, ands or buts about it. Everyone’s life matters.

“I’d like to recognize Metro’s CEO Stephanie Wiggins for working collaboratively with me and taking action during these unprecedented times. The union thanks our members for their continuous service.”

The SMART Transportation Division, as the nation’s largest freight railroad union, reasserts its support of Alan Shaw and the leadership at Norfolk Southern.

CEO Alan Shaw and his management team have focused on creating a resilient carrier. They have made a conscious effort to diverge from the operating ratio-obsessed mentality that has degraded rail service and safety since 2017, and have made safety, employees and customers their priority.

The vast majority of rail labor, including SMART-TD and the coalition Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, recognizes this effort. The recent announcements by the BMWED and BLET unions that they are willing to roll the dice with a group wanting to re-implement an operating mode that contributed to a national supply-chain crisis and puts safety and employee well-being at risk is puzzling.

Under present leadership, NS is cooperating with the National Transportation Safety Board in a thorough safety review. This comes after the carrier became the first Class I to commit to the Confidential Close Call Reporting System (C3RS). Shaw and NS also became the first Class I to reach paid-sick leave agreements with all bargaining units — an accomplishment that some other Class I carriers operating in the U.S. still haven’t achieved.

Shaw and the current leadership team have taken solid, tangible steps to establish a safety culture that values the contribution of our union members and officers, while also improving Norfolk Southern’s operations at the same time. The challengers seeking to take over the carrier have provided flimsy rhetoric to try to sway shareholders and that has swayed the BMWED and the BLET. At the same time, Shaw and his team continue to work to create results for labor, management and customers.

We have supported Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw and his team since the activist shareholders announced their intent. As the nation’s biggest freight rail union, we continue to do so and we will not waver.

Read a release by the 11-union group including SMART pledging support for the NS leadership.

The life of Local 821 Trustee Robert Zavala Jr. was cut short after a fatal car accident April 19, and an online fundraiser has been created to help his family.

DONATE HERE

Brother Zavala joined the union in 2018 and began as a member of Local 756 in San Antonio before transferring to Local 821 (Del Rio, Texas). He had taken his first local officer position as a Local 821 trustee at the beginning of this year and worked as a conductor for Union Pacific.

“He was well-respected and a good union brother — always willing to help,” Alt. Vice President and General Chairperson Scott Chelette said.

An online fundraiser has been established for the family of Local 821 Trustee Robert Zavala, center, who died as a result of a car accident on April 19.

Brother Zavala’s wife, son and daughter also were in the vehicle during the family’s accident. His wife and son were treated and released from the hospital while daughter Pilar faces a series of surgeries and a long path to recovery.

Please contribute if able as members of Brother Zavala’s family try to heal from their injuries and the loss of a beloved father and husband.

Details about services and a full obituary will be shared when made available.

SMART-TD offers its sincere condolences to Brother Zavala’s family, friends and to his brothers and sisters in Local 821.

The 2024 calendar lists Monday, April 22, as Earth Day, but with the groundbreaking ceremony in Las Vegas, Nevada, for what will become 218 miles of new high-speed rail line, SMART Transportation Division and the rest of rail labor can see today as Jobs Day!

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg speaks during the groundbreaking of Brightline West.
The audience watched the Brightline West groundbreaking event in Las Vegas.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and others attend Brightline West’s groundbreaking ceremony.

Brightline West broke ground on a state-of-the-art high-speed rail line today that will link Southern California with Las Vegas. The line will run from the southern end of the famous strip in Las Vegas and run to Rancho Cucamonga, California, just outside of Los Angeles.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and others participate in the ground-breaking ceremony for Brightline West in Las Vegas.

This rail line will run with a fleet of electric locomotives, so there are obvious benefits to the environment, but the most important thing for the SMART-TD is that Brightline West is partnering with our union to staff their trains. As of today, rail labor is getting an immediate shot in the arm by this project. Thousands of jobs in multiple crafts will be created by the building and maintaining of these lines.

The United States has long been the only industrialized country without viable high-speed rail service and the completion of Brightline West would end that.

A large portion of the funding for this project came from the Biden administration through the bipartisan infrastructure legislation commonly referred to as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

As a stipulation of receiving the federal dollars, it was agreed that Brightline West would use an entirely union workforce to build the infrastructure and to staff the trains, putting other union brothers and sisters, as well as our members, to work. With trains planned to originate every 30 minutes in both directions, there will be a significant amount of SMART-TD jobs gained in this project.

SMART-TD’s National Legislative Director Greg Hynes and SMART Rail-Mechanical Department Director Peter Kennedy were at the groundbreaking ceremony today as was U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. This project is scheduled to be ready for passenger service in 2028. The trains will travel up to 200 miles per hour and will get people between Los Angeles and Las Vegas in about two hours — less than half the time it currently takes to drive between the two cities.

SMART-TD’s Alternate National Legislative Director Jared Cassity was featured on an episode of America’s Workforce Union Podcast, covering a wide range of rail industry topics including the hostile takeover attempt at Norfolk Southern, the FRA’s 2PC ruling, the Railway Safety Act to East Palestine, Ohio, and beyond.

LISTEN HERE

“Safety does cost some money sometimes — but [the railroads are] still making billions of dollars in each quarter. There’s no rationale to cut the safety aspect out of it,” Cassity told host Ed “Flash” Ferencz. “They make money despite themselves.”

Alternate National Legislative Director Jared Cassity addresses a rail labor solidarity rally on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., in December 2022 on the day before the FRA’s hearing on the two-person crew rule.

Cassity continues, “so their interest isn’t really in preventing accidents. [They ask] is it cheaper to make all these changes to prevent it, or is it cheaper to clean it up? And if you look at Norfolk Southern, if you look at this policy and you look at what Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy of the NTSB just said, blowing up those cars [in East Palestine] didn’t have to happen. The railroad chose to take the fastest, easiest course. It’s not about safety. It’s about the bottom line.”

“So the Rail Safety Act is working to fix that. This is a perfect example of why elections matter.”

“The crews aren’t always aware of what is going on with their trains. Like in East Palestine, there were defects that were actually happening as they were going down the rail and making their trip. In your car, the check engine light comes on to tell you there’s a problem, that wasn’t happening for the crews. What was happening is that the notification was going to some backroom with a manager sitting in Atlanta, Georgia, and then they were making the decision of whether or not to tell the crew if they should stop the train. And it’s just a completely bonkers notion of how you run that.”

“And for them to say that there’s no safety data or anything of that nature is not true, because everything that we have today is because of the two-person crew. But the unfortunate reality of this is all of the success stories, all of the accidents that are prevented, all of the things that didn’t happen because of the second person in the crew is not recorded or captured or reported in any capacity by the railroads to anyone.”

Brother Cassity is an authority on rail safety. He came from the craft working as a conductor and engineer out of the Russell, Kentucky, crew base for CSX. A longtime member of the National Safety Team before leading it, Cassity participates in federal investigations of rail safety mishaps. When national media outlets want to discuss safety regulations on America’s railroads, Brother Cassity is consistently at the top of their lists.

SMART-TD wants to thank Brother Cassity for a job well done, amplifying our concerns and discussing our victories with a nationwide audience.

As of April 18, the suspect remained at large with no reports of an arrest out of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

General Chairperson John Ellis issued the following public statement on April 18:

“SMART’s Union represents 5,000 Bus and Rail Operators. Our priority has always been the safety of our Brothers and Sisters as they carry out an essential transportation public service.  These distressing incidents MUST stop.  No one should have to endure these traumatic encounters whether as a passenger or one of our members.

“I continually speak on behalf of our members and have emphasized the critical importance of implementing the safety barriers on all buses. The urgency of this matter cannot be overstated. No one should have a fear of going to work and they should all feel safe.

“I am viewing a barrier prototype on display this afternoon. The enclosure is designed to provide our Operators a sense of protection. After Operator input and endless meetings with Metro, today’s viewing will be the first step to approve the mass production of the retro fit of enclosures on Metro’s fleet for the driver’s area. 

“Together we are united in our commitment to create a secure and safe work environment for our members who are essential heroes.”

At 8:30 p.m. April 13, one of our SMART Transportation Division members was brutally attacked on the job. As of now, the suspected attacker has not been arrested and is still on the loose.

SMART-TD wants all of our bus and transit members in the L.A. area to be on the lookout for the suspect in this attack. Please do not allow this man, who is being sought by law enforcement, to enter your bus or train. He is considered to be armed and dangerous.

If you have any information on the whereabouts of this man, please contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department at (213) 541-2558.