Nearly 500 SMART sisters and allies from across North America traveled to Chicago, Ill., for Tradeswomen Build Nations — the world’s largest gathering of tradeswomen — from September 19-21, 2025. Alongside more than 6,000 fellow union workers, SMART members and leaders put the power of solidarity on full display.
Throughout the past several years, SMART members and working families across the United States have made one thing clear: The system just isn’t working. Or at least, it isn't working for working people. For the rich and powerful, things are going just fine — and that's no accident.
The Education Department, in collaboration with the Organizing Department, held its Organizing III class during the week of October 6–10, 2025, in St. Louis. This redesigned class focused on the “top-down” organizing strategy, with a specific emphasis on developing organizing campaigns targeting nonunion contractors.
Following the retirement of Thomas DeBartolo and Lance Deyette’s hiring as assistant to the general president, the SMART General Executive Council (GEC) voted to elect two new members: Local 19 Business Manager Bryan Bush and Local 33 Business Manager Corey Beaubien.
In late August, President Trump’s Department of Transportation canceled $679 million in federal funding for 12 offshore wind projects across the country. That included fully taking back hundreds of millions of dollars in grant money for infrastructure work at Humboldt Bay Harbor District in Northern California — immediately throwing Local 104 members’ work opportunities into question, in the short and long term.
SMART members and labor unions across the world have been fighting for workers’ rights throughout their history. Case in point: The January–February 2000 issue of the Members’ Journal, which covered sheet metal workers’ participation in now-famous rallies at the World Trade Organization’s 1999 meetings in Seattle.