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bus; CATS; CATS busCHARLOTTE, N.C. – SMART Transportation Division organizers, representatives and members of Local 1715 at Charlotte, N.C., have turned back the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in an attempted raid of SMART membership.

Local 1715 represents bus operators employed by the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS).

On May 31, the National Labor Relations Board released the official tally of a representation vote held earlier that day in which SMART was chosen by nearly a 3-1 margin.

SMART TD Director of Organizing Rich Ross gave the official vote count as 267-97 in favor of SMART. There are approximately 600 drivers employed in the system.

The SMART TD is the collective bargaining agent for both CATS’ bus operators and bus mechanics (Local 1596), but the mechanics were not targeted during the raid.

Ross said rallying the SMART membership here was truly a team effort and he thanked International Organizers Mike Lewis and Calvin Studivant and General Chairperson Alvy Hughes for their outstanding effort. He also ackowledged the efforts of North Carolina State Legislative Director Ron Ingerick, Vice General Chairpersons Hasson Trent and Cheryl Brown, General Committee Secretary Bill Brown and local officers Bruce Wright, Kevin Moss, Brenda Moore, Debra Franklin and Donell Taylor.

“I believe it is now our responsibility to show the people that voted against UTU-SMART why they should have voted for us,” Ross said.

The transit system’s website says that CATS is the largest transit system between Atlanta, Ga., and Washington, D.C., with more than 70 local, express and regional bus routes, a light rail line and services for the disabled. 

CATS_web

Local 1715 Legislative Rep. Debra Franklin, International Organizer Mike Lewis and
Local 1715 Chairperson Kevin Moss rally Charlotte Area Transit System bus operators 
during a representation vote May 31.

SMART Transportation Division-represented hostlers employed by the Canadian National Railway have ratified a new five-year agreement by a unanimous majority.

The agreement provides for wage increases, back pay and health and welfare benefits that mirror the 2011 UTU National Agreement.

UTU International Vice-President Dave Wier, who assisted with the negotiations, congratulates GO 436 General Chairperson Jim Herndon for “the exceptional effort put forth during the long and difficult negotiations which resulted in an agreement with improvements in wages and benefits.”

nlc_logoThe Rail Workers Hazardous Materials Training Program prides itself on delivering the most valuable worker safety training available. Peer instructors are members of the railroad labor community and take pride in offering the latest and most up-to-date information, teaching techniques and peer support.

The goal of the rail program is to build a nationwide pool of skilled peer trainers to deliver awareness level hazardous material training.

The DOT-funded train-the-trainer courses provide regional peer trainers with the skills and knowledge necessary to deliver this training at their job-sites, union meetings and in their communities. There are no pre-requisites required to participate in the six-day train-the-trainer course.

Two DOT Train-the-Trainer courses will be held July 14-20, 2013, and Sept. 22-28, 2013, at 15101 Sweitzer Lane, Laurel MD, 20707.

Interested rail workers can register online at www.hazmatgmc.org by selecting the course desription tab, followed by the “Register Now” link for the Hazardous Materials Instructors Training.

For more information, call Freddie Thomas in the Hazmat office at (301) 431-5457, or email fthomas@nlc.edu.

My Approved Portraits
Sen. Lautenberg

Long an advocate for the region’s train system, Sen. Frank Lautenberg will ride the rails one last time on the way to his final resting place in Arlington National Cemetery.
Funeral ceremonies for Lautenberg will be held at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Park Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan, according to Riverside Memorial Chapel.
Read the complete article at The Star-Ledger.
The following comments were offered by SMART Transportation Division New Jersey State Legislative Director Dan O’Connell:
“It’s fitting that he will travel by rail – as he did many times to Washington, D.C. – one last time.
“I first met Sen. Lautenberg after I became state legislative director in 1996. We discussed Amtrak, mass transit (New Jersey Transit), labor issues and more. He couldn’t have been nicer. I let him know that I had, as a Conrail employee, worked Amtrak trains between New York City and Washington, D.C.. As our meeting was coming to a close, he asked about working in the engines of those trains. I watched him transform from the U.S. senator from New Jersey to another man mesmerized by trains. He turned to his aides with him and said ‘you really have to experience this, being on the head-end of a train at 110 mph.’ Our members, especially those in passenger service, owe him a great debt for his fights to secure funding for the survival of Amtrak, to allow commuter rail to grow and for being a reliable supporter of the working men and women of this country.
“Thanks to him, our members at Amtrak and New Jersey Transit have better infrastructure, locomotives, rail cars, and improved stations. Because of that, they have a more secure employment.
“He was one of the cosponsors of the Railroad Retirement Reform legislation that has made our pension system more secure for our active and retired members. He had been one of the prime movers behind the ARC tunnel before the project was cancelled. He was working to insure that Amtrak’s Gateway Project would go forward, adding another rail tunnel under the Hudson River along with a new Amtrak station in New York City. That will allow more trains into and out of New York City and that will mean more jobs.
“I mention these things for two reasons. One, because in most of the articles that have been written about him and his accomplishments, these either get a quick mention or no mention at all. Second, many Americans are disgusted by our politics these days and after reading the news, one can understand why. But, when you see what one man – Sen. Lautenberg – accomplished after serving in World War II and using the GI Bill after the war to found a company that employs more than 55,000 people, he should be respected.
“In some 30 years as our senator, he never forgot his roots as a poor kid from Paterson whose father died when he was young. He cared about working people and people that needed a hand up. He made our country a better place and that should be what politicians aspire to today.”

triple_trailerThe SMART Transportation Division’s legislative officers attended a public-input meeting held by the U.S. Department of Transportation May 29 to study truck size and weight limits.

Written testimony from the legislative office included the complete survey results from a poll conducted by the SMART TD in Indiana and Missouri regarding truck size and weight limits.

A portion of that survey was published in the May 2013 SMART TD News.

In written testimony submitted to the DOT, Alternate National Legislative Director John Risch stated: “By very large margins, these surveys show that the public at large opposes any increase in truck size and weight.

“Our labor union opposes increasing the size and weight of trucks as well because doing so will divert traffic from privately owned and maintained railroads to our already overburdened publicly built and maintained highways.

“Bigger trucks will increase highway congestion and further damage our inadequate infrastructure, and will put railroads at a further competitive disadvantage than they already are.

“Transporting freight by rail is more fuel efficient, saves our nation’s highways and produces far less pollutants than does transporting freight by trucks.

“Public policy decisions should encourage more freight to be moved by rail, not less.”

To view the SMART TD’s complete polling results from the Indiana and Missouri surveys, click here.

To view the DOT’s survey worksheets, click here.

The train operators at the Sprinter Rail Facility in Escondido, Calif., chose SMART Transportation Division representation in a May 28 vote.

In a unanimous vote, the Sprinter operators opted for representation under the SMART umbrella.

The Sprinter line is a 22-mile long light rail train system between Oceanside, Vista, San Marcos and Escondido, Calif., serving 15 stations.

The Sprinter runs every 30 minutes in each direction, Monday through Thursday, from approximately 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday trains run later.

It is managed Veolia Transportation Services, Inc., a major operator of commuter and regional rail services worldwide.

SMART TD Director of Organizing Rich Ross thanks all involved for “this complete team effort.”

SMART Transportation Division-represented train and engine workers employed by Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railroad Company have ratified a new five-year agreement by an overwhelming 89 percent majority.

The agreement provides for substantial wage increases equal to the 2011 national UTU agreement, including percentage increases to crew consist payments, full back-pay and increases in training pay.

The agreement also provides improved bereavement leave, establishes a Rule-G bypass agreement and establishes a health and welfare benefit package that replicates the National Health and Welfare package, including the Early Retirement Major Medical Benefit Plan.

SMART TD International Vice President Dave Wier, who assisted with the negotiations, congratulates International Organizer W.W. Lain, General Chairperson Dan Beckman and committee members John Hytinen, Tim Thomas and Jake Sinclair for “the effort put forth in bringing the members concerns’ to the bargaining table and negotiating an agreement with substantial improvements in wages and working conditions.”

Lake Superior & Ishpeming’s primary business is the transportation of iron ore over a 16-mile short line from the Empire-Tilden Mine, operated by Cliffs Natural Resources, south of Ishpeming, to Lake Superior for transport.

The Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railway was organized in 1893 as a subsidiary of Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company (now Cliffs Natural Resources), the iron ore mining company. From its beginning, the railroad’s primary business was the transport of iron ore from the Marquette Iron Range, west of Marquette, to docks on Lake Superior, from which the ore could be shipped to steel mills on the lower Great Lakes.

In a May 29 decision long dreaded by union coal miners, a bankruptcy court in St. Louis agreed that Patriot Coal has the right to void its collective bargaining agreements and cancel its pension and retirement obligations to 20,000 workers and family members.

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) argued in court that Patriot should not be let out of its debts, charging that its parent company, Peabody Energy, had designed Patriot to fail as a ploy to get out of $1 billion in retiree obligations. According to a financial analysis by Temple University Professor of Finance Bruce Rader, Patriot Coal was spun off from Peabody Energy with 42 percent of Peabody’s liabilities, but only 11 percent of its assets.

Read the complete story at In These Times.

 

You might remember the TV commercial: A single locomotive pulling doublestacked containers through a pastoral landscape, a logjam of trucks and autos on the adjacent roadway, everything moving uncharacteristically slow, but the message conveyed with undeniable clarity: Trains move goods more efficiently than trucks.

That same scenario is played out every day in countless locations: A mile-and-a-half-long train carrying more than 200 trailers and containers, making 60 mph or better across the wide open spaces, out-performing truckers on the nearby interstate who are moving freight trailers one, two, maybe three at a time. Or a throng of rush-hour motorists, six lanes wide, inching forward at a stop-and-go crawl in suburban Southern California. They can only watch as other commuters whisk by on a train that’s L.A.-bound at close to 90 mph.

Read the complete story at Railway Age.

 

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — A trust fund should be established to ensure the upkeep and safety of the nation’s rail system, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Wednesday, labeling the recent derailment in Connecticut and other accidents a call to action.

Blumenthal, fellow U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, U.S. Rep. Jim Himes and Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch appeared at news conference held in response to the May 17 collision near the city that injured more than 70 people on two commuter trains.

Read the complete story at The Washington Post.