Transport Workers Union of America ( TWU ) is a United States labor union that was founded in 1934 by subway workers in New York City , then expanded to represent transit employees in other cities, primarily in the eastern U.S. This article discusses the parent union and its largest local, Local 100, which represents the transport workers of New York City. TWU is a member of the AFL–CIO .
132-600: Transport Workers Union may refer to: Transport Workers Union of America , active in the United States Transport Workers Union of Australia Transport Workers' Union (Netherlands) , former Dutch trade union Transport Workers' Union NKV , former Catholic trade union in the Netherlands Transport Workers' Union NVV , former social democratic trade union in
264-525: A sitdown strike , seizing control of the plant until management reinstated the workers it had fired. Other BMT employees established a picket line outside the plant and defended it from the efforts of the police to retake it, while helping to supply the workers inside with food supplied by the Retail Clerks union. The union then gave the BMT a deadline: reinstate the three fired engineers by 6:00 a.m.
396-460: A "treaty" to be presented to the forthcoming May 24, 1886, convention of the Knights of Labor, which demanded that the K of L cease attempting to organize members of International Unions into its own assemblies without permission of the unions involved and that K of L organizers violating this provision should suffer immediate suspension. For its part, the Knights of Labor considered the demand for
528-634: A Democrat, strongly favored labor unions. He made sure that relief operations like the Civilian Conservation Corps did not include a training component that would produce skilled workers who would compete with union members in a still glutted market. The major legislation was the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, called the Wagner Act . It greatly strengthened organized unions, especially by weakening
660-530: A complete halt. The City obtained an injunction prohibiting the strike and succeeded in imprisoning Quill and even other leaders of the TWU and the Amalgamated Association, which joined in the stoppage, for contempt of court. Quill did not waver, saying that the judge could "drop dead in his black robes", and successfully held out for a sizeable wage increase for the union. As it turns out, however,
792-649: A conference in Philadelphia on May 18. The call stated that an element of the Knights of Labor was doing "malicious work" and causing "incalculable mischief by arousing antagonisms and dissensions in the labor movement." The call was signed by Strasser and McGuire, along with representatives of the Granite Cutters, the Iron Molders, and the secretary of the Federation of Trades of North America ,
924-506: A crime for workers to leave transit equipment unattended. La Guardia went further and announced that while workers could choose organizations to represent them, the City had no obligation to recognize those organizations as the exclusive representative of those workers or to engage in collective bargaining with them. In the end the adversaries resolved their differences, but in a very ambiguous way, through intermediaries, without actually settling
1056-464: A dispute with the Knights of Labor (K of L) organization, in which the leadership of that organization solicited locals of various craft unions to withdraw from their International organizations and to affiliate with the K of L directly, an action which would have moved funds from the various unions to the K of L. The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions also merged into what would become
1188-545: A federal labor union. That same year workers at the Westinghouse plant in East Springfield MA, members of federal labor union 18476, struck for recognition. In 1933, the A.F. of L. received 1,205 applications for charters for federal labor unions, 1006 of which were granted. By 1934, the A.F. of L. had successfully organized 32,500 autoworkers using the federal labor union model. Most of the leadership of
1320-569: A forerunner of the A.F. of L. founded in 1881. Forty-three invitations were mailed, which drew the attendance of 20 delegates and letters of approval from 12 other unions. At this preliminary gathering, held in Donaldson Hall on the corner of Broad and Filbert Streets, the K of L was charged with conspiring with anti-union bosses to provide labor at below going union rates and with making use of individuals who had crossed picket lines or defaulted on payment of union dues. The body authored
1452-533: A great deal of influence in some cases. For example, the Chicago Federation of Labor spearheaded efforts to organize packinghouse and steel workers during and immediately after World War I. Local building trades councils also became powerful in some areas. In San Francisco , the local Building Trades Council, led by Carpenters official P. H. McCarthy , not only dominated the local labor council but helped elect McCarthy mayor of San Francisco in 1909. In
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#17327658861261584-535: A large wage increase for subway workers in 1948 that cemented his standing with the membership. After a few inconclusive internal battles, Quill prevailed in 1949, purging not only the officers who had opposed him, but much of the union's staff, down to its secretarial employees. Quill and the TWU became key figures in New York City politics in the 1950s. Quill had been elected to the City Council in both
1716-634: A pragmatic view of politics which favored tactical support for particular politicians over formation of a party devoted to workers' interests. The A.F. of L.'s leadership believed the expansion of the capitalist system was seen as the path to betterment of labor, an orientation making it possible for the A.F. of L. to present itself as what one historian has called "the conservative alternative to working class radicalism". The A.F. of L. faced its first major reversal when employers launched an open shop movement in 1903, designed to drive unions out of construction, mining, longshore and other industries. Membership in
1848-809: A reputation for militancy and for left-wing politics and was one of the first unions to join the Congress of Industrial Organizations . Its president, Mike Quill , renounced his former Communist allies in the early days of the Cold War , avoiding expulsion from the CIO. TWU began representing airline employees in 1945, when it organized ground service employees at Pan American World Airways in Miami ; it then expanded to represent flight attendants and airline maintenance employees as well. The American Airlines flight attendants in its membership seceded to form their own union,
1980-426: A riot. The charges were later quickly dismissed by a court. Nonetheless, the incident was retold in the media and at various work locations, where it epitomized and typified the cumulative history of abuses suffered by transit workers throughout the city. Organizing among the more dispersed transit workers outside the powerhouses, machine shops and car barns proved to more challenging. The union relied to some extent on
2112-520: A short-lived relationship. The union continued its patient organizing campaign until January 23, 1937, when the BMT fired two union members at the Kent Avenue powerhouse plant in Brooklyn for union activity. The TWU at the time had no more than thirty-five members out of more than 500 workers there. Two days later, however, at 3:00 p.m., the 498 employees there, all wearing TWU buttons, began
2244-595: A somewhat clumsy attempt by District 50 of the United Mine Workers of America , which had organized utility workers and other urban workers far removed from the coalfields, to replace the TWU. The union also strengthened its relationships with the African-American community. The union, which faced significant resistance within its own predominantly white membership to elimination of employment discrimination against blacks, nonetheless joined with
2376-545: A two-day walkout inspired by the TWU caused the management to acquiesce and reinstate the workers. A second incident that helped establish the union's reputation among transit workers was initiated the next month by the IRT, when Quill and a number of colleagues were jumped by goons at Grand Central Station. Strangely, this led to Quill and four other union activists, including Herbert C. Holmstrom , Thomas H. O'Shea , Patrick McHugh and Serafino Machado , being arrested for inciting
2508-521: A very few cases early in the A.F. of L.'s history, state and local bodies defied A.F. of L. policy or chose to disaffiliate over policy disputes. Though Gompers had contact with socialists and such as A.F. of L. co-founder Peter J. McGuire , the A.F. of L. adopted a philosophy of "business unionism" that emphasized unions' contribution to businesses' profits and national economic growth. The business unionist approach also focused on skilled workers' immediate job-related interests, while refusing to "rush to
2640-516: The Association of Professional Flight Attendants , in the 1970s. TWU represents ground service employees, maintenance workers, flight attendants and other employees at a number of different airlines, including American Airlines , United Airlines , Southwest Airlines , and Alaska Airlines . It also represents employees of Amtrak , Conrail , and several small short line carriers. TWU began representing railway employees in 1954, when it absorbed
2772-553: The Cleveland administration during the Pullman Strike in 1894. While the A.F. of L. sought to outlaw " yellow dog contracts ", to limit the courts' power to impose "government by injunction" and to obtain exemption from the antitrust laws that were being used to criminalize labor organizing, the courts reversed what few legislative successes the labor movement won. The A.F. of L. concentrated its political efforts during
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#17327658861262904-529: The IBEW also pushed for FLU's to turn over their members to the authority of the craft internationals between 1933 and 1935. In 1934, one hundred FLUs met separately and demanded that the A.F. of L. continue to issue charters to unions organizing on an industrial basis independent of the existing craft union internationals. In 1935 the FLUs representing autoworkers and rubber workers both held conventions independent of
3036-671: The Immigration Act of 1924 , and seeing that they were strictly enforced. Mink (1986) concludes that the link between the A.F. of L. and the Democratic Party rested in part on immigration issues, noting the large corporations, which supported the Republicans, wanted more immigration to augment their labor force. Prohibition gained strength as the German American community came under fire. The A.F. of L.
3168-817: The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) were represented by company unions , while the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen represented small pockets of skilled workers employed by the BMT. When The Great Depression hit, public and private management took advantage of high unemployment rates by offering jobs to and keeping on only those individuals willing to accept excessively low wages, brutal management practices, poor working conditions, and other severe aspects. With
3300-648: The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers , the Teamsters and the American Federation of Musicians , helped form the union. The A.F. of L. also used its influence, including refusal of charters or expulsion, to heal splits within affiliated unions, to force separate unions seeking to represent the same or closely related jurisdictions to merge, or to mediate disputes between rival factions where both sides claimed to represent
3432-681: The International Ladies Garment Workers' Union . Women organized independent locals among New York hat makers, in the Chicago stockyards, and among Jewish and Italian waist makers, to name only three examples. Through the efforts of middle-class reformers and activists, often of the Women's Trade Union League , those unions joined the A.F. of L. From the beginning, unions affiliated with the A.F. of L. found themselves in conflict when both unions claimed jurisdiction over
3564-637: The Irish Republican Army in the 1920s, and who were inspired by the socialism and trade union work of James Connolly , met to discuss formation of a trade union. Used to the secrecy of Clan na Gael, they proceeded cautiously, first seeking help from Irish organizations, such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick. When those groups declined to involve themselves in something this controversial,
3696-523: The NAACP pointed out that this brotherhood did not allow African-American workers to join, while the TWU did. The union's organizing drive on the IND, however, stalled in the face of official opposition. The City's plan to buy the IRT and BMT threatened even greater problems, however, since the City, as prospective employer, not only threatened to refuse to recognize the TWU, but argued that collective bargaining
3828-502: The Pipefitters , Machinists and Iron Workers joined through local metal workers' councils to represent a diverse group of workers. The Railway Employes' Department dealt with both jurisdictional disputes between affiliates and pursued a common legislative agenda for all of them. The A.F. of L. made efforts in its early years to assist its affiliates in organizing: it advanced funds or provided organizers or, in some cases, such as
3960-470: The Taylor Law , which prescribed a number of automatic penalties in the event of a public workers' strike. The union was, however, able to use the power it had shown in the 1966 strike to make significant gains in later negotiations with the City. The TWU has continued to organize airline workers after its first success at Pan Am in 1945, The union continues to face internal challenges from workers within
4092-669: The United States Supreme Court narrowly read the Act and codified the federal courts' existing power to issue injunctions rather than limit it. The court read the phrase "between an employer and employees" (contained in the first paragraph of the Act) to refer only to cases involving an employer and its own employees, leaving the courts free to punish unions for engaging in sympathy strikes or secondary boycotts. The A.F. of L.'s pessimistic attitude towards politics did not, on
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4224-511: The pragmatist , Gompers argued that labor should "reward its friends and punish its enemies" in both major parties. However, in the 1900s (decade), the two parties began to realign, with the main faction of the Republican Party coming to identify with the interests of banks and manufacturers, while a substantial portion of the rival Democratic Party took a more labor-friendly position. While not precluding its members from belonging to
4356-499: The 1930s and 1940s as a candidate of the American Labor Party , but exerted even more influence after the war when he became head of the New York City's CIO City Council and a major figure in New York City politics. He was a key supporter of Robert F. Wagner Jr. 's campaign for mayor of New York and became a lightning rod, based on his radical past, for Wagner's Republican opponent and unfavorable press attention. While
4488-581: The 1930s the A.F. of L. began chartering these federal labor unions as an industrial organizing strategy. The dues in these federal labor unions (FLUs) were kept intentionally low to make them more accessible to low paid industrial workers; however, these low dues later allowed the Internationals in the Federation to deny members of FLUs voting membership at conventions. In 1933, Green sent William Collins to Detroit to organize automobile workers into
4620-423: The 250,000 member mark in 1892. The group from the outset concentrated upon the income and working conditions of its membership as its almost sole focus. The A.F. of L.'s founding convention declaring "higher wages and a shorter workday" to be "preliminary steps toward great and accompanying improvements in the condition of the working people." Participation in partisan politics was avoided as inherently divisive, and
4752-589: The A.F. of L. Both the new CIO industrial unions, and the older A.F. of L. crafts unions grew rapidly after 1935. President Franklin D. Roosevelt became a hero to them. He won reelection in a landslide in 1936, and by a closer margin in 1940. Labor unions gave strong support in 1940, compared to very strong support in 1936. The Gallup Poll showed CIO voters declined from 85% in 1935 to 79% in 1940. A.F. of L. voters went from 80% to 71%. Other union members went from 74% to 57%. Blue collar workers who were not union members went 72% to 64%. The A.F. of L. retained close ties to
4884-519: The A.F. of L. and CIO merged to form the AFL-CIO , headed by George Meany . During its first years, the A.F. of L. admitted nearly anyone. Gompers opened the A.F. of L. to radical and socialist workers and to some semiskilled and unskilled workers. Women, African Americans, and immigrants joined in small numbers. By the 1890s, the Federation had begun to organize only skilled workers in craft unions and became an organization of mostly white men. Although
5016-707: The A.F. of L. at its founding openly included women, and others passed bylaws barring women's membership entirely. The A.F. of L. hired its first female organizer, Mary Kenney O'Sullivan , only in 1892, released her after five months, and it did not replace her or hire another woman national organizer until 1908. Women who organized their own unions were often turned down in bids to join the Federation, and even women who did join unions found them hostile or intentionally inaccessible. Unions often held meetings at night or in bars when women might find it difficult to attend and where they might feel uncomfortable, and male unionists heckled women who tried to speak at meetings. Generally,
5148-516: The A.F. of L. came to dominate the Canadian union movement. The A.F. of L. vigorously opposed unrestricted immigration from Europe for moral, cultural, and racial reasons. The issue unified the workers who feared that an influx of new workers would flood the labor market and lower wages. Nativism was not a factor because upwards of half the union members were themselves immigrants or the sons of immigrants from Ireland, Germany and Britain. Nativism
5280-716: The A.F. of L. had authorized the establishment of a publication for the new organization, Gompers made use of the existing labor press to generate support for the position of the craft unions against the Knights of Labor. Powerful opinion-makers of the American labor movement such as the Philadelphia Tocsin, Haverhill Labor, the Brooklyn Labor Press, and the Denver Labor Enquirer granted Gompers space in their pages, in which he made
5412-502: The A.F. of L. lobbied Congress to reauthorize the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act , and issued a pamphlet entitled "Some reasons for Chinese Exclusion. Meat vs. Rice. American Manhood against Asiatic Coolieism. Which shall survive?". The A.F. of L. also began one of the first organized labor boycotts when they began putting white stickers on the cigars made by unionized white cigar rollers while simultaneously discouraging consumers from purchasing cigars rolled by Chinese workers. In most ways,
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5544-701: The A.F. of L. mediated the dispute, usually by favoring the larger or more influential union. The A.F. of L. often reversed its jurisdictional rulings over time, as the continuing jurisdictional battles between the Brewers and the Teamsters showed. Affiliates within the AFL formed "departments" to help resolve these jurisdictional conflicts and to provide a more effective voice for member unions in given industries. The Metal Trades Department engaged in some organizing of its own, primarily in shipbuilding, where unions such as
5676-436: The A.F. of L. political leverage to gain recognition and mediation of labor disputes, often in favor of improvements for workers. The A.F. of L. unions avoided strikes in favor of arbitration. Wages soared as near-full employment was reached at the height of the war. The A.F. of L. unions strongly encouraged young men to enlist in the military, and fiercely opposed efforts to reduce recruiting and slow war production by pacifists,
5808-415: The A.F. of L. preached a policy of egalitarianism in regard to African-American workers, it actively discriminated against them. The A.F. of L. sanctioned the maintenance of segregated locals within its affiliates, particularly in the construction and railroad industries, a practice that often excluded black workers altogether from union membership and thus from employment in organized industries. In 1901,
5940-424: The A.F. of L. surged forward in membership, that number had dipped to 1.5%. It improved to 6.6% over the next decade, but women remained mostly outside of unions and practically invisible inside of them into the mid-1920s. Attitudes gradually changed within the A.F. of L. by the pressure of organized female workers. Female-domination began to emerge in the first two decades of the 20th century, including particularly
6072-483: The A.F. of L. viewed women workers as competition, strikebreakers, or an unskilled labor reserve that kept wages low. As such, it often opposed women's employment entirely. When it organized women workers, it most often did so to protect men's jobs and earning power, not to improve the conditions, lives, or wages of women workers. In response, most women workers remained outside the labor movement. In 1900, only 3.3% of working women were organized into unions. In 1910, even as
6204-493: The A.F. of L.'s affiliated unions declined between 1904 and 1914 in the face of this concerted anti-union drive, which made effective use of legal injunctions against strikes , court rulings given force when backed with the armed might of the state. At its November 1907 Convention in Norfolk, Virginia, the A.F. of L. founded the future North America's Building Trades Unions (NABTU) as its Department of Building Trades. Ever
6336-433: The A.F. of L.'s treatment of women workers paralleled its policy towards black workers. The A.F. of L. never adopted a strict policy of gender exclusion and, at times, even came out in favor of women's unionism. However, despite such rhetoric, it only half-heartedly supported women's attempts to organize and, more often, took pains to keep women out of unions and the workforce altogether. Only two national unions affiliated with
6468-762: The American Federation of Labor. One of the organizations embroiled in this controversy was the Cigar Makers' International Union (CMIU), a group subject to competition from a dual union , a rival "Progressive Cigarmakers' Union", organized by members suspended or expelled by the CMIU. The two cigar unions competed with one another in signing contracts with various cigar manufacturers, who were at this same time combining themselves into manufacturers' associations of their own in New York City, Detroit , Cincinnati , Chicago, and Milwaukee . In January 1886,
6600-460: The BMT's employees. Also, this marked the beginning of the end of the harsh treatment of transit workers in the nation's largest city. The TWU severed its relations with the Machinists and joined the CIO as a national union on May 10, 1937. Quill had already replaced O'Shea as President of the union, while Santo became its Secretary-Treasurer. The union won an NLRB -conducted election among
6732-520: The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers or the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen in the units in which they were the established representative, and took two elections to win among the ticket-sellers. The union had grown from 8,000 to 30,000 members in a year. The union soon faced a serious challenge to its newly-won status as representative of the employees of the IRT and BMT when the City bought those lines in 1938. The union had already discovered that
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#17327658861266864-470: The CIO to form a third federation and that he might be the logical choice for its leader, Quill decided to break his ties to the Communist Party instead. Quill applied the same energy to his campaign to drive his former allies out of the union that he had during the union's organizing drives of the 1930s. He was able to enlist the City, in the form of Mayor William O'Dwyer , in his support, winning
6996-676: The CIO. It first established itself at the Pennsylvania Railroad . The committee voted overwhelmingly to merge with TWU in September 1954. The TWU led a strike against the Pennsylvania in 1960. The pressure on Communist Party-led unions intensified after the end of World War II . These pressures fell especially hard on the TWU: the government arrested Santo for immigration law violations and began proceedings to deport him. At
7128-690: The CPUSA's ultrarevolutionary phase as part of the Third Period , focused both on organizing workers into the union and recruiting members for the Party through mimeographed shop papers with titles such as "Red Shuttle" or "Red Dynamo". The new union appointed Thomas H. O'Shea — who would later become a witness against it before the Dies Committee — as its first president. The TWU declared its aim to represent all public transit workers in
7260-562: The Cigar Manufacturers' Association of New York City announced a 20 percent wage cut in factories around the city. The Cigar Makers' International Union refused to accept the cut and 6,000 of its members in 19 factories were locked out by the owners. A strike lasting four weeks ensued. Just when it appeared that the strike might be won, the New York District Assembly of the Knights of Labor leaped into
7392-583: The City Board of Transportation , which ran the smaller Independent Subway System (IND), was as dismissive of unions as the private lines, even though two of the three members had union backgrounds before they entered politics. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia , who had represented the Amalgamated Clothing Workers as a lawyer in private practice twenty years earlier, and who had received labor's support in running for Mayor of New York,
7524-446: The City, regardless of craft, and campaigned to reverse the ten percent wage cut, increase wages to meet increases in the cost of living, limit the workweek to forty hours and hire more workers to eliminate the speedup and to establish safe and sanitary working conditions. The union proceeded clandestinely, forming small groups of trusted friends in order to keep informers at bay, meeting in isolated locations and in subway tunnels. Even so,
7656-475: The Communist Party, which organized along similar lines. The party began taking a far less visible role, however, as the organizing drive picked up steam and as the party entered the Popular Front era. The Communist Party stopped publishing its shop papers after some workers complained that they were hurting the union's organizing drive. While Communist Party members still provided much of the leadership for
7788-619: The Democratic machines in big cities through the 1940s. Its membership surged during the war and it held on to most of its new members after wartime legal support for labor was removed. Despite its close connections to many in Congress, the A.F. of L. was not able to block the Taft–Hartley Act in 1947. Also in 1947, the union supported the strike efforts of thousands of switchboard operators by donating thousands of dollars. In 1955,
7920-506: The Federation embraced ever more closely the Democratic Party, despite the fact that many union leaders remained Republicans. Herbert Hoover in 1928 won the votes of many Protestant A.F. of L. members. The Great Depression were hard times for the unions, and membership fell sharply across the country. As the national economy began to recover in 1933, so did union membership. The New Deal of president Franklin D. Roosevelt ,
8052-438: The IRT and BMT employees after the City took over those systems in 1940. The union soon found itself struggling with the special problems of creating a civil service system for thousands of employees, while providing representation for thousands of workers who faced problems with meeting the City's new naturalization and medical requirements. But the union lost ground among its members, both in terms of actual numbers after it lost
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#17327658861268184-407: The IRT managed to infiltrate spies into the organization, as the union discovered when it obtained some of the company's files from sympathetic sources. One of the workers who had been in attendance at early meetings, Michael J. Quill , quickly attained leadership in this fledgling organization. One of the few who was willing to accept identification as a union activist, he also spread the word about
8316-463: The IRT's 13,500 employees by a landslide in May, then grew to 43,000 members by June of that year, as it now had more than half of the employees of all of the three subway lines, several bus and streetcar companies and seven major taxicab companies signed up as members. The union also won recognition for most of the BMT's employees, although they found this more difficult: they were not able to displace either
8448-417: The K of L, with Terence Powderly blaming the organization's travails on "radicals" in its ranks, while those opposing Powderly called for an end to what they perceived as "autocratic leadership". In the face of the steady disintegration of its rival, the fledgling American Federation of Labor struggled to maintain itself, with the group showing very slow and incremental growth in its first years, only cracking
8580-531: The NAACP, the National Negro Congress and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in pressuring privately owned bus companies the other transit companies to allow blacks to work in positions other than the porter and heavy maintenance positions to which they had been relegated. The union negotiated strong language in 1941 requiring the companies to set quotas for the hiring of black mechanics and drivers to undo
8712-602: The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. The United States ' entry into the war, however, largely smoothed over many of these differences, even narrowing the union's differences with the La Guardia administration by restoring the grand Popular Front coalition to some of its former influence. Quill disposed of his internal critics by bringing union charges against more than a hundred opponents. The union also drove off
8844-469: The Netherlands Swedish Transport Workers' Union See also [ edit ] Maharashtra Sugarcane Cutting and Transport Workers Union South African Transport and Allied Workers Union Transport and General Workers' Union (disambiguation) , various unions Transport and Industrial Workers Union , active in Trinidad and Tobago Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with
8976-470: The New York District Assembly, however, and the latter was exonerated. The American Federation of Labor was thus originally formed as an alliance of craft unions outside the Knights of Labor as a means of defending themselves against this and similar incursions. On April 25, 1886, a circular letter was issued by Adolph Strasser of the Cigar Makers and P. J. McGuire of the Carpenters, addressed to all national trade unions and calling for their attendance of
9108-407: The President of the new federation a full-time official at a salary of $ 1,000 per year (equal to $ 33,911 today), and Samuel Gompers of the Cigar Makers' International Union was elected to the position. Gompers would ultimately be re-elected to the position by annual conventions of the organization for every year save one until his death nearly four decades later. Although the founding convention of
9240-457: The Socialist Party or working with its members, the A.F. of L. traditionally refused to pursue the tactic of independent political action by the workers in the form of the existing Socialist Party or the establishment of a new labor party. After 1908, the organization's tie to the Democratic party grew increasingly strong. Some unions within the A.F. of L. helped form and participated in the National Civic Federation . The National Civic Federation
9372-419: The TWU, when the company began training eight black workers as motormen. The Roosevelt administration, faced with a strike that threatened to interfere with war production and exasperated by the seeming indifference of the company and local government, sent in troops to guard and, if necessary, operate the system and threatened to draft the strikers. The strike collapsed two weeks later, on August 17, 1944, after
9504-640: The United Railroad Workers Organizing Committee, an organizing committee formed by the CIO in 1943 as a rival to the railway brotherhoods within the American Federation of Labor . When the union began organizing subway workers in New York in the early 1930s, two of the three subway systems were privately owned and operated. Earlier efforts to organize unions in the industry, generally along craft lines , had been beaten in 1905, 1910, 1916, 1919 and 1926. Most workers on
9636-558: The World and Socialist Party of America . Gompers chaired the wartime Labor Advisory Board. He attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 as an official advisor on labor issues. In 1920, the A.F. of L. petitioned Washington for the release of prisoners who had been convicted under Wartime Emergency Laws. Wilson did not act but President Warren Harding did so. 1919--the first year of peace--was one of turmoil in
9768-558: The anti-war Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the radical faction of Socialists. To keep factories running smoothly, President Wilson established the National War Labor Board in 1918, which forced management to negotiate with existing unions. Wilson also appointed A.F. of L. president Gompers to the powerful Council of National Defense , where he set up the War Committee on Labor. The A. F. of L.
9900-538: The automobile and steel industries. The A.F. of L. made forays into industrial unionism by chartering federal labor unions, which would organize across an industry and be chartered by the Federation, not through existing craft unions, guilds, or brotherhoods. As early as 1923, the A.F. of L. had chartered federal labor unions, including six news writer locals that had formerly been part of the International Typographical Union . However, in
10032-491: The breach, offering to settle with the 19 factories at a lower wage scale than that proposed by the CMIU, so long as only the Progressive Cigarmakers' Union was employed. The leadership of the CMIU was enraged and demanded that the New York District Assembly be investigated and punished by the national officials of the Knights of Labor. The committee of investigation was controlled by individuals friendly to
10164-477: The call, agreeing to form themselves into an American Federation of Labor. Revenue for the new organization was to be raised on the basis of a "per-capita tax" of its member organizations, set at the rate of one-half cent per member per month (i.e. six cents per year, equal to $ 2.03 today). Governance of the organization was to be by annual conventions, with one delegate allocated for every 4,000 members of each affiliated union. The founding convention voted to make
10296-640: The capitalists in the National Civic Federation. The A.F. of L. nonetheless continued its association with the group, which declined in importance as the decade of the 1910s drew to a close. By the 1890s, Gompers was planning an international federation of labor, starting with the expansion of A.F. of L. affiliates in Canada, especially Ontario. He helped the Canadian Trades and Labour Congress with money and organizers, and by 1902,
10428-563: The case for the unions against the attacks of employers, "all too often aided by the K of L." Headway was made in the form of endorsement by various local labor bodies. Some assemblies of the K of L supported the Cigar Makers' position and departed the organization: in Baltimore , 30 locals left the organization, while the membership of the Knights in Chicago fell from 25,000 in 1886 to just 3,500 in 1887. Factional warfare broke out in
10560-504: The challenge from the CIO. The A.F. of L. and the CIO competed bitterly in the late 1930s but then cooperated during World War II and afterward. In 1955, the two merged to create the AFL-CIO , which has comprised the longest lasting and most influential labor federation in the United States to this day. The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was organized as an association of trade unions in 1886. The organization emerged from
10692-448: The closed shop and in terms of actual support, since many workers who may have remained members saw the union as less important now that they had the seeming job security that civil service status promised and the union had lost the right to strike. The union did not, however, concede the last point. After winning a contentious strike against the privately owned bus companies in early 1941, during which La Guardia had announced plans to have
10824-575: The company unions that many workers belonged to. It was to the members advantage to transform a company union into a local of an A.F. of L. union, and thousands did so, dramatically boosting the membership. The Wagner Act also set up to the National Labor Relations Board , which used its powers to rule in favor of unions and against the companies. In the early 1930s, A.F. of L. president William Green (president, 1924–1952) experimented with an industrial approach to organizing in
10956-409: The cost to workers. TWU activists attacked the plan and the pay cut from two years before at Brotherhood meetings that hundreds of IRT employees attended, taking over the platform at some meetings and holding large rallies outside the meeting hall in other cases. The first significant strike by the newly formed union was in 1935. Previous strike attempts in 1905, 1910, 1916 and 1919 were crushed by
11088-659: The craft union internationals that made up the federation, advocated for the FLU's to be absorbed into existing craft union internationals and for these internationals to have supremacy of jurisdiction. At the 1933 A.F. of L. convention in Washington, DC, John Frey of the Molders and Metal Trades pushed for craft union internationals to have jurisdictional supremacy over the FLU's; the Carpenters headed by William Hutchenson and
11220-700: The craft union internationals. By the 1935 A.F. of L. convention, Green and the advocates of traditional craft unionism faced increasing dissension led by John L. Lewis of the coal miners, Sidney Hillman of the Amalgamated , David Dubinsky of the Garment Workers , Charles Howard of the ITU , Thomas McMahon of the Textile Workers , and Max Zaritsky of the Hat, Cap, and Millinery Workers, in addition to
11352-553: The current local leadership to create an organization that remains critical of the local's performance in collective bargaining negotiations. On December 16, 2005, after failed negotiations with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) of New York City , the Local 100 of the TWU announced it would halt operations on bus and subway lines . The strike began on December 19. The strike, which
11484-417: The death of Samuel Gompers, UMWA member and A.F. of L. vice president William Green became the president of the labor federation. The organization endorsed pro-labor progressive Robert M. La Follette in the 1924 presidential election. He only carried his home state of Wisconsin. The campaign failed to establish a permanent independent party closely connected to the labor movement, however, and thereafter
11616-454: The election on March 14, 1944 and soon entered into a collective bargaining agreement covering 9,000 workers. The uproar over integration did not go away, however, after the election; on the contrary, some of the leaders of the PRTEU, which now represented only the company's clerical employees, called a strike that managed to shut down the transit company's operations, despite the opposition of
11748-459: The future. The parties also differed on practical details: the City took the position that promotions would be made according to Civil Service requirements, the CIO took the position that seniority provisions would still govern. The union not only survived, but regained much of the ground it had lost among transit workers during the next four years. At the same time that the union was fighting La Guardia, it found itself challenged by dissidents within
11880-509: The government arrested the strike leaders, The union also began representing utility workers outside the transit companies when the Brooklyn Union Gas Company employees voted to join it; it lost most of its opportunities to organize in this area several years later, however, when the CIO gave the newly formed Utility Workers of America jurisdiction over this industry. In 1945 the TWU expanded its jurisdiction to pursue
12012-438: The group's constitution was structured to prevent the admission of political parties as affiliates. This fundamentally conservative "pure and simple" approach limited the A.F. of L. to matters pertaining to working conditions and rates of pay, relegating political goals to its allies in the political sphere. The Federation favored pursuit of workers' immediate demands rather than challenging the property rights of owners, and took
12144-516: The historic exclusion of blacks from those positions. The union also adopted a strong civil rights platform, calling for national legislation and combating racism in its own ranks. The union soon expanded to represent transit workers in other eastern cities, such as Philadelphia and Boston, Massachusetts , and beyond, in Chicago , San Francisco , Akron, Ohio , and Louisville, Kentucky . The Philadelphia organizing drive, held during World War II ,
12276-469: The judge survived Quill, who died two days after the union's victory celebration. He was buried after a service at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York , his casket draped by the Irish tricolour . Secretary-Treasurer Matthew Guinan succeeded Quill; Douglas MacMahon, who had returned to the union after being purged in 1949, became the new Secretary-Treasurer. The Legislature responded to the 1966 strike by passing
12408-507: The key issues. With the intervention of the Roosevelt administration and the national leadership of the CIO, the City agreed, in a series of telegrams exchanged in June, 1941 between LaGuardia and Philip Murray of the CIO, to maintain the status quo under the collective bargaining agreements with the TWU that the City had assumed, while agreeing to disagree as to whether they would bargain in
12540-412: The labor movement. A.F. of L. membership soared to 2.4 million in 1917 and 4.1 million at the end of 1919. The A.F. of L. unions tried to make their gains permanent and called a series of major strikes in meat, steel and other industries. The strikes ultimately failed. Many African Americans had taken war jobs; other became strikebreakers in 1919. Racial tensions were high, with major race riots. The economy
12672-740: The last decades of the Gompers administration on securing freedom from state control of unions—in particular an end to the court's use of labor injunctions to block the right to organize or strike and the application of the anti-trust laws to criminalize labor's use of pickets , boycotts and strikes. The A.F. of L. thought that it had achieved the latter with the passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914—which Gompers referred to as "Labor's Magna Carta ". But in Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering , 254 U.S. 443 (1921),
12804-424: The leadership of an affiliated union. The A.F. of L. also chartered " federal unions ", local unions not affiliated with any international union, in those fields in which no affiliate claimed jurisdiction. The A.F. of L. also encouraged the formation of local labor bodies, known as central labor councils, in major metropolitan areas in which all of the affiliates could participate. Those local labor councils acquired
12936-420: The major spokesperson for the union movement. The A.F. of L. was the largest union grouping, even after the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) by unions that were expelled by the A.F. of L. in 1935. The A.F. of L. was founded and dominated by craft unions , especially in the building trades. In the late 1930s, craft affiliates expanded by organizing on an industrial union basis to meet
13068-680: The matter. The actions of the New York District Assembly of the K of L were upheld. Convinced that no accommodation with the leadership of the Knights of Labor was possible, the heads of the five labor organizations which issued the call for the April 1886 conference issued a new call for a convention to be held December 8, 1886, in Columbus, Ohio , in order to construct "an American federation of alliance of all national and international trade unions." Forty-two delegates representing 13 national unions and various other local labor organizations responded to
13200-401: The members of the FLU's themselves. Lewis argued that the A.F.of L. was too heavily oriented toward traditional craftsmen, and was overlooking the opportunity to organize millions of semiskilled workers, especially those in industrial factories that made automobiles, rubber, glass and steel. In 1935 Lewis led the dissenting unions in forming a new Congress for Industrial Organization (CIO) within
13332-462: The national unemployment rate reaching 25 percent, there were nearly 20,000 applicants for every one job in the transit industry. Pay cuts of ten percent by both the IRT and the BMT, along with the layoff of thousands of employees and a speed up of work for those who remained, spurred new organizing efforts in 1932. Seven subway workers who belonged to Clan na Gael , a longstanding Irish nationalist organization that had received an influx of veterans of
13464-569: The network of Clan na Gael members scattered throughout the IRT; those workers could appeal, using the prestige of their past association with the Irish Republican Army, to the thousands of Irish workers around them. The clandestine style of the IRA both aided in organizing fearful workers and attracted them by imbuing the organization with the mystique of secrecy and intrigue. At the same time Santo and Hogan recruited transit workers into
13596-458: The new union by handing out flyers and delivering soapbox speeches in front of company facilities. His abilities in public speaking , and 'playing to the media ' boosted his effectiveness and the overall draw of the union. Another prominent figure in early union history was Douglas McMahon , who led a group of lieutenants assisting Quill. After a year of organizing, the union formed a Delegates Council, made up of representatives from sections of
13728-424: The next day or they would shut off the electricity for the system, affecting 2,400,000 BMT riders. The BMT folded a half-hour before the deadline and agreed to meet to discuss the union's demand for recognition as the exclusive bargaining representative of its employees. While the union did not win that demand, its victory at Kent Avenue established it as the de facto representative of these workers and, in time, all of
13860-698: The organizers approached the Communist Party. The Communist Party had, in fact, been making organizing efforts of its own among transit workers, beginning in 1933. John Santo and Austin Hogan, Trade Union Unity League organizers, met with the Clan na Gael's members in a cafeteria at Columbus Circle on April 12, 1934. The name that they chose for the new union was a tribute to the Irish Transport and General Workers Union led by Jim Larkin and James Connolly twenty years earlier. The new organization, founded during
13992-660: The other hand, prevent affiliated unions from pursuing their own agendas. Construction unions supported legislation that governed entry of contractors into the industry and protected workers' rights to pay, rail and mass production industries sought workplace safety legislation, and unions generally agitated for the passage of workers' compensation statutes. At the same time, the A.F. of L. took efforts on behalf of women in supporting protective legislation. It advocated fewer hours for women workers, and based its arguments on assumptions of female weakness. Like efforts to unionize, most support for protective legislation for women came out of
14124-404: The parcelling of the labor movement into narrow craft-based fiefdoms to be anathema, a violation of the principle of solidarity of all workers across craft lines. Negotiations with the dissident craft unions were nipped in the bud by the governing General Assembly of the K of L, however, with the organization's Grand Master Workman, Terence V. Powderly refusing to enter into serious discussions on
14256-478: The police guard strikebreakers in the event that the companies attempted to operate, the union made public preparations for a strike against the City if it challenged the union's right to represent these employees or to roll back their contract rights. La Guardia responded by directing the Police Department to develop plans to run the subways in the event of a strike and supporting legislation that made it
14388-491: The ramp service employees of Pan American Airways , then the largest airline in the United States, in Miami. The union soon followed up by organizing mechanics, engineers, flight attendants and other employees at Pan Am, mechanics and fleet service workers at American Airlines, and employees at a number of other airlines and maintenance contractors. TWU's Railroad Division was originally set up in 1943 as an organizing committee by
14520-515: The same groups of workers: both the Brewers and Teamsters claimed to represent beer truck drivers, both the Machinists and the International Typographical Union claimed to represent certain printroom employees, and the Machinists and a fledgling union known as the "Carriage, Wagon and Automobile Workers Union" sought to organize the same employees even though neither union had made any effort to organize or bargain for those employees. In some cases,
14652-417: The same time, Quill found the Communist Party's political line increasingly hard to take, since it required him to oppose a subway fare increase that he considered necessary for wage increases in 1947, while the Communist Party's support for the candidacy of Henry Wallace threatened to split the CIO. When William Z. Foster , then the general secretary of the CPUSA, told him that the party was prepared to split
14784-403: The support of any one of the numerous society-saving or society destroying schemes" involved in larger political issues. This approach was set by Gompers, who was influenced by a fellow cigar maker (and former socialist) Ferdinand Laurrel. Despite his socialist contacts, Gompers himself was not a socialist. Employers discovered the efficacy of labor injunctions , first used with great effect by
14916-613: The system. The new union nearly foundered, however, when Santo and Hogan, delivering the news of a change in party line as the Third Period gave way to the Popular Front era, directed O'Shea and Quill to abandon efforts to form a new union and to run instead for office in the IRT company union, the Interborough Brotherhood. Quill denounced the plan vociferously, to the point that he was nearly expelled from
15048-515: The title Transport Workers Union . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Transport_Workers_Union&oldid=1010843718 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Transport Workers Union of America TWU established
15180-625: The transit companies' use of hired goons who intimidated and violently attacked any who opposed the transit companies. On July 9, 1935, however, the Squeegee Strike demonstrated the power of the union. Management at the Jerome Avenue barn in the Bronx attempted to make the cleaning crews work faster by forcing the use of a 14-inch squeegee instead of the customary 10-inch tool. When six Car Cleaners were fired for insubordination,
15312-465: The ultimate goals of rescuing young bodies and increasing school attendance. The frustrations included the Supreme Court striking down two national laws as unconstitutional, and weak enforcement of state laws due to the political influence of employers. The A.F. of L. and its affiliates were strong supporters of the war effort. The risk of disruptions to war production by labor radicals provided
15444-490: The union and the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists and rival unions outside it. The CPUSA's dominant position within its officialdom and staff was the galvanizing issue. Quill and the union leadership gave their opponents all the ammunition they needed by following the changes in the CPUSA's foreign policy, moving to a militant policy after the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact in 1939, then coming out against strikes after
15576-482: The union repeatedly threatened to take the subway workers out on strike, it managed to settle with the Wagner administration short of a strike on each occasion. The TWU did not have the same success with the administration of John V. Lindsay , who took office in 1966. Lindsay decided to take on the TWU, provoking a twelve-day strike . The world's largest subway and bus systems, serving eight million people daily, came to
15708-827: The union was fined 2.5 million dollars and the automatic deduction of dues from all members was suspended. Transit workers in Long Island , New York , in Akron and Columbus , Ohio , in Omaha , Nebraska , and in Hackensack , New Jersey joined the union around 1941. After a seven-year struggle to organize, Philadelphia , Pennsylvania joined the TWU in 1944; Houston , Texas in 1947, and San Francisco , California in 1950. Ann Arbor , Michigan and Miami , Florida joined much later. American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor ( A.F. of L. )
15840-537: The union, especially skilled machinists, and from external rivals, in particular the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA). Local 100, the public transit local representing New York City employees, has always been the largest and most influential local within the union. Rank-and-file opponents of the current national leadership took office on December 13, 2000. Some of their original supporters have, however, broken with
15972-619: The union, they refrained from identifying themselves as such. Later the party directed the union to seek affiliation within the American Federation of Labor , which it finally did in 1936, after unsuccessful negotiations with the Amalgamated Association of Street Railway Employees , by becoming Lodge 1547 of the International Association of Machinists . The union did so, but did not relinquish any significant amount of its autonomy during what proved to be
16104-451: The union. Quill came around, however, by the next party meeting and began attending Brotherhood meetings — while still recruiting workers there to joint the TWU. TWU members succeeded, in fact, in turning Brotherhood meetings into a platform for the new union. The Brotherhood had agreed to a new pension program to replace the one that the IRT had created during the 1916 strike. The new plan, which went into effect in 1934, shifted most of
16236-399: Was a factor when the A.F. of L. even more strenuously opposed all immigration from Asia because it represented (to its Euro-American members) an alien culture that could not be assimilated into American society. The A.F. of L. intensified its opposition after 1906 and was instrumental in passing immigration restriction bills from the 1890s to the 1920s, such as the 1921 Emergency Quota Act and
16368-410: Was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO . It was founded in Columbus, Ohio , in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual support and disappointed in the Knights of Labor . Samuel Gompers was elected the full-time president at its founding convention and was re-elected every year except one until his death in 1924. He became
16500-611: Was against prohibition as it was viewed as cultural right of the working class to drink. Child labor was an issue on which the A.F. of L. found common ground with middle class reformers who otherwise kept their distance. The A.F. of L. joined campaigns at the state and national level to limit the employment of children under age 14. In 1904 a major national organization emerged, the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC). In state after state reformers launched crusades to pass laws restricting child labor, with
16632-552: Was especially difficult: the incumbent union, the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Employees Union, and the Amalgamated Association, TWU's AFL rival, both seized on the resistance of many white employees to government-ordered elimination of job discrimination against blacks to argue that a vote for TWU "is a vote for Negroes to get your jobs". The AFL's organizers disrupted TWU meetings and in a few cases beat up TWU supporters. The TWU nonetheless won
16764-406: Was formed by several progressive employers who sought to avoid labor disputes by fostering collective bargaining and "responsible" unionism. Labor's participation in this federation, at first tentative, created internal division within the A.F. of L. Socialists , who believed the only way to help workers was to remove large industry from private ownership, denounced labor's efforts at cooperation with
16896-451: Was inappropriate for civil service employees. In addition, public ownership would make both the closed shop and the right to strike unlawful. The union, faced with a challenge to its very existence, threatened to strike if the Mayor went through with this plan. With the support of the national CIO, the union was able to maintain its collective bargaining agreements and the right to represent
17028-490: Was likewise hostile to any union of city employees that could not be bent to his will and contemptuous of those that could. Even though the TWU, in coalition with the Amalgamated Association, swept the election to determine which union should represent the IND's employees, the Board refused to bargain with it. La Guardia invited the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen to represent the motormen, but had to retreat when Roy Wilkins of
17160-401: Was opposed by the international leadership of the TWU, was illegal , in violation of New York state's Taylor Law . A court ordered the TWU to pay fines of $ 1 million for each day that workers were on strike. The strike officially ended on December 22, 2005. On April 10, 2006, Justice Theodore T. Jones sentenced Local 100 President Roger Toussaint to ten days in jail and a week later,
17292-487: Was strongly committed to the national war aims and cooperated closely with Washington. It used the opportunity to grow rapidly. It worked out an informal agreement with the United States government, in which the A.F. of L. would coordinate with the government both to support the war effort and to join "into an alliance to crush radical labor groups" that opposed the war effort, especially the Industrial Workers of
17424-413: Was very prosperous during the war but entered a postwar recession. In general, workers lost out and the A.F. of L. lost influence. In the pro-business environment of the 1920s, business launched a large-scale offensive on behalf of the so-called " open shop ", which meant that a person did not have to be a union member to be hired. A.F. of L. unions lost membership steadily until 1933. In 1924, following
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