The White House on Thursday, June 4, endorsed a requirement that U.S. railroads install new safety equipment (Positive Train Control – PTC) by the end of 2015, despite bipartisan efforts in Congress to give passenger and freight rail companies extra time to comply.
Administration support for the deadline could lead to a showdown with lawmakers in Congress over the safety equipment known as positive train control, or PTC, which federal officials say would have prevented the deadly May 12 Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia that killed eight people and injured more than 200.
Republicans and Democrats have introduced different pieces of legislation to extend the deadline. A measure giving railroads until the end of 2020 to comply with the safety requirement was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee in March and moved to the Senate floor for a vote.
Author: paul
A new infrastructure package in Ontario will require contractors on large scale projects to hire apprentices and set up recruitment plans to hire economically disadvantaged workers from the community. It is the first law of its kind at the state or provincial level anywhere in North America. The new legislation also constructs framework for future Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) on all large-scale infrastructure projects.
The set of groundbreaking new rules are part of a legislative package earmarking $130 billion for infrastructure over the coming decade. SMART was a part of the coalition of labor and community groups that lobbied for these requirements, which will provide new work opportunities for journeymen and apprentices on Ontario projects.
While widely used in the United States, Project Labor Agreements are rare in Canada. Also known as Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs) they were used on the construction of the Olympic Village in Vancouver and the revitalization of Toronto’s Regent Park. In both cases, they were used to help and make inroads into the fast growing and diverse neighborhoods in both of those two cities.
On Thursday, June 4, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon traveled to SMART SM Local 36 in St. Louis to veto a toxic right-to-work for less bill passed by that state’s legislature. With a fired up crowd of hundreds of onlookers, he noted that “For generations, the ability of workers to join together and bargain collectively for fair wages and benefits has formed the foundation of the American middle-class. This extreme measure would take our state backward.”
Due to the Republican Party’s lock on midterm elections, this year marks the first time that anti-worker groups were able to foster enough support in the state Legislature to send a bill to the Governor. The Legislature effectively shut down the last week of it’s session after some GOP senators forced a vote on the measure.
Even with an overwhelming and record number of Republicans in the Missouri House and Senate, the bill’s original passage still fell short of the two-thirds majority vote needed in both chambers to overturn Governor Nixon’s veto. The Republican Party was split, with many members joining Democrats in opposition to the extreme legislation.
To override the veto, the Republican-controlled Legislature would need 23 votes in the Senate and 109 in the House. The Senate passed the measure 21-13 earlier this year while the House passed it 92-66.
Today, people across the country are making calls to their lawmakers to let them know that working folks do not want and cannot afford another bad trade deal. We deserve trade policy that works for everyone, not just the top 1%.
We need to let Congress know we’ve got the facts and we don’t support Fast Track. In the past, deals that were passed using the Fast Track process deepened our trade deficit, weakened our manufacturing sector, pushed wages down and increased the 1%’s control on our economy.
More of these bad policies will shrink our paychecks and stifle middle class growth. Not only does Fast Track encourage the passage of bad trade deals, but it will also tie the hands of local and federal lawmakers and prevent them from improving bad deals or telling the negotiators the
deal won’t get a vote unless they go back to the drawing board. We deserve better than a policy that limits Congress to a simple up or down vote on trade deals that will affect working families.
I believe that we can win this, but we have to act now.
Click here to contact your representative now and tell him or her to stand up for workers and democracy by opposing Fast Track when it comes up for a vote.
Call Congress today to #StopFastTrack: 1-855-712-8441
The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) new rules designed to provide a fair balance to the union election process have survived the first of two major legal challenges, with a federal judge ruling that the agency acted within its own authority in creating them and was not favoring unions.
The lawsuit, filed by the Associated Builders and Contractors, (ABC) was an attempt to stop recent NLRB rule changes that would speed up union representation elections for workers and update agency activities to take advantage of changes in technology. For example, one of the highlights of the bill was a new rule actually allowing the use of email to transmit election forms.
The other lawsuit sits in front of another court in Washington, DC. The Texas case was considered the stronger of the two cases for anti-union forces.
Click here to view a copy of the case.
The General Committee of Adjustment 875 (Los Angeles, CA) of the SMART Transportation Division has elected Marco Gudino as its new General Chairman. Mr. Gudino will be the first new General Chairman elected for the General Committee in over 19 years.
Former General Chairman James A. Williams had made it no secret that his retirement was imminent. He had announced at union meetings last year that these would be his last contract negotiations. A few weeks ago, Mr. Williams made the decision to quietly announce his plans to retire so that he may get the union affairs in order before his departure. A meeting and a vote was called for Friday, May 29 at the union offices in Irwindale, CA.
Although one of the newest Local Chairman for the General Committee, Mr. Gudino was found to be more than qualified to hold the office of General Chairman by a majority of the committee. Mr. Gudino began his career as a bus operator in 1986 and also served as a Gold Line Rail Operator starting in 2000. As an officer of the committee Mr. Gudino has served as Treasurer, Secretary Local Committee of Adjustment, Vice Local Chairman and Local Chairman for Local 1565. This resume gives Mr. Gudino the depth and breadth of knowledge and experience needed to lead a union that represents the over 5000 members of SMART and operators for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. As soon as they received the news, General President of SMART John Sellers and SMART Transportation Division President John Previsich called the General Committee to congratulate both Mr. Gudino and Mr. Williams.
Two other positions were also voted on at the meeting. 1608 Local Chairman John Ellis maintained his position as Vice General Chairman and 1607 Local Chairman Gilbert Camacho was elected as Secretary for the General Committee of Adjustment.
Robert J. Zanath, 50, died May 28 at University Hospitals of a brain aneurysm. He was surrounded by his family at the time of his passing.
Zanath was born Sept. 10, 1964. After graduating from Padua Franciscan High School in Parma, Ohio, he attended Kent State University and then graduated from Cleveland State University with a Bachelor’s degree in communications.
Following college he worked at Ponderosa restaurant until he hired out with the United Transportation Union as the webpage designer October 8, 1990. Over the past couple of years Zanath took over as the head of the Public Relations Department of the SMART Transportation Division. Zanath was very dedicated to the union and its publications, often staying late to work on and finish projects. Zanath was a laid back, levelheaded supervisor with an unsurpassed knowledge of the inter-workings of the union. He will be missed by not only the PR department in which he worked, but by everyone who knew him.
Zanath was a devout Catholic, who tried to never miss church, even when out-of-town at regional meetings and conventions. He was a member of St. Columbkille Church of Parma, Ohio. He enjoyed the music of Van Halen and many other rock bands. He loved the Cleveland Browns and was a huge Cleveland sports enthusiast. He enjoyed the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation as well as anything pertaining to James Bond films. Although he was dedicated to his job, he was just as dedicated to leading a good moral life for himself, his entire family and to God. He was a devoted father and husband.
“He was thrilled when John (Zanath’s son) came along,” Retired Public Relations Assistant Eric Eakin said. “He loved his family, he loved his parents and talked to them all the time.”
Surviving Zanath are his wife Lynn, their two children Holly and John, parents Jack and Carole, brother Tom and his wife Debbie, Goddaughter and Niece Erica, parents-in-law Anthony and Frances Grabowski.
Visitation is to be held Sunday, May 31 at Fortuna Funeral Home, 7076 Brecksville Rd., Independence, Ohio from 2:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. Prayers are to be held at the funeral home on Monday, June 1 at 9:00 a.m., followed by a Mass of Christian Burial at St. Columbkille Church at 10:00 a.m. Interment will follow at All Saints Cemetery.
(The following is a joint statement by John Previsich, President, SMART Transportation Division and Dennis R. Pierce, National President of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, regarding questions that have arisen since the fatal Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia on May 12, 2015.)
CLEVELAND, May 19 — Members of BLET’s Safety Task Force and SMART Transportation Division’s National Safety Team, in addition to representatives from the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division of the Teamsters Rail Conference (BMWED), are working with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to assist in the investigation of the catastrophic May 12 derailment of Amtrak Train 188.
Significant progress has been made in understanding how the accident occurred on May 12. That portion of the investigation is not yet complete, however, and even more work needs to be done to determine why the events
of that tragic night transpired the way they did.
BLET and SMART–TD do not make official comments about any ongoing NTSB investigation. Due to the number of press inquiries concerning issues not under investigation, however, we are providing the following information on why Amtrak trains on the Northeast Corridor are manned by a lone engineer in the control cab and why Positive Train Control (PTC) has not been installed on the Corridor. The answers to both questions begin with the United States Congress.
Why a One-Person Train Crew?
In 1981, Congress passed legislation (the Northeast Rail Service Act of 1981) that ended the previous Conrail requirement that there be a second crew member in the control cab of commuter rail trains on the Northeast Corridor. Armed with that legislative precedent — and mindful of where its funding originates — Amtrak has since 1983 refused to crew Northeast Corridor trains with more than one employee in the cab – the locomotive
engineer. Although BLET and SMART–TD have steadfastly maintained that there should be two crew members in the cab of all trains to ensure public
safety, only Congress can change the 1981 legislation that reduced crew size on the Northeast Corridor. But this is only one piece of a very large, complex puzzle.
Why No Positive Train Control?
On the heels of another catastrophic railroad accident in Chatsworth, CA, the federal government mandated in 2008 that Positive Train Control (PTC) be put in effect by the end of this year. That was seven years ago. Even with that mandate in place, and with the exception of some railroads such as BNSF Railway, the industry at large has spent the interim finding reasons to avoid implementing PTC technology. They have created the situation about which they all now complain — they say they cannot meet the December 31, 2015 deadline. Each death caused by the delay of PTC implementation is one too many, yet Congress is preparing to consider a blanket 5-year extension to 2020. This is most certainly not in the public interest.
Since 2005, the NTSB has completed 16 investigations of railroad accidents that could have been prevented or mitigated with PTC. These 16 accidents
claimed 52 lives — many being BLET and SMART–TD members — and injured 942 people, with damages totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. NTSB has publicly stated that the accident on May 12, 2015 was also PTC preventable. There is no disagreement over the value of PTC technology.
That said, there is no technology available today that can ever safely replace a second crew member in the cab of the locomotive. The only thing on a locomotive that is not a machine is the crew. The uncontrolled external environment in which trains are operated along with regulatory and operational demands of a safe transportation service demand a crew of at least two fully trained and qualified employees in the control cab of
every train. PTC is only a safety overlay that ensures a safer operation, and no technology can replace the level of safety provided when two crew members are on board and can serve as a check and balance to one another.
Even with all the safety-related technology that the government has mandated on commercial airlines, the public would never accept an airline operation with a single person in the cockpit. There is no reason that
rail employees and rail passengers’ lives should be viewed any differently.
Contrary to what some in government may say, the only place that crew size and PTC do connect is when it comes to funding. That is especially true in the case of Amtrak, because the government has woefully underfunded Amtrak since its inception. Additional crew members and new technology both cost money, and so long as those in Congress see fit to underfund the operation, they undermine their own mandate and shortchange the safety of the traveling public.
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The SMART Transportation Division is headquartered in the Cleveland suburb of North Olmsted, Ohio. It is a broad-based, transportation labor union representing about 125,000 active and retired railroad, bus, mass transit and airline workers in the United States. It is a division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers based in Washington, D.C.
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen represents more than 55,000 professional locomotive engineers and trainmen throughout the United States. The BLET is the founding member of theRail Conference, International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Today, the AFL-CIO released this year’s edition of its Executive Paywatch—the most comprehensive searchable database online that measures and tracks CEO pay. Last year, CEO pay for major U.S. companies—already considered exorbitant—increased nearly 16 percent.
While an S&P 500 company CEO averaged $13.5 million per year, the average production worker in the United States earned $36,000 per year—an alarming ratio of 373-to-1.
This 2015 edition of Paywatch (www.paywatch.org) shines its light on Walmart, where the CEO of the nation’s largest employer, Doug McMillon, earns $9,323 an hour. An entry-level Walmart employee earning just $9 an hour would have to work for 1,036 hours just to equal the pay McMillon earns in one hour. That’s nearly a half a year, assuming that employee works 40-hour weeks. The report also also delves into the wealth of the six Walton family members who have more combined wealth than the total wealth of 43 percent of America’s working families.
For more information on CEO pay, visit www.paywatch.org.
A group of pro-trade Democrats in the Senate announced on Tuesday that they will vote against fast-track approval for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This will effectively block the bill from being debated by the Senate. This comes after the Senate Democrats said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had not guaranteed sufficient protections for workers who would stand to lose their jobs.
Due to this impasse, Democratic leaders predict that they can muster 41 votes to block the bill from being debated.
Update: 45 Senators voted against closure, effectively blocking the measure.