Norfolk Southern is committed to working with our labor partners to advance safety, service, and quality of life enhancements for our craft colleagues. Over 80 percent of our workforce is covered by a labor agreement, and working together we deliver safe, reliable, and resilient service to our customers.

As part of our commitment to proactively engage our labor partners, Norfolk Southern President and CEO Alan Shaw accepted International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers—Transportation Division (SMART-TD) President Jeremy Ferguson’s invitation to participate in an open question and answer session with NS employees who also serve as leaders within SMART-TD. 

The meeting was held during SMART-TD’s National Training Seminar in Cleveland on July 10. During the forum, Shaw took questions and provided an update on NS’ efforts to be the gold standard of safety in the rail industry. Shaw is the first CEO to attend  SMART-TD’s national meeting.

“Our union represented craft colleagues are what drives the Norfolk Southern engine that powers the American economy. We strive to lead the rail industry in how we engage our labor partners,” said Shaw. “We are taking every opportunity possible to include our unions in our efforts to be a customer-centric, operations-driven railroad with safety at the center of everything we do.”

Ferguson, president of the largest rail labor union in the U.S., was pleased to host Shaw and his fellow representatives.

"This was a first for us, and it was a great opportunity to have frank and open discussions about safety and culture with expert officers from both labor and management in the same room," he said. "We were thrilled to host this town hall meeting in our hometown of Cleveland, while we had a vast number of SMART-TD officers of the NS here for our National Training Seminar. By engaging in these types of discussions, we gave everyone the opportunity to voice their concerns and also highlight the vast improvements we have seen in the past year with safety and the culture."

NS actively involves labor in our efforts to enhance our culture of safety and improve quality of life. Over the past year, we have implemented a series of positive changes related to training and accountability to enhance how we engage our craft workforce.