SMART Transportation Division President Jeremy R. Ferguson is scheduled to be a featured witness testifying next week in a hearing before the U.S. House Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee. The hearing on freight rail safety is scheduled 10 a.m. June 14 [...]
Federal Railroad Administrator Amit Bose last week addressed a shippers’ conference and said that part of his agency’s rationale in approaching a minimum crew size rulemaking will be taking into consideration the carriers’ use of longer trains, Trains Magazine reported April [...]
Class I railroad carriers BNSF and NS declared an impasse this week in the mandatory bargaining over crew size under Section 6 of the Railway Labor Act (RLA). In declaring an impasse, the two railroads, represented by the National Railway Labor Conference (NRLC), seek federal [...]
Legislators in Michigan introduced bills Dec. 2 in both the state House and Senate intended to keep freight rail operations on the state’s more than 3,600 miles of track running safely and efficiently. H.B. 5596 and S.B. 767 require a crew of at least two qualified people in [...]
The takeaway from a Washington Examiner article published Nov. 16 regarding recent supply-chain snarls is that rail labor’s desire to maintain the current standard level of personnel — a certified conductor and a certified engineer — aboard the monster freight trains brought [...]
In anticipation of today’s House hearing on the U.S. supply chain, an “exclusive” pro-carrier piece in the Washington Examiner on freight crew size says that keeping two people on freight crews is making the problem worse, neglecting to mention the massive c [...]
CLEVELAND, Ohio (Oct. 28, 2021) — The SMART Transportation Division (SMART–TD) and Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) escalated their fight against Norfolk Southern Railway (NS) to stop the railroad from forcing locomotive engineers to work as conductors, [...]
After years of working on railroads, Ron rose within his union’s leadership because he wanted to help passengers and workers feel safe and supported. pic.twitter.com/zuTX5haZNh — Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) September 6, 2021 New Jersey State Legisla [...]
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Senate today passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, its $1.2 trillion bipartisan legislation, by a 69-30 vote, sending the bill to the U.S. House of Representatives for consideration and taking a step to end a substantial period of larg [...]
You’ve probably heard in the news over the past few days that the U.S. Senate has agreed on a new bipartisan infrastructure package. This article is to provide facts, highlight the ongoing differences between the House’s infrastructure bill and the Senate’s infrastructure bil [...]