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Yesterday, the White House budget office encouraged federal agencies to use project labor agreements on construction jobs. The guidance includes potential exceptions to avoid the use of PLAs.

“Although it doesn’t contain the same protections as the Biden administration, this is a step in the right direction. Project labor agreements create jobs for SMART members and working people across our country,” SMART General President Michael Coleman said in response. “All of us at SMART appreciate and applaud yesterday’s guidance from the White House, and we look forward to keeping this conversation going. We encourage them to go further, for the sake of our members, our families and our neighbors.

“We will continue to do everything we can to keep creating jobs for SMART members and Americans nationwide, and we encourage all agencies to support the use of PLAs on all federally funded projects.”

Members can read the memo here.

The Department of Energy recently canceled $3.7 billion in awards for various energy projects, including a project in Mitchell, Indiana, that had employed Local 20 sheet metal workers.

“These major energy projects were creating jobs for SMART members and American construction workers. Now, after the Department of Energy’s announcement, those jobs have been taken away,” said SMART General President Michael Coleman. “That’s bad for our members, our families and our country. We’re urging the Department of Energy to reverse this decision and put American workers back on the job.”

Members can learn more here and here.

Following reporting by ABC News that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being returned to the United States from El Salvador, SMART General President Michael Coleman released the following statement:

“Since March, our demand has not changed: Kilmar Abrego Garcia must be returned to the United States and receive his right to due process. This is a right granted to every person in our country.

“This fight isn’t about one man — it’s about ensuring our constitutional rights are protected, for the sake of all SMART members and everyone in this country. If one person’s right to due process is denied, all our rights are in danger.”

The spending bill recently passed by the United States House of Representatives includes nearly $700 billion in cuts to Medicaid — a move that could have serious consequences for SMART members alongside working families across the country.

“These cuts will affect our members directly at the bargaining table and in their wallets,” said SMART General President Michael Coleman. “Health care costs rise year after year, but when Medicaid is slashed, health care providers and insurance companies will shift even more of the burden onto high-quality plans like ours. That means even higher premiums, rising deductibles and increased out-of-pocket costs. Our members are already doing their part — this would make it even more expensive just to hold onto the care they’ve earned.

“Medicaid provides health coverage for millions of Americans, including many SMART members’ spouses and children. For families who rely on a combination of employer-provided benefits and public programs like Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), these cuts threaten their access to the care they need. It’s not just about coverage — it’s about stability for our families.

“As the bill advances to the Senate, SMART is actively working with congressional leaders to make sure our members continue to have access to affordable, high-quality health care. We urge senators to improve this legislation by maintaining full funding for Medicaid, which plays a critical role in keeping health care costs manageable for working families.”

The spending bill passed by the United States House of Representatives includes more than $500 billion in cuts to tax credits and infrastructure funding that help finance construction projects. In response, SMART General President Michael Coleman said:

“As written, this spending bill will take work away from SMART members, and it will hurt our country’s national interests. Developers and end users rely on tax credits and infrastructure funding to make sure construction projects are completed. Without that money, projects including nuclear, hydrogen and battery facilities get canceled, and SMART members lose their jobs.

“SMART is working with members of Congress to fix this. We are making sure senators know that these tax credits keep union sheet metal workers on the job so we can provide a stable future for our families.  

“We will keep fighting for our members’ jobs, and we urge the Senate to stand with our members by fixing this bill and keeping these tax credits in place.”

Following Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ decision to temporarily stay a federal district court order to return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the United States by 11:59pm tonight, SMART General President Michael Coleman issued the following statement:

“In court Friday, U.S. Department of Justice attorney Erez Reuveni admitted that there was nothing in the record to support ICE apprehending and deporting Abrego Garcia. The federal district court judge who heard Kilmar’s case stated she ‘[hadn’t] been given any evidence’ to support the government’s allegation of gang affiliation and ordered the government to bring Kilmar home by 11:59 p.m. on Monday, April 7. And earlier today, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit unanimously denied the government’s request for a stay. Circuit Judge Thacker aptly described what is at stake in Kilmar’s case, writing that:

‘The United States Government has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street and remove him from the country without due process. The Government’s contention otherwise, and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene, are unconscionable.’

“Now, instead of fixing the error the federal government has acknowledged making by bringing Kilmar home, the government has taken the matter to the Supreme Court. Today, Chief Justice Roberts temporarily stayed the order.

“We are devastated for Kilmar and his family that his return has been delayed. But our call remains unchanged: The Trump administration must bring Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia home and grant him the due process that is his right.”

Following an April 4, 2025, press conference regarding the deportation of SMART Local 100 apprentice Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, General President Michael Coleman issued the following statement:

“The principle of due process is one of the fundamental values our nation is founded upon. Every single person in America has the right to due process, the right to face one’s accusers — the guarantee that no one shall be ‘deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.’

“When Kilmar Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, he was denied his right to due process, and we at SMART are fighting to ensure he receives the treatment he is granted under law — just like we would, and we always will, fight for the rights of every single SMART member. We continue to call on the United States government to return Abrego Garcia to the United States and be granted due process, and we encourage every American who believes in the rule of law to do the same.”

SMART General President Michael Coleman addressed attendees at the SMART Transportation Division National Training Seminar (NTS) in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 9th, reiterating the solidarity that powers our union and committing himself fully to winning the pay, dignity, safety and protections SMART-TD members deserve.

“We stand for our members, and we will fight to the bitter end for the membership,” he declared to a fired-up SMART-TD audience.

GP Coleman: “You have the ‘why’”

Coleman readily told NTS attendees that, after 40 years as a union sheet metal worker and union officer, he was less familiar with the transportation side of SMART when he first joined the International in 2019. But having worked alongside SMART-TD President Jeremy Ferguson and his team since, including the SMART-TD legislative staff in Washington, DC, he told attendees: “I’m proud to stand up here with all of you under the banner of SMART, because that’s who we are. We are one union. And make no mistake about it … we are stronger for it.”

Coleman attended various breakout sessions during the NTS’s first day, hearing about the fights SMART-TD officers are embroiled in across the United States.

“There was an overarching message,” he said. “And that is: We are in a fight, and we are in a fight every single day. But I’ll tell you this. After witnessing what I’ve witnessed, there’s not another group that I would rather go into a fight with than this group right here and our brothers and sisters on the sheet metal side.”

The reason? Because SMART has our “why;” our reason for fighting. Coleman referred to the writing of author Simon Sinek, whose theory of a “golden circle” of leadership posits that organizations and leaders are constantly dealing with the “what” — the results they achieve — the “how” — how they achieve those results — and, most importantly, the “why” — the reason that “what” and “how” even exist.

Our “why” is the members, Coleman said. And that “why” is more powerful than any reason our enemies could have.

Representing SMART members through thick and thin

SMART-TD fights on behalf of its members day in and day out, Coleman told attendees. And the attacks are relentless.

It was only two years ago that the freight rail carriers said, on the record, that “labor does not contribute to profits.”

Management is slow to react to threats on operator safety and rarely takes the expertise of local unions into account when searching for solutions to violence on public transit.

Billionaire shareholders constantly seek to undermine working conditions and safe staffing in their pursuit of “efficiency” and profit in the transportation industry.

“I ask you – it’s a simple question – what is our crime?” Coleman posed to NTS attendees. “[Is it] that we fight for safety and dignity in the workplace? … Is it that we worry about our members and their families, and we make sure that they can provide a decent living, a home, and raise their family with dignity? Is that the crime? Or is it because when it comes time for us to retire, we want to be able to retire with some dignity as well?”

Recently, he added, SMART-TD hasn’t only battled entities like the Class I railroad carriers. Even other figures and organizations within rail labor have taken to disrupting the coordination and solidarity so desperately needed in national rail contract negotiations.

“President Ferguson and I are on the same page: We don’t want this fight. We do not want this fight. We want to join forces and fight those enemies I talked about before,” he said.

The challenges in our path make events like the NTS even more important. With trainings at the national and regional level, SMART-TD union officers can equip themselves with the tools and knowledge needed to represent members to the fullest, whether negotiating strong bus contracts, winning railroaders back pay or bargaining on attendance policies and paid sick leave.

“We will win,” Coleman concluded, “because of you. Because of us. We’re going to outthink them. We’re going to outwork them. And most importantly, we’re going to out-why them, because that’s what we stand for. We stand for our members. … I appreciate every single one of you for doing that every single day.”

Incoming SMART General President Michael Coleman
Incoming SMART General President Michael Coleman

Like retiring SMART General President Joseph Sellers, Michael Coleman has decades of experience in both the sheet metal trade and union leadership. He began his career as a SMART sheet metal worker in 1985, when he joined what was then Local 65 in Cleveland, Ohio (Local 65 merged with Local 33 soon after).

“I was 18 years old, about to turn 19,” Coleman explained. “I had a job working for a moving company, but there wasn’t much of a future in that. And somebody I knew said, ‘why don’t you try taking the apprenticeship test to become a sheet metal worker?’ And like most people at the time, I said: ‘I don’t even know what a sheet metal worker is.’”

He took the apprenticeship test, honed his craft as a member of Local 33 (northern Ohio) and — despite having never considered union leadership — ended up running for election as a member of the local’s executive board. From there, he became business representative, then Local 33 president and business manager in 2012. Seven years later, the SMART General Executive Council asked him to move to Washington, DC to work as SMART’s director of business and management relations — and shortly after that, General President Sellers asked him to become assistant to the general president. In all, it amounts to more than 20 years of dedicated leadership at the local and international level.

Watch an interview with incoming SMART General President Michael Coleman

“Much like General President Sellers, everything I have is because of this organization,” Coleman said. “I was floundering working for that moving company — becoming a sheet metal worker and a SMART member has provided me everything I have, along with my family. So I’m very dedicated to this organization. I’m driven because I think I owe everything I have to this organization.”

Coleman has seen first-hand the battles and victories of the last several years: from the fight against IRAPs and anti-worker rail policy, to huge wins like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the current megaproject boom. As he prepares for his new role as general president, he says, those challenges and opportunities are top of mind.

“Now is our time,” he said. “These opportunities are once in a generation, and I’m very excited and very thankful to General President Sellers for positioning us as he did.”