Creative vision in Washington, D.C., is not quite an oxymoron, but seemingly only extraordinary external events cause it to materialize.
Perhaps there was prediction of a month of Sundays when Congress authorized land grants for a transcontinental railroad; expectation of hell freezing over when lawmakers approved construction of the Interstate Highway System; and sightings of flying pigs when the House of Representatives combined aviation, highway, and railroad funding authorization and oversight into a single Transportation & Infrastructure Committee.
It may require the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series before the entire Congress ceases to treat passenger transportation project-authorization and funding as if aviation, highways, and trains were mutually exclusive even though travelers frequently combine all three in their travel plans.
Two of the nation’s largest railroad companies — CSX and BNSF — have filed suit against the state of Tennessee in federal court claiming they are being forced to pay millions of dollars in taxes on diesel fuel that their highway- and water-based cargo-hauling competitors don’t have to pay.
Both railroads, in separate suits filed by the same law firm in U.S. District Court in Nashville on Tuesday, contend that the state’s 7 percent sales and use tax “on diesel fuel purchased and used for rail transportation purposes is discriminatory and unlawful” under the federal Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976.
TORONTO – The oil carried by a freight train that derailed and exploded in Quebec this year had been misclassified as a less dangerous type of crude, Canadian officials said Wednesday, and they urged U.S. and Canadian regulators to ensure dangerous goods are accurately labeled.
Forty-seven people were killed in the July disaster when the unattended train rolled away and derailed in the town of Lac-Megantic near the Maine border and several of its oil cars exploded. The downtown was destroyed.
It was really great meeting so many of your leadership team at the recent regional meetings in Boston and Anaheim. They are an active and involved group with a commitment to the labor movement. It confirmed my belief in the potential value we have in joining forces on several fronts to build membership and greater influence at all political levels. I used the opportunity to talk candidly about the importance of finalizing the merger when the result of the current arbitration is received. As soon as we have that opinion, an interim SMART Constitution, comporting the Transportation Division Constitution (Article 21B) with the SMART Constitution in accordance with the Merger Agreement, will be effective until the adoption of a new SMART Constitution at the SMART General Convention, beginning Aug. 11, 2014. Essentially, there are two stages in the process for developing a new constitution that will guide SMART’s operations for five years. Amendments proposed through the provisions of the Transportation Constitution (Article 21B) will be submitted for vote by the delegates at the Transportation Division Convention to be held June 30 – July 2, 2014. The approved amendments at that convention shall be submitted to the SMART Constitution Committee as recommendations. The SMART Constitution Committee, composed of delegates from both the sheet metal and the transportation operations of SMART, shall consider and submit all amendment recommendations for concurrence or non-concurrence by all delegates to the SMART General Convention. Every member of SMART must be involved in the process. The SMART Constitution governs the union, its officials at all levels and, most importantly, the members. It’s really a contract between you and your union. To help keep you better informed and to make transparent the provisions of your membership, we’ve posted the current SMWIA Constitution, the Merger Agreement and the November 2011 Arbitrator’s Opinion and Award on the smart-union.org homepage. The interim SMART Constitution should be available in October to be posted on the smart-union.org website and the www.utu.org website. In addition, each SMART local will receive printed copies for members without access to the Internet to read at the local’s office. Most community libraries also provide access to the Internet. I encourage you to submit any proposed amendments to your local union for consideration in preparing its amendments to be submitted to the respective Constitution Committees in accordance with the provisions in Article 13, lines 1-18, in the UTU Constitution and Article 33 in the SMWIA Constitution. If you have any questions, please send them to info@smart-union.org or to SMART Constitution, 1750 New York Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20006, for referral to the appropriate office. As this publication is being finalized, thousands are marching and gathering at the Lincoln Memorial, just a few blocks from our offices, to commemorate the peaceful march in 1963 and Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Jobs and justice still require national attention and we must be involved in assuring those for ourselves and future generations. Let me close by thanking Al Nowlin’s wife, Phyllis, for asking me at the Anaheim regional meeting to present a clock to her husband on the 35th anniversary of his becoming a union officer (local chairperson, Local 349 at Kansas City, Mo., and now general chairperson, GO 569). I really appreciate everything our wives do for us and our families because of the hours we are away from home. Fraternally, Joe Nigro, SMART General President
The Board of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority unanimously voted Thursday, Aug. 29, 2013, to award Veolia Transportation the three remaining option years for the company’s Tri-Rail contract. The contract now extends through June 2017.
The South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA) originally awarded the operations contract for the Tri-Rail system to Lombard, Ill.-based Veolia Transportation in early 2007.
It was really great meeting so many of your leadership team at the recent regional meetings in Boston and Anaheim. They are an active and involved group with a commitment to the labor movement. It confirmed my belief in the potential value we have in joining forces on several fronts to build membership and greater influence at all political levels. I used the opportunity to talk candidly about the importance of finalizing the merger when the result of the current arbitration is received. As soon as we have that opinion, an interim SMART Constitution, comporting the Transportation Division Constitution (Article 21B) with the SMART Constitution in accordance with the Merger Agreement, will be effective until the adoption of a new SMART Constitution at the SMART General Convention, beginning Aug. 11, 2014.
Essentially, there are two stages in the process for developing a new constitution that will guide SMART’s operations for five years. Amendments proposed through the provisions of the Transportation Constitution (Article 21B) will be submitted for vote by the delegates at the Transportation Division Convention to be held June 30 – July 2, 2014. The approved amendments at that convention shall be submitted to the SMART Constitution Committee as recommendations. The SMART Constitution Committee, composed of delegates from both the sheet metal and the transportation operations of SMART, shall consider and submit all amendment recommendations for concurrence or non-concurrence by all delegates to the SMART General Convention.
Every member of SMART must be involved in the process. The SMART Constitution governs the union, its officials at all levels and, most importantly, the members. It’s really a contract between you and your union. To help keep you better informed and to make transparent the provisions of your membership, we’ve posted the current SMWIA Constitution, the Merger Agreement and the November 2011 Arbitrator’s Opinion and Award on the smart-union.org homepage. The interim SMART Constitution should be available in October to be posted on the smart-union.org website and the www.utu.org website. In addition, each SMART local will receive printed copies for members without access to the Internet to read at the local’s office. Most community libraries also provide access to the Internet.
I encourage you to submit any proposed amendments to your local union for consideration in preparing its amendments to be submitted to the respective Constitution Committees in accordance with the provisions in Article 13, lines 1-18, in the UTU Constitution and Article 33 in the SMWIA Constitution. If you have any questions, please send them to info@smart-union.org or to SMART Constitution, 1750 New York Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20006, for referral to the appropriate office.
As this publication is being finalized, thousands are marching and gathering at the Lincoln Memorial, just a few blocks from our offices, to commemorate the peaceful march in 1963 and Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Jobs and justice still require national attention and we must be involved in assuring those for ourselves and future generations.
Let me close by thanking Al Nowlin’s wife, Phyllis, for asking me at the Anaheim regional meeting to present a clock to her husband on the 35th anniversary of his becoming a union officer (local chairperson, Local 349 at Kansas City, Mo., and now general chairperson, GO 569). I really appreciate everything our wives do for us and our families because of the hours we are away from home.
BISMARCK — As oil industry representatives met here Tuesday to discuss the ever changing industry, one thing was clear, there will be new regulations over shipping crude oil by train.
After the July derailment in Canada of a train carrying crude oil from North Dakota, the crude-by-rail safety inspections by the Obama administration, dubbed the “Bakken blitz,” has many in the industry anxious about new federal regulations.
HAMMOND, Ind. – A Lake County Superior Court judge has ruled Indiana’s right-to-work law unconstitutional, but the decision doesn’t mark the end of a legal battle over the measure. Judge John Sedia ruled the law unconstitutional last week because the state constitution calls for just compensation for services, according to an order. The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed in February 2013 on behalf of members of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 AFL-CIO, who argued the law violated the constitution. Read the complete story at The Times of Northwest Indiana.
A federal investigation found a freight train crew member was distracted by text messaging soon before crashing into a stopped train in northwestern Indiana, causing the derailment of more than two dozen locomotives and rail cars.
The January 2012 derailment in a rural area a few miles from Valparaiso prompted the evacuation of more than 50 nearby homes as spilled diesel fuel burned and sent smoke billowing from the wreckage.
