CHICAGO The labor member of the Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) says he will retire after Jan. 1, or sooner if a successor is nominated and confirmed by the Senate before then.
V.M. (Butch) Speakman Jr., who was first confirmed by the Senate to his post in 1992, is one of three members of the agency, which administers the Railroad Retirement Act and Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act, which pays sickness and disability benefits to rail workers.
Labor and management are represented on the RRB along with a chairman who is a neutral. Speakman currently is the boards longest serving member. His first nomination was by President George H.W. Bush in 1992. He was renominated by President Clinton in 2000 for two terms, and for a fourth term in 2007 by President George W. Bush.
From 1987 until his first nomination to the RRB in 1992, Speakman was president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen.
Early in his career, Speakman was a signalman and foreman on the former Penn Central, which became Conrail following its bankruptcy. Conrail later was privatized and subsequently partitioned to CSX and Norfolk Southern following a bidding war for Conrail stock.