Norfolk Southern Reaches Tentative Agreements With SMART-TD

(RTTNews) - Norfolk Southern Corp. (NSC) on Wednesday reached a tentative agreement with its final general committee of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers - Transportation Division (SMART-TD).

SMART-TD is the company's largest labor union, representing train conductors across the company's 22-state network. The latest agreement ensures coverage for all Norfolk Southern conductors and brings the total union workforce covered by early tentative agreements to nearly 65 percent.

The agreement, which is subject to ratification, comes four months before the opening of the next collective bargaining round and provides a 3.5-percent average wage increase per year over the next five years.

Under the tentative agreements, covered railroaders will also receive more vacation earlier in their career and have enhancements made to an already robust suite of health care benefits.

Over the past two weeks, Norfolk Southern has reached tentative agreements with nine of its 13 unions, which is in addition to SMART-TD.