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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:

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.

American workers have a legal right to organize and form a union under federal labor law. Unfortunately, U.S. labor laws are some of the mostly weakly enforced among all industrialized nations, meaning anti-union employers too often take advantage of lax enforcement and violate labor law with little consequence.

The Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act, aims to change all of this, empowering workers to exercise their rights to organize and bargain collectively. The legislation passed the U.S. House in Feb. 2020, but then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to let it come to the Senate floor. With Democrats now in control of the Senate, the legislation is expected to move forward.

“U.S. labor law is in desperate need of an overhaul. It both needs updating to reflect the changing nature of our economy, and strengthening to ensure workers’ fundamental right to organize is protected.”
– SMART General President Joseph Sellers

“U.S. labor law is in desperate need of an overhaul,” said SMART General President Joseph Sellers, “It both needs updating to reflect the changing nature of our economy, and strengthening to ensure workers’ fundamental right to organize is protected.”

The act would amend decades-old U.S. labor laws to give workers more power at work and add penalties for companies that violate labor law. Currently, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has no authority to levy fines against companies that break the law, such as firing a worker who initiatives a union organizing drive.

The PRO Act would also:

Help ensure workers who win union regognition can reach a first contract quickly.
End employers’ ability to hire permanent replacements to punish striking workers.
Enhance the NLRB’s power to fine companies that violate labor law, up to $50,000 per violation.
Weaken so-called “right-to-work” laws in 27 states that allow employees who benefit from union contracts to choose not to join or pay union dues.
Grant collective bargaining rights to hundreds of thousands of workers who currently don’t have them.
Allow more workers currently classified (or mis-classified…) as contractors to be considered employees for purposes of union organizing, opening the door for “gig workers” at companies like Uber and DoorDash to join or form unions.

“The PRO Act is a generational opportunity that will transform America’s labor landscape and marshal economic recovery for working people,” wrote AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in an op-ed that appeared on CNN.com in January 2021. “The PRO Act is also an economic stimulus bill. Unions give more of us the collective power to win better pay and safer working conditions, putting additional money in workers’ pockets, driving demand and creating jobs.”

President Joe Biden made good on a promise to support workers and the labor movement on his first day when he fired National Labor Board General Counsel Pete Robb within 24 hours of taking office.
Robb, a former union buster with a virulently anti-union record, refused Biden’s request to resign on inauguration day. No president had previously fired an NLRB counsel, though one anti-union counsel resigned at the request of President Harry Truman in 1950.
The position of NLRB General Counsel wields significant power in the field of labor power because it is the General Counsel who decides which cases to prosecute while administering how to follow the law when cases are argued.
Robb had spent the past few years advancing numerous employer-friendly arguments and interpretations of the National Labor Relations Act. He made it a priority to allow employers to unilaterally modify contract terms and narrowed the scope in which union stewards and representatives could operate at the worksite. He also helped shape employer-friendly NLRB decisions that resulted in what some call a “slap on the wrist” when employers violate the law.

SMART was stunned and horrified by the attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol building two weeks ago, which was encouraged by Mr. Trump and resulted in the murder of a U.S. Capitol police officer. Despite this attack on our beloved country, healing is coming soon. Today, Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn in as President and Vice President of the United States. Before even taking office, President Biden had already shown that he will prioritize working Americans and that unions will have a seat at the table in the Biden administration.
The Biden-Harris Transition Team has engaged with unions, including SMART. Our very own David Bernett, NEMIC Administrator and member of Local 12-SM in Pittsburgh, PA, served as a volunteer on the U.S. Department of Labor Agency Review Team for the Biden-Harris Transition. SMART attended meetings with various Transition teams and emphasized our members’ priorities, including two-person crews, protecting our pensions, rail safety, indoor air quality, bus driver assaults, prevailing wage, and action to help our members during the COVID-19 pandemic. SMART even met with a member of the Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board to discuss the importance of indoor air quality and the value offered by our union and its high-skilled workforce.
President Biden has been listening. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh was nominated to serve as Labor Secretary and lead the Department of Labor. He is a member of the Laborers and has fought for working families his entire career. In addition, Pete Buttigieg was nominated to serve as Transportation Secretary and lead the Department of Transportation. He has committed to addressing worker needs and invest in our infrastructure. SMART applauds these nominations.
The Biden administration will stand up for our members and their families after four years of empty promises. SMART looks forward to working with the Biden administration and will hold the administration accountable to its promises to build an economy that lifts up American working families. SMART will keep its membership informed every step of the way.

We have just witnessed a sad day in American history. Leave no doubt, these violent, anti-democratic actions were sown by the incitement of the current president and his elected apologists, who have misled their supporters for far too long.
SMART, along with our sisters and brothers across the labor movement, rejects any threat to our nation’s peaceful transfer of power, and stands ready to defend our nation’s democratic institutions.

The North America’s Building Trades Unions’ (NABTU) President Sean McGarvey released the following statement in response to the mob of domestic terrorists that attacked the U.S. Capitol building during the electoral college certification proceedings:
“Today’s despicable events are unprecedented, and, as we have all seen, are extremely dangerous. North America’s Building Trades Unions call on President Trump to immediately step down and transfer power per the Constitution and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. If he refuses, the Cabinet must immediately invoke the 25th amendment to remove the President. Any less action by the Cabinet, and America should consider them all coconspirators.
“We also call on Senators Cruz and Hawley to immediately resign along with the twelve other U.S. Senators and the 140 House members objecting to the Electoral College certification. They all must step down immediately.
“We call on a bipartisan commission to investigate and identify all planners, funders, and coordinators of this attempted coup and refer them to prosecution by the U.S. Justice Department, and further for them to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
“If these actions are not taken immediately, in anticipation of what is already one of the worst domestic episodes in our country’s history, things could get much worse over the next 14 days very quickly. Thus, we urge all law-abiding Americans to stand up and demand the same to protect our precious democracy from tyrants and thugs.”
The North America’s Building Trades Unions is an alliance of 14 national and international unions in the building and construction industry that collectively represent over 3 million skilled craft professionals in the United States and Canada. Each year, our unions and our signatory contractor partners invest over $1.6 billion in private-sector money to fund and operate over 1,900 apprenticeship training and education facilities across North America that produce the safest, most highly trained, and productive, skilled craft workers found anywhere in the world. NABTU is dedicated to creating economic security and employment opportunities for its construction workers by safeguarding wage and benefits standards, promoting responsible private capital investments, investing in renowned apprenticeship and training, and creating pathways to the middle class for women, communities of color and military veterans in the construction industry.