Each year, the organization Fishing For Freedom hosts a no-entry-fee buddy fishing tournament in Truman Lake, Missouri, as a way of giving back to United States military veterans.
“Volunteer boaters share a wonderful day of camaraderie on a beautiful lake with America’s real-life heroes in an attempt to show them how much we appreciate the sacrifices they make that allow us to enjoy the freedoms of the greatest country in the world,” the Fishing For Freedom website reads.
The event is facilitated by donations from sponsors and by volunteers. And in 2025, organized labor stepped up to help make the event happen, with members of the SMART Army working the grill.
“I was blessed to spend a beautiful Sunday afternoon with my SMART union brothers from Local 2 and Local 36, feeding hungry veterans at this year’s Fishing For Freedom,” said Local 2 sister Pamela Blackmore.
SMART Local 105 (Southern California) members demonstrated the meaning of union family on September 21, 2025, taking a fishing trip to Catalina Island. As reported by Local 105 member Albert Orosco, “plenty of fish were caught.”
SMART sisters and allies joined nearly 250 fellow union tradeswomen in southeast Chicago for the Union Sportsmen’s Alliance’s (USA) Tradeswomen’s Fishing Event, held in conjunction with the 15th Annual Tradeswomen Build Nations (TWBN) Conference.
The USA’s women’s fishing event has quickly become a TWBN tradition, with participation quadrupling since it began in 2022. The event offers union sisters the chance to step away from the conference, try something new and celebrate solidarity in the great outdoors. It also has a deeper impact for participants: In 2023, USA’s TWBN excursion inspired Local 85 (Atlanta, Ga.) apprentice Dee Lee to organize a cross-trades USA event in her area, a “Unions Unite” community service project.
For Gretchen Keen, a member of SMART Local 20 (Indianapolis, Ind.) who began her trade career as an ironworker, the day was about recreation and building relationships.
“I’m an avid angler, so starting off the conference fishing was a highlight,” Keen said. “I even met another ironworker, and when she works in my area, we’re going to hang out. The camaraderie and support are awesome.”
SMART General President Emeritus Joseph Sellers, Jr., left
With the help of the Illinois Conservation Foundation (ICF) and Illinois Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the event took place at William Powers State Recreation Area on Chicago’s far southeast side, a neighborhood often overlooked for outdoor recreation. The site is home to an ongoing USA Work Boots on the Ground conservation project, which includes construction of a fishing dock and kayak launch to expand public access to the outdoors.
Joseph Sellers, Jr., SMART general president emeritus, attended to show his support and check out the access project.
“The fishing event was great. It was gratifying to see so many women dropping a line in a lake right in the city,” Sellers said. “Seeing their excitement come alive and knowing the USA is bridging the gap by making fishing accessible to everyone was inspiring. The new kayak ramp and fishing pier are great examples of the USA opening the outdoors to more people.”
“We are thrilled with how the USA’s tradeswomen event continues to grow, bringing together women from more trades and locals every year,” added USA Director of Conservation Sam Phipps. “We are extremely grateful to the United Association, NABTU, United Healthcare, ICF, Illinois DNR, and the volunteers from Sheet Metal Workers Local 73 and Painters District Council 30 for making the event possible.”
In January 2026, SMART Local 1 (Peoria, Illinois) announced the successful signing of Prow’ess Construction Corp. as a signatory contractor and the completion of a highly specialized workforce request for an international Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-regulated project. This effort was led by Local 1 Business Manager Dave Gamber and Organizer Domenic Theison, reinforcing Local 1’s commitment to supplying highly skilled union labor for complex and specialized projects.
Prow’ess Construction Corp., headquartered in Springfield, Illinois, and located within the jurisdiction of SMART Local 218, was awarded a project involving the installation of a copper roofing system at the main airport in Turks and Caicos. The copper roof is a critical component of the airport’s antenna grounding system, requiring highly skilled sheet metal workers capable of passing a stringent FAA-observed soldering certification test.
Local 1 announces the signing of Prow’ess Construction
SMART Local 218, through Organizer Mitch Noll and Business Manager Rich Manka, made efforts to staff the project locally; however, members were not willing to travel internationally for the duration of the work. As a result, and in the spirit of cooperation and solidarity across our union, Local 218 referred Prow’ess Construction to Local 1 to assist in fulfilling the workforce needs.
Under the leadership of Gamber and Theison, Local 1 successfully stepped in to meet the contractor’s needs and ensure the project moved forward with union craftsmanship.
At the request of the FAA, soldering certification testing was conducted under direct FAA supervision at Local 1’s training facility. Two Local 1 members — Jared Clymer and Jim Emanuels — successfully passed all required testing and received FAA approval to perform the work overseas. Both members are now authorized to complete the installation at the Turks and Caicos airport, representing Local 1 and the sheet metal workers’ trade at the highest professional level.
This project highlights the strength of inter-local cooperation, the effectiveness of union training programs and the ability of Local 1 to supply highly skilled labor for technically demanding, FAA-regulated international work.
Prevailing wage is the gold standard in construction — the standard that SMART local unions fight for on every jobsite, in every community across North America. That’s because, as SMART Northeast Regional Council President Bob Butler put it, “prevailing wage is basically our [union-negotiated] wages and benefits.”
In other words, on projects that require prevailing wage, contractors need to provide workers with a compensation package that’s often established by what unions win for their members. Not only does this improve life for working families in communities nationwide; it evens the playing field for union signatory contractors, which already meet those standards, when bidding on projects. That means more job opportunities for SMART sheet metal workers.
But across the country, there has long been a loophole that allows bad-faith employers to get out of paying their workers what they deserve: offsite fabrication in the shop.
“On prevailing wage jobs, when you’re working on the jobsite, you get prevailing wage. But in the shop, you do not get prevailing wage,” Butler said, even when the workers in the shop are fabricating materials for a prevailing wage job. “When we compete against the open [nonunion] shop, they don’t have to pay wages and benefits … so it’s not a level playing field.”
The end result? Unionized contractors lose out on work, and union members lose out on jobs.
“[Bad-faith companies] cheat their employees in the shop, they don’t pay community standards, they don’t pay wages and benefits as we do in our shops, and that goes for the electrician, the plumber and also the pipefitter,” Butler explained.
Fighting for SMART members and working families
In an effort to close the offsite fabrication loophole, improve area working conditions and win jobs for SMART members, local unions across the country have taken the fight to state government. That has led to real victories for sheet metal workers. In 2025 alone, New Mexico, Connecticut, Oregon and New York all passed laws that extend prevailing wage to include offsite fabrication work.
Now, Butler said, the SMART Northeast Regional Council is working to make sure Massachusetts is next.
This is especially important in 2026, he explained: The state is anticipating an increase in public works projects — which will pay prevailing wage — at a time when the private sector is “drying out, work-wise.”
“A lot of the work that we do in our shops, we used to do in the field, on the jobsite,” Butler said. “Forty percent of the work on a public school or a [municipal project] is done in the shop.”
Without a law that fixes the offsite fabrication loophole, that work — even on buildings such as public schools — can be taken on by employers who don’t properly compensate their workers. That’s why Northeast Regional Council officers are working hard, day in and day out, to push their bill to pro-labor Governor Maura Healey’s desk.
“We’re making sure we’re up at the statehouse every couple weeks and knocking on the door of our legislators, just trying to get this bill pushed forward,” Butler declared. “Union leaders know that we have to do better and get bills passed that are going to protect us moving forward with the offsite fabrication.”
SMART General President Michael Coleman released the following statement after the shooting of Minnesota resident Alex Pretti on January 24, 2026:
“On Friday, January 23, tens of thousands of working people in Minnesota — including thousands of our union brothers and sisters — exercised their First Amendment right to take a stand against the conduct of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, including the shooting of Renee Good just weeks ago. They did what working people have done for generations in the fight for justice, equality and the American dream: They brought everything to a stop and said, enough is enough. No more chaos in our streets. No more shootings of civilians.
“The facts are clear about what happened the next day. Alex Jeffrey Pretti, our American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) union brother, was exercising his First Amendment right and his Second Amendment right, legally carrying a firearm while filming ICE officers. Brother Pretti was pepper sprayed, tackled and killed in the street. Multiple eyewitness videos appear to show that Pretti was not holding his weapon. What he was doing, in his last moments before he was shot multiple times in the back, was helping a woman who herself had been pepper sprayed.
“Our union is full of brothers and sisters just like Alex Pretti. Proud Americans who care deeply for our veterans, as Pretti did — he was a dedicated intensive-care unit nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Union members who aren’t afraid to stand up for what they believe in. Working people who practice their right to own and legally carry a firearm, just like Alex Pretti.
“This cannot stand. We cannot have government agents killing people in the street. We cannot have people afraid to go to work because of what’s happening outside their doors. We cannot sit back and let government agencies dictate the everyday lives of working people without facing any consequences.
“We mourn Alex Pretti, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family, his loved ones, his AFGE brothers and sisters, and the working people of Minnesota. We urge SMART members to contact their members of Congress and call for the immediate end to this chaos and violence.”
SMART members often go underappreciated in North American society — and when we are recognized, it’s mostly for the jobs we do.
Not everyone knows what sheet metal workers are, or the vital role railroaders play in the national supply chain. But they do see members on jobsites building new schools and hospitals; in the cab of a freight train, transporting cargo across the country; at the wheel of a bus, bringing Americans wherever they need to be.
What they do not always see is the most powerful part of union membership: We take care of each other.
Sheet metal and Transportation Division members made that clear in late 2025, when the Buffalo, New York, SMART Army sprang into action to help a brother in need.
“I didn’t see the light”
Dave Garringer, a member of SMART-TD Local 1393, was working as a conductor for CSX Transportation when he made a stop in Rochester, New York, in May of 2023.
As Garringer stepped off the train, he felt the ground shift, and his foot folded “in a very odd way,” he told WNYLaborToday.com. Unfortunately, that was just the beginning for our TD brother — over time, the injury worsened, and in November of 2025, he had to get his left leg amputated below his knee.
Garringer began using a wheelchair, but his Buffalo, New York, home — built in 1890 — didn’t accommodate the wheelchair ramp Garringer needed to get in and out of his house.
“I didn’t see any light. My wife didn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel,” he said in an interview with SMART News.
That’s when the SMART Army got involved.
“We’re not in a tunnel anymore”
SMART-TD’s Dan Banks started spreading the word that a fellow SMART member needed help. Shortly after, Garringer said, Local 71 showed up.
“They didn’t know who I was,” he said. “But there they were in my front yard in the cold, doing something for me and my family out of the kindness of their hearts.”
Local 71, the SMART sheet metal local based out of Buffalo, has helped members with wheelchair-accessible ramps in the past, along with other SMART Army events aimed at supporting the community.
“I remember him saying this was the first time he felt hopeful in two years, so that kind of hit me right away and got me excited about [the project],” Local 71 Organizer Adam Kerr said. “[SMART] contacted us on October 30th, and then by November 14th we were completely done with the project.”
Kerr added: “The biggest value that you can get out of a union is that collective membership you can lean on. You’re not just coworkers, you’re brothers and sisters.”
Garringer said the display of solidarity has made a huge difference, both materially and otherwise.
“We’re not in a tunnel anymore, and we realized we’re not in this alone — we’re not in this by ourselves,” he said. “And that means a lot in a situation like this, where your whole life has been turned upside-down and it will never be the same.”
“This is what we do”
Garringer has been a proud member of SMART-TD for years. He told WNYLaborToday that he knew well the benefits of having union representation on the worksite and at the bargaining table, particularly when negotiating new contracts. But the wheelchair ramp went a step further.
“I’m very proud of my union, which is a wonderful thing,” he said. “They’re there to fight for you when your contract comes up, but when people need help — they are there.”
SMART-TD’s Banks joined the wheelchair effort, traveling from Cleveland to Buffalo, where he was one of several members interviewed by Buffalo ABC affiliate WKBW.
“This is what we do,” he told WKBW. “We’re a union. We take care of each other.”
In Kentucky, SMART Local 110 members and military veterans are working on a project that means something extra: a massive new Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center that will provide health care for those who served.
“This project right here was very personal to me,” said Andrew Judd, Local 110 member and foreman on the project. “I don’t have the [money] to just give millions and millions to veterans all the time, so I can [give back] the best way that I know how … and that is to make sure that me and my fellow veterans, we all have a nice hospital here.”
The new facility, located in east Louisville, is about 80% complete, according to the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Construction on the $970 million project is expected to conclude by the end of 2026, with the medical center open and serving veterans by 2027.
For David Hale, a Local 110 member, superintendent and Army veteran who served for four years — “I was in Gulf Storm … 11 Bravo Infantry,” he explained — the Louisville facility is the second VA project he’s worked on.
“I actually worked on the Lexington VA for two years, about 10 years ago,” Hale said. “Neither facility we have [in Kentucky] is up to snuff, in my opinion, so I think this is going to be great for all the veterans.”
Judd agreed, noting that the ability to be on-site during construction helps him try to ensure the facility is well-suited to meet veterans’ needs.
“Being on the front line, watching it go up, I can see things that I wouldn’t particularly like … and try and get something that I wouldn’t be happy about, and I know other veterans wouldn’t be happy about, trying to get it changed ahead of time,” he explained.
Veteran apprentices learn on the job
Sheet metal veterans aren’t just helping build the new VA Medical Center. For military veterans who are newer to the trade, this project is literally helping veterans transition from the service to civilian life.
Local 110 apprentice James Thomas Gray served with the 223rd Military Police Company, Kentucky National Guard, for six years.
“As a civilian and a veteran, I didn’t know how to get into the trade,” he said. “I didn’t know who to talk to, where to go. I didn’t know there were union halls, things like that, so I just joined a random nonunion company.”
He started working on an elementary school job alongside a predominantly unionized workforce. He heard constantly about the opportunities: the pension, the insurance and everything else that defines SMART membership. Very shortly after, he joined Local 110.
Now, Gray has been helping build the new VA Medical Center, which promises to serve veterans such as himself — and his twin brother. Like the other SMART veterans on the job, he said the work he’s been doing for more than a year carries extra importance.
“It means a lot to me, because I have friends and family that are more than likely going to be going there one day,” Gray said. “So I like knowing that they’re going to have a place to go that’s big enough to serve everybody.”
On January 8, the United States House of Representatives voted to pass a clean extension of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium tax subsidies, which would stop a huge price hike in health care costs for working Americans.
“For months, SMART members have been calling on Congress to stand up for working families and pass an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies. Yesterday, the House of Representatives heard our demand, passing a bill that would extend these subsidies for three years,” SMART General President Michael Coleman said. “The fact that representatives of both parties voted for this bill is proof that our issues aren’t Red or Blue — they’re just common sense. Both Republicans and Democrats recognized that these subsidies help the Americans who build and move our country get the care they need.
“The passage of this extension in the House is a huge win for SMART members; without these subsidies, SMART members would have seen their health care costs go up as insurance companies shifted the cost burden onto our strong benefit plans. Now, we need the Senate to pass and send this bill to the president’s desk. SMART applauds the worker allies who voted for this legislation, and we call on every senator who stands with working Americans to quickly pass this law.”
“You are not alone. You don’t need to walk alone. Your union is here — we have your back.”
In the second episode of this season of Talking SMART, we’re joined by SMART Director of Wellness and Mental Health Support Chris Carlough and Union EAP CEO Ben Cort. Together, their work helps ensure that SMART members and families across the United States and Canada don’t have to face life’s challenges alone.
Carlough and Cort discuss the problems they’ve found in other employee assistance programs, the high-quality services members have access to via Union EAP, directions on how members and families can make use of Union EAP, and much more. They also talk about confidentiality, the importance of mental health on the jobsite, and recovery.
As Cort said: “We don’t put a limit on, okay, here’s what we can do, here’s what we can’t do. Very simply put, if it’s getting in the way of our members’ ability to do their best work and live their best lives, we’re there for it.”
This season of Talking SMART focuses exclusively on mental health and the resources available to SMART members. Make sure to subscribe on your preferred podcast program.
Talking SMART brings listeners the voice, stories and power of SMART union members across North America. Members are invited to send feedback and questions to info@smart-union.org.
