Norfolk Southern, SMART-TD shifting focus in negotiations

Norfolk Southern and the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers – Transportation Division, or "SMART-TD," announced that they are discontinuing formal negotiations regarding conductor redeployment to "focus their efforts on implementing other immediate quality-of-life improvements for their employees." Under the terms of the national agreements, Norfolk Southern and SMART-TD have a mid-June deadline to negotiate the details of these scheduling enhancements. Given this limited window, Norfolk Southern has withdrawn its current Section 6 bargaining notice on conductor redeployment to fully focus on collaboratively implementing these enhancements and other quality-of-life priorities. Jeremy Ferguson, president of SMART-TD, said: "These scheduling enhancements, which were part of last year’s national agreements, have the potential to make an immediate positive impact for our conductors by giving them fixed days off and greater certainty about their weekly assignments. The willingness of NS to step back from plans to change to a ground-based conductor model is a welcome show of good faith in the negotiation process."