Yesterday, President Biden released the American Families Plan and delivered an address to a joint session of Congress. In response, SMART issued the following statement.
“After his first 100 days in office, it is clear, President Biden is delivering on his promise to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, rebuild our country and revitalize our economy. He recognizes that a strong middle class is the backbone of our country and is committed to pursuing structural changes to lift all boats.
His American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan provide necessary investments in our country to make life better for Americans. The American Jobs Plan will rebuild our country’s physical infrastructure and workforce. It calls for the passage of the PRO Act, which will empower workers to exercise their freedom to organize for a better life and create good paying union jobs. The American Families plan will invest in our children and families through education, healthcare and paid family and medical leave policies. These two plans make it clear that infrastructure and economic policy are inseparable from family policy. To build back better, we must invest in our workers and the middle class, so all of our families succeed now and into the future.
President Biden knows what we have known for a long time—the middle class built this country and unions built the middle class. President Biden laid out his plan to invest in working families and we look forward to working with the Biden Administration and Congress to enact it.”
Author: paul
Photos by Dave Sylvester, Local 73
Hillside, Ill. – SMART SM Local 73 is partnering with Proviso Township and Jewel-Osco to provide added capacity for COVID-19 vaccine distribution efforts, with its union hall functioning as a vaccine injection site. More than 1400 vaccines were administered today between 9am and 4pm at the local hall in Hillside, just west of downtown Chicago, for residents of any of the 15 villages in Proviso Township.
“This wouldn’t be happening in Hillside today without Local 73 stepping up and helping out,” said Hillside Mayor Joseph Tamburino, who was at the vaccination site throughout the day. “They set the room up and did everything we asked them to do and it’s fantastic. Their facility is just perfect for this.”
The union hall effectively functioned as a one-day pop-up vaccine clinic. The site was thoroughly cleaned and prepped ahead of time and a sanitation crew will be coming Monday night and doing a deep clean of the space.
“This wouldn’t be happening in Hillside today without Local 73 stepping up and helping out.”
– Hillside (Ill.) Mayor Joseph Tamburino
“We are proud to partner with Proviso Township, Jewel-Osco and Mayor Tamburino to provide a safe, convenient location for members of our community to receive their vaccine,” said Local 73 President and Business Manager Raymond Suggs. He added that the local is looking to help with additional vaccination days in coming weeks, depending on vaccine availability.
Nationally, SMART is part of a coordinated effort by U.S. building trades unions to make their facilities available to President Biden’s COVID-19 Relief Task Force for U.S. vaccine distribution. In February, the Governing Board of Presidents of North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) voted unanimously to offer more than 5,000 union halls and training centers to the vaccine distribution effort.
The Railroad, Mechanical and Engineering Department is excited to relaunch the Department’s Report in the Member’s Journal and online. This page is devoted to news for members belonging to the local unions and General Committees under this Department. Be sure to check future issues for the latest updates coming from the Department.
International Representative Charles Fraley Retires
On December 31, 2020, Charles (Charlie) J. Fraley retired as an International Representative for the SMART Railroad, Mechanical and Engineering Department. He was appointed to the position on October 1, 2004. As an International Representative, he negotiated, interpreted and applied agreements covering wages, hours, health benefits and other conditions of employment and represented employees in all conferences, negotiations or other proceedings with management. He also appeared and represented employees before any tribunal authorized to consider or adjust claims arising out of the interpretation or application of such agreements.
Prior to accepting the position of International Representative, Brother Fraley was General Chairperson for the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association. He serviced the commuter railroads in the Northeast along with Amtrak, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Springfield Terminal and D&H Railroad.
He hired on Penn Central Railroad in November 1975 as a laborer. In June 1976, shortly after Conrail was created, he became a sheet metal worker. He was Local Chairperson/President of Local Union 398 for seventeen years prior to accepting a full-time position as General Chairperson.
During his time working for the railroad, Brother Fraley was Chairman of the Selkirk Safety Committee, Co-Chairman of the Selkirk Safety Committee, Chairman of the Conrail Labor & Management Program, Chairman of various Conrail Quality Improvement teams, Waste Water Treatment Plant Operator, and Environmental Specialist. He was a member of the NRAB on the Second Division and various RSAC committees.
Brother Fraley received a High School Diploma in 1975 from Colonie Central High School and completed the Waste Water Treatment Plant Operator classes at Hudson Valley Community College and AFL-CIO Organizing Institute.
The Department thanks Brother Fraley for his dedicated service to the membership and wishes him a long and well-deserved retirement.
In the interim, International Representative Larry Holbert will continue to work hard to assist the General Committees, locals, and members under the Department and ensure they receive the highest quality representation. Brother Holbert has 41 years of railroad service.
Brother Holbert started his career with Burlington Northern Railroad in August of 1979, working in the Maintenance of Way Department until October of 1989. He then transferred into the Railroad, Mechanical and Engineering Department as a sheet metal worker apprentice. On April 9, 1990, he completed his apprenticeship and became a journeyperson. In January of 1996, he was elected to the position of Local Chairperson for Local 259 in Alliance, Nebraska, and in October of 2006, he was elected as an Executive Board Member to the U.S. District Council of Railroads. In June of 2008, he was elected to the position of General Chairperson for the U.S. District Council of Railroads, and then in May of 2011, he became an International Representative for this Department. Brother Holbert served as an International Representative until his appointment as Department Director in September of 2011, and he worked in this position until October of 2012 after the passing of his son, Michael. He returned to the International Representative position at this time and is currently serving in this role.
Brother Holbert and his wife Theresa have been married for 35 years, and they have three children. Jeffery, their oldest, lives in Alliance, Nebraska working for BNSF RR as an engineer. Their second child, Michael, lived in Alliance, Nebraska and was an electrician for BNSF Railroad. Their third child, Sarah, also lives in Alliance along with their three grandchildren. Sarah is a secretary working at Trinidad Bean Company.
Department Director Tony Iannone retired at the end of June in 2020. As of July 2020, Assistant to the General President and Special Counsel Donna Silverman oversees the Department and works closely with the International Representatives to serve the membership.
In this month’s video address from SMART General President Joseph Sellers, he looks at the recent passage of the American Rescue Plan.
The plan does more than provide direct cash relief through payments to working Americans and resources for COVID-19 vaccination efforts. This critical legislation also provides long-sought help for multiemployer pension plans, puts Amtrak members back to work, boosts transit funding, provides COBRA assistance to jobless workers and funds a round of mitigation efforts to help get America’s schoolchildren back in the classroom through funds for air system monitoring and new HVAC retrofit work that will create sheet metal jobs.
The International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) pledges its enthusiastic support to U.S. Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio as he considers a potential bid for the United States Senate.
“Rep. Ryan has stood throughout his career as an elected official with the working women and men of SMART as well as workers across Ohio and the United States,” said Joseph Sellers, Jr., SMART General President. “We know Tim Ryan thanks to his work on behalf of SMART members and his understanding of the issues facing working Ohio families and will serve them well in the US Senate.”
Rep. Ryan has stood up to anti-worker attacks and has co-sponsored national legislation that would require two certified people to operate freight trains, strengthened apprenticeship programs, and voted in favor of the HEROES Act, which would have protected SMART members during the COVID-19 pandemic. He has also worked hard to protect retirement security from corporate greed that would have eviscerated retirement savings and the quality of life for millions of workers and retirees.
SMART, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, is one of North America’s most dynamic and diverse unions with 200,000 members. SMART’s members ensure the quality of the air we breathe, promote energy efficiency, produce and provide the vital services that move products to market and passengers to their destinations. We are sheet metal workers, service technicians, bus operators, engineers, conductors, sign workers, welders, production employees and more. With members in scores of different occupations, we advocate for fairness in the workplace, excellence at work and opportunity for all working families.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler joined the co-chairs of the AFL-CIO Retirement Security Working Group, UFCW International President Marc Perrone and SMART General President Joseph Sellers, in the following statement on the inclusion of multiemployer pension relief in the American Rescue Plan, which passed the House today:
After a lifetime of hard work, working people deserve to retire with dignity. The labor movement is proud of our negotiated multiemployer pension plans, which have provided retirement income security for millions of working people for decades. Reckless Wall Street behavior, industry deregulation and employers’ deviant use of corporate bankruptcy have threatened the financial security of millions who’ve worked hard only to have that promise robbed from them. The provisions included in this package are important steps that will help eligible retirement funds protect the retirement benefits we earned by sacrificing wage increases.
The current pandemic has only exacerbated the dire situation and the need for immediate action. The legislation contains provisions designed to help protect some plans that are currently healthy from sliding into insolvency because of the unprecedented economic shutdown, and also goes a long way toward stabilizing the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and the multiemployer pension system overall. This system not only provides retirement income to the 10.4 million hardworking Americans who participate in the multiemployer plans, alleviating the need to rely on government safety-net programs that already are stretched thin, but also generates more than $158 billion annually in federal tax revenue that benefits communities across the country.
The Senate should act quickly to send this relief to President Biden’s desk so we can keep the promise of a secure retirement for those who have earned, and deserve, nothing less.
If you are a union member who participates in certain Union Plus programs and have been affected by the severe storms in Texas, you may be eligible for financial assistance through the Union Plus Disaster Relief Grant program.1
Union Plus Disaster Relief Grants of $500 are available to eligible participants of one of the following programs:
- Union Plus Credit Card Program2
- Union Plus Mortgage Program
- Union Plus Personal Loan Program
- Union Plus Life Insurance
- Union Plus Accidental Death Insurance
- Union Plus Auto Insurance
- Union Plus Retiree Health Program
To qualify for a Union Plus Disaster Relief Grant:
- Your residence must be in a county qualifying for individual assistance money from FEMA. To check if your county has been designated as an area eligible for individual assistance, visit FEMA’s disaster declarations page.
- You must have had a Union Plus Credit Card for at least three months, Union Plus Personal Loan for at least six months, Union Plus Mortgage, Union Plus Retiree Health Insurance, Union Plus Life or Accidental Death Insurance or Union Plus Auto Insurance for at least 12 months with that account or policy in good standing (be up to date on payments).
If you participate in the Union Plus Credit Card Program and want to apply for a disaster relief grant, call 1-800-622-2580.
If you participate in any other of the designated programs and want to apply for a disaster relief grant, call 1-800-472-2005.
The Union Plus Disaster Relief Fund has provided nearly $1 million in assistance to union members facing hardships following Hurricanes Michael and Florence, floods and other natural disasters. Head to the Union Plus Disaster Relief Fund page to learn more about the benefits and eligibility requirements.
1Certain restrictions, limitations and qualifications apply to these grants. Additional information and eligibility criteria can be obtained at https://www.unionplus.org/hardship-help/disaster-relief-grants.
2The Union Plus Credit Cards are issued by Capital One, N.A. pursuant to a license from Mastercard International Incorporated. Mastercard is a registered trademark, and the circles design is a trademark of Mastercard International Incorporated.
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SMART Local 20 Ships $2k in Plumbing Supplies to TX Members 
CAROL STREAM, IL – SMART Illinois Locals 73, 219 and 265 have organized a “Texas water drive” to gather donations of bottled water and ship truckloads to families in Texas who lack access to clean water in the wake of the state’s recent winter storms and power outages.
As Texas’ power grid collapsed during frigid temperatures, causing some households to also lose access to clean water due to interrupted supplies or burst pipes, SMART Local 265 members began asking what they could do to help. They communicated with other members of the union in Texas and were told people needed clean water more than anything else.
“I hope it helps them with a small amount of relief to have the very basic necessity of water,” said Tom Syron, a Local 265 journeyperson who lives in Plainfield, Ill. Syron reached out to his local union president to see what they could do to assist and then helped spearhead the relief effort.
Local 265, which represents members serving the collar counties outside of Lake and Cook in Northeastern Illinois, launched a social media campaign to raise awareness of the specific need for water among its Texas members, as well as the community at large, and began to solicit donations. In less than 48 hours, the union mobilized to secure 16 pallets of water and two 26-foot trucks. Local 73 soon joined the effort, filling a third truck with donated water bottles. The three trucks rolled out from the Chicago suburbs for Texas early Wednesday morning, carrying a total of more than 30,000 bottles.
In Indiana, SMART Local 20 members purchased and donated more than $2,000 in residential plumbing supplies and fittings and shipped it all to SMART locals in Texas. The supplies will be given to members facing significant plumbing repairs after pipes froze and leaked during power outages.
“I could not be prouder of our members, our friends, our families and local employers that have contributed to this effort,” said SMART Local 265 President/Business Manager John Daniel. “We stand together when our members or communities need support, whether that’s in Illinois, Texas, or elsewhere. Actions like Tom’s make it very clear, the members are the union!”
“We stand together when our members or communities need support, whether that’s in Illinois, Texas, or elsewhere.”
– SMART Local 265 President/
Business Manager John Daniel
Daniel said donations came from hard-working members of the three SMART locals, as well as area employers, including John Hancock (which does recordkeeping for the union’s pension plan), The Dobbs Group of Greystone Consulting, Calibre CPA Group, Segal Consulting and Baum Sigman Auerbach & Neuman LTD.
SMART has more than 14,000 members in Illinois and over 7,500 members in Texas. Last Friday, the union contacted its locals across the country and quickly organized a national peer-to-peer text bank in which individual union activists from outside Texas reached out to members in Texas and asked how they were doing, did they need any help, and if so what would be most helpful. The text banking was critical to assessing what was actually happening on the ground, which Texas communities needed the most help, and where the union could set up staging areas for donated supplies as they arrived.
In recognition that working together on diversity, equity and inclusion within our industry would be the most effective way to effect real and lasting change, SMART and SMACNA have engaged in ongoing discussions about recruiting and retaining a diverse and inclusive workforce with the skills to meet our needs now and in the future. In an initial step affirming our joint objectives, the SMACNA Board of Directors and the SMART General Executive Council adopted the following statement at their respective January 2021 meetings:
SMACNA and SMART recognize that diversity strengthens our workforce, benefits our communities, and makes the unionized sheet metal industry stronger and more competitive by reflecting the communities where we operate and the people we serve. To affirm our commitment to diversity and inclusion, we have agreed to develop, with the help of experts, a coordinated strategic plan with long-term and short-term objectives which will be evaluated and adjusted as necessary. Our unified goal is to shift the mindset of management, labor leaders, and our respective memberships to recruit, welcome, and retain the most competent and skilled workforce available while embracing differences in age, ability, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, national origin, language, marital status, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, and other characteristics that make individuals unique. SMACNA and SMART are strongly committed to take the necessary steps to achieve our goal of a diverse industry with no tolerance of bullying, harassment, or discrimination. We will provide regular updates on our progress on the strategic plan and on our continued work to promote our shared values of diversity, inclusion, and equity.
SMACNA and SMART are now in the process of developing a strategic plan to help us reach our goals and build the foundation of an industry dedicated to equity and inclusion.
This February, SMART proudly joins with citizens across the United States and Canada to celebrate Black History Month. We honor the contributions of generations of Black scientists, activists, military members, public servants, writers, artists and more who have helped build our nations, shaped the labor and civil rights movements and worked tirelessly for justice and equality for all.
Blacks have also been groundbreaking labor organizers and developed numerous inventions that had major impacts across our economies, including in the North American rail industry. Here are just a few examples:
- Andrew Jackson Beard was born a slave in Alabama. He became a railroad employee and introduced two improvements to the automatic railroad car coupler, or Jenny coupler, in 1897 and 1899, after losing a leg using the dangerous link-and-pin coupler. Using interlocking jaws, it was the first automatic coupler that allowed rail workers to avoid having to risk limbs while manually coupling cars. Beard was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio, in 2006 for this achievements.
A. Philip Randolph
A. Philip Randolph was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. In 1925, he organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly African-American labor union. In 1963, Randolph was the head of the March on Washington, at which Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech.- Stanley Grizzle was born in 1918 in Toronto to Jamaican immigrants. He was elected president of his local of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and pushed the Canadian Pacific Railway to open management ranks to blacks. He was also a leader in Canada’s civil rights movement of the 1950s and worked with the Joint Labour Committee to Combat Racial Intolerance.
- Garrett Augustus Morgan invented a three-way non-electric automatic semaphore stop sign in 1923, which was the precursor to three-light electric traffic signals.
Granville Woods
Elijah McCoy invented an automatic lubricator for oiling steam engines in 1872. It spread oil evenly over a train’s engine while it was still moving. This invention allowed for trains to run on long trips without stopping.- Granville Woods, known as the “Black Edison,” was a railroad fireperson and locomotive engineer who invented a telegraph system in 1887 that was used to communicate between trains and tower telegraphers to advise the distance between moving trains. He also invented overhead electric conducting lines in 1888 — now known as catenary wires; and a railroad air brake in 1902.
This year, Black History Month comes during a global pandemic that has hit minority communities the hardest, and shortly after domestic terrorists, including many self-professed white supremacists, attacked the U.S. Capitol and tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power following a presidential election.
Now, more than ever, our union is dedicated to advocating for both economic and racial justice, and to working for transportation and sheet metal industries that are inclusive and welcoming for all.
We face the challenges posed by the pandemic and by appalling attacks on our democracy the same way we approach shared workplace concerns: By standing together, mobilizing and organizing for a better future.
As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., noted in a December 1961 speech delivered at that year’s AFL-CIO convention, the struggles and challenges of the labor movement are tightly intertwined with those of African Americans and the civil rights movement: “Our needs are identical with labor’s needs: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, and health and welfare measures…”
Now, more than ever, our union is dedicated to advocating for both economic and racial justice, and to working for transportation and sheet metal industries that are inclusive and welcoming for all.