DES MOINES, IOWA (December 12, 2022) — The SMART Transportation Division, BLET, and other organized labor groups plan to rally December 13 in support of freight rail-workers after the US government imposed a contract on members of SMART-TD and three other unions December 2.
A Solidarity Rally is planned (1-2PM, December 13, Iowa State Capitol). Members from all corners of labor, other rail labor organizations, and of the public are invited to participate in this informational picket.
“We refuse to take what occurred on December 1 and 2 with silence and complacency after the railroads refused to negotiate in good faith and held the country’s economy hostage in the name of greed and profits,” SMART-TD State Legislative Director Chris Smith said. “Enough is enough. Precision Scheduled Railroading has ravaged our nation’s supply chain for five years, exhausted our workers, and has left an essential sector of our US transportation industry in shambles. The treatment of US rail-workers by these rail executives, millionaires, and billionaires, as disposable cogs rather than human collaborators, must end.”
Regional events are being planned by union leaders and a list with details of the rallies will be made available on the SMART union website (smart-union.org) as finalized. A rally on Capitol Hill is planned 1-3PM, December 13. These events are not job actions or a strike. They will serve to act as informational pickets to raise awareness of the conditions created by the Class I railroad carriers. With no sick leave for workers, rail companies’ greedy Precision Scheduled Railroading scheme has devastated the nation’s rail labor workforce and pushed the US supply chain to the brink twice since September.
The events also coincide with a Surface Transportation Board hearing in Washington DC, centering on Union Pacific’s recent service performance troubles on December 13 and the Federal Railroad Administration’s public hearing on freight train crew size December 14.
The SMART Transportation is the largest freight-railroad union in the United States. Comprised of approximately 125,000 active and retired members of the former United Transportation Union, SMART-TD represents workers in a variety of crafts in the transportation industry.
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen is one of the oldest labor organizations in the nation and a Member of the Teamsters Rail Conference. The Teamsters Rail Conference represents more than 70,000 rail employees in the United States who work as locomotive engineers, trainmen, and maintenance of way workers.
