The SMART Voluntary Short Term Disability Plan (VSTD) has temporarily suspended the elimination period for COVID-19 disabilities. Previously, the waiver of the elimination period began in the month of March and extended through May of this year and then was once again extende [...]
SMART-TD shares with the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the dream that men and women should be judged not by the color of their skin, their nationality or religious beliefs, but by the content of their hearts. Below is a link to Dr. King’s speech, delivered on Aug. 28, [...]
Federal Railroad Administrator Ron Batory in a Jan. 14 letter to union leaders denied a request from the SMART Transportation Division (SMART-TD) and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) to issue an emergency order to safeguard passenger rail travelers [...]
On January 8, 2021, Arbitrator Wendell Bell issued his arbitration award regarding the process and procedure in arbitrating the Carriers’ (UP, BNSF, NS & KCS) attack on the Crew Consist Moratoria. The arbitration, known as a “Procedural Public Law Board,” had the pu [...]
President-elect Joe Biden has decided not to take Amtrak to his inauguration ceremony after security concerns intensified following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, CNN reports. Biden had planned a journey similar to the one he had taken from Delaware to D. [...]
Angel Lomeli, a 14-year member of our union, passed away Jan. 5, 2021, from COVID-19. He was 48 years old. Brother Lomeli was a member of Local 1846 (West Colton, Calif.) and worked as a trainman for Union Pacific. “God gained the absolute best angel today, we miss you, [...]
CLEVELAND, Ohio (Jan. 13, 2021) — The leaders of two of the nation’s largest railroad worker unions urgently petitioned the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in a letter Jan. 13 to enact a “No-Ride List” on passenger rail carriers after the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection in W [...]
CLEVELAND, Ohio (Jan. 12, 2021) — The leaders of two of the nation’s largest railroad worker unions urgently petitioned the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in a letter January 11 to prevent security vulnerabilities and to protec [...]
Norman “Norm” Patterson Jr., 52, of Lubbock, Texas, vice local chairperson of LCA-020 and a member of Local 9 (Slaton, Texas), passed away Jan. 5 after a battle with cancer. A member of our union since 2006, Brother Patterson was a conductor for BNSF, and he had s [...]
