The International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) said 54% of the members of its mechanical and engineering division have voted in favor of ratifying a labor agreement between the union and U.S. freight railroads.
SMART said the contract includes “historic” wage increases, five annual service recognition payments, an additional day off and enhanced health care benefits, as well as a 13.5% wage increase, retroactive pay and $3,000 in service recognition payments. Those last three items will be available within 60 days.
Another SMART division, one that represents train conductors, still needs to vote on its tentative agreement.
“It was up to our members to decide whether to accept this agreement, and the members have made the decision to ratify a contract with the highest wage increases we have ever seen in national freight rail bargaining,” SMART General President Joseph Sellers Jr. said in a late Wednesday release. “However, we hear the concerns of our members who may be disappointed in the outcome of this vote, and I promise that we will never stop fighting to ensure that they receive the wages, benefits and working conditions that they deserve for keeping the American economy running.”
The National Carriers’ Conference Committee, the group that represents the freight railroads at the bargaining table, said it was “pleased” that SMART’s mechanical and engineering members voted to ratify the agreement.
A new labor deal for union members has been in the works since January 2020, but negotiations with the railroads failed to progress. A federal mediation board took up the negotiations but released the parties from those efforts earlier this summer.
The Presidential Emergency Board — a three-person, independent panel appointed by President Joe Biden — convened in July and August to come up with ways that the unions and railroads could resolve the impasse and issued recommendations in September. The guidance was meant to serve as a jumping-off point for a new contract.
There are five unions that have agreed to ratify their respective labor agreements, and six that still need to approve their tentative agreements.
The other four unions that have approved their agreements are the American Train Dispatchers Association, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Transportation Communications Union and the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen.
Earlier this week, the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division (BMWED) voted to reject its tentative agreement, sending the union and the freight railroads back to the negotiating table. The rejection raised questions again about whether a strike could occur should BMWED fail to reach an agreement for a new labor contract.
The last time the specter of a potential strike arose was when two of the largest labor unions — those representing locomotive engineers and train conductors — reached an 11th-hour tentative agreement with the railroads in September. Their agreement averted a rail strike that could have begun as early as Sept. 16.
The earliest that BMWED could go on strike would be after Nov. 19. The union must maintain the status quo until then, per federal law.
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