Transport Workers Union of America (TWU)

ESTABLISHED: 1934
EMPLOYEES: Not made available
MEMBERS: 100,000
PAC: TWU Committee on Political Education (COPE)

Contact Information:
ADDRESS: 80 West End Ave. New York, NY 10023
PHONE: (212) 873-6000
FAX: (212) 721-1431
E-MAIL: twu@twu.org
URL: http://www.twu.org
PRESIDENT: Sonny Hall

WHAT IS ITS MISSION?

The Transport Worker's Union of America (TWU) is a trade union representing workers from the mass transportation, airline, railroad, service, and utilities industries, as well as allied workers at universities and municipalities. Members may operate city bus, subway, or train systems; provide ground crew maintenance and baggage handling for airlines; install and repair natural gas lines; or perform railcar repair and maintenance work. The TWU describes itself as "dedicated to the promise that an organization built on trust and equality for all workers cannot be denied." To fulfill this promise, the TWU works to ensure fair pay, reasonable working conditions, a safe workplace, and job security for its members.

HOW IS IT STRUCTURED?

While the TWU is headed by an "International President" and the union is affiliated with the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), the TWU is primarily a domestic organization. Its policy-making body is the TWU Constitutional Convention, held every four years, during which the constitution governing all TWU activities is reviewed and amended. Between conventions the president of the TWU serves as the chief executive officer and is responsible for daily decision-making and union activities. The organization also has several small administrative bureaus that report directly to the president, including the Organizing Department, which helps workers in specific areas to unionize; the Education Department, which is responsible for public relations as well as training programs for shop stewards (chief union officers at specific workplaces); and the Research Department.

Most of the internal organization of the TWU is in terms of industrial division, Transit, Air Transport, and Railroad divisions being the most important. Workers in the utilities and service industries, as well as some university and municipal workers, are organized into smaller divisions. Division councils meet regularly to discuss and formulate policies relating to their respective industries or memberships.

Despite the work that goes on in TWU divisions, the local union remains the core of the organization. Workers are organized into "locals" on the basis of interest and geographical location. Members of each local elect their own officers to handle most problems, but when a local union requires assistance, a field worker from the national is dispatched to provide professional assistance where needed—typically, legal advice, education, research, or public relations.

The TWU is affiliated with the American Federation of Labor/Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the largest national federation of industrial workers' unions. All transport workers who are members of the AFL-CIO are considered members of the TWU.

PRIMARY FUNCTIONS

Although TWU objectives are typically carried out at the local level, the national organization does its part to serve and protect members. One of the most important functions of the national union is its organizing function, an ongoing process designed to bring more local members into the TWU and thereby increase the local's collective power to negotiate wage contracts, retirement plans, health and welfare benefits, and safe working conditions. Field workers from the TWU often help workers at a specific workplace to either form or join a local union.

Once a local TWU has been organized, the national union provides professional assistance in legal matters, collective bargaining, and public relations. In conjunction with the AFL-CIO, the national TWU also provides instructional programs for local union officers in all relevant areas of leadership and delivery of union services.

Through its political action committee, the Committee on Political Education (COPE), the TWU works to ensure that its members stand behind and help elect government officials who are pro-union and pro-TWU. COPE does this in two ways: by making financial contributions to political candidates who support TWU, and by making sure members are registered and voting for these candidates when an election occurs.

In the same way that it mobilizes members to vote for certain political candidates, the TWU attempts to make its members aware of items of legislation—including state or local ballot initiatives—that could affect them. Examples include regulations affecting the transport of hazardous substances, wage legislation, and regulations that set standards for occupational safety. When the TWU becomes aware of such legislation, it alerts its members, explains the potential consequences of the law, and urges them to either support or fight the measure.

PROGRAMS

Very few programs are operated from the TWU's national level. Exceptions are training programs for "shop stewards"—top union leaders who work at specific workplaces. Stewardship programs are generally carried out by field representatives from the TWU's Education Department. Shop stewards serve as primary negotiators between labor and management at particular places of employment, and their most important responsibility is presenting workers' grievances to management and representing workers at disciplinary hearings. Another national program, Member Outreach, is the TWU's organized effort to communicate with local members to encourage and influence their political involvement on key issues or local ballot initiatives. Most educational programs—on key leadership issues such as law, arbitration, workers' compensation, and organizing—that are available to TWU members are offered by the AFL-CIO through that organization's George Meany Center for Labor Studies in Maryland.

BUDGET INFORMATION

Not made available.

HISTORY

Not surprisingly, the history of the TWU began in New York City, where the nation's first extensive mass transit system was established. Previous attempts by New York's transit workers to unionize failed largely because of the power of the transit companies: strikes in 1905, 1910, 1916, and 1919 were all failures. The plight of transit workers hit rock bottom during the Great Depression of the 1930s when unemployment rates reached as high as 25 percent. New York's transit companies took full advantage of this unprecedented demand for jobs, slashing wages, imposing long hours and harsh working conditions, and hiring and firing at will.

In this environment, it would take a powerful and charismatic leader to establish a union that could succeed where others had failed. The transit workers of New York found theirs in Michael J. Quill, an Irish-born radical who worked on the IRT subway line as a change maker. Quill, a dynamic speaker, was gifted with an understanding of the power of public media to call attention to the plight of exploited workers. Although it took him and his followers a few years to solidify the TWU's influence, the union was never seriously weakened after its foundation in 1934.

Among the events that lifted the TWU to prominence, the most important was the historic Kent Avenue strike of 1937. The strike took place at a transit powerhouse where, initially, only 35 of the powerhouse's 505 workers belonged to the TWU. In order to forestall the organization of its workers, powerhouse management fired three engineers for engaging in union activity. Almost overnight 463 of the outraged workers were converted to the union cause, and together the workers staged a sit-down strike at the plant. The workers issued an ultimatum to management: either the three workers would be reinstated immediately or electric power would be shut off, affecting 2.4 million of New York's mass transit riders. A half-hour before the workers' deadline, management bowed to their demands and reinstated the fired workers. For the first time, transit workers in New York had won a major victory over management. It was a defining moment in the history of the TWU.

Expansion

In 1937 the TWU was recognized by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), the national federation of labor unions. Once it had achieved this national recognition, associated transit worker unions sprouted up across the United States throughout the 1940s and 1950s, in cities such as Akron, Ohio; Omaha, Nebraska; Philadelphia; and San Francisco.

In 1945, the TWU also began its expansion into other areas of transport labor, when employees at Pan American World Airways reached their first collective bargaining agreement with management, winning a 40-hour work week and pay for overtime. The Pan Am agreement paved the way for a similar dramatic labor victory for workers at American Airlines in 1946.

Until 1954 U.S. railroad workers were organized under the United Railroad Workers Organizing Committee, which had been formed in 1943 by the old CIO. Because the far-flung geography of railroad workers often made communication and organization difficult, the committee realized the need for association with a strong, centralized leadership organization, and voted overwhelmingly to join with the TWU in 1954. The growing union's first major achievement came a year later when workers on the Pennsylvania Railroad secured an improved maintenance plan, an end to the practice of "farming out" or subcontracting certain tasks, and providing furloughed workers with reasonable severance pay.

Since its beginnings, the TWU has maintained its status as the premier labor organization for mass transit, railroad, and airline workers by tirelessly pursuing organization at the local level and by maintaining stable leadership. Quill, the TWU's first president, served for more than 30 years. Since then the organization has been led by only five additional presidents: President Sonny Hall was elected during the 19th Constitutional Convention in 1993 and served through the end of the 1990s.

CURRENT POLITICAL ISSUES

TWU's political involvement at the national or state level is typically allied with that of other labor organizations. In California, for example, the TWU joined other organizations in the fight against Proposition 226, a 1998 ballot initiative that would have ended a traditional union practice: automatically using a portion of member dues to support political candidates and causes that are favorable to unions. Called the "Paycheck Protection Act," the legislation was sponsored by conservative groups and would have certainly eroded the financial power of U.S. unions. Despite initial polls showing that Californians favored Prop. 226 by a margin of two to one, the campaign mounted by labor unions was effective; the proposition was ultimately defeated at the polls.

Case Study: The Philadelphia Transit Strike

Typically, the TWU's most direct political involvement takes place at the local level. One such case occurred in Philadelphia in March of 1998, after the collective bargaining contract for about 5,200 workers in Transport Workers Union Local 234 expired. The workers, mostly drivers and mechanics employed by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority's city division, could not reach agreement on issues such as work rules, wages, pensions, the hiring of part-time workers, and workers' compensation. Local 234, the city's largest transit union, operated a network of buses, trolleys, and subways that served up to 435,000 people each day. When initial negotiations failed, union leaders set a deadline of June 1 and threatened to strike if its demands were not met.

Although joined in the strike threat by suburban transit workers during the next few weeks, the drivers and mechanics of Local 234 were not able to convince Transit Authority management of the validity of their complaints. What union members found particularly offensive was a new management policy allowing liberal use of part-time workers—a policy they saw as specifically designed to weaken the union.

Management would not give in, and the workers walked out at noon on June 1. The 40-day strike paralyzed the city's trolley car and subway lines, and caused rush-hour gridlock throughout Philadelphia streets. Eventually, Local 234 and the Transit Authority reached a compromise settlement: the drivers and mechanics won a nine percent wage raise over three years and agreed to send the controversial issue of hiring part-time workers to an outside arbitrator. Although the policy on part-timers had not been abolished outright, the workers felt confident that an outsider would see the wisdom of their position. To them, the strike had produced a significant victory.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Among the TWU's concerns for the future has been the drainage of the federal Social Security Trust Fund, which by 2032 was estimated not to be able to pay out full benefits. Along with other labor organizations, the TWU favored a more moderate approach—such as a reduction in benefits—than many of the solutions under consideration. In particular, the TWU joined labor in its opposition to the suggested privatization of the Social Security fund through investing fund monies in the stock market. Considerable lobbying efforts were expected to be devoted to this issue in the early twenty-first century.

As it joins in finding solutions to the Social Security quandary, the TWU also continues to monitor and publicize its positions on legislation introduced in Congress, some of which has included bills that would increase the minimum wage, provide more funding to public schools, ensure equal pay for female workers, raise pension coverages, fund airport improvements, increase child care subsidies, and expand Medicare.

GROUP RESOURCES

The most comprehensive source of information about the TWU is the union's Web site at http://www.twu.org, which contains information on recent union activities, its divisions, departments, and locals. The site contains links to Web sites for TWU locals that maintain them, as well as links to relevant government agencies and political parties. For further information about TWU activities, contact the union's Education Department at (212) 873-6000, ext. 359.

GROUP PUBLICATIONS

The TWU has three major publications, all periodicals. TWU Express, a monthly newsletter for all TWU members, includes union news from locals around the country, as well as happenings at the national level. The COPE Reader, a newsletter of TWU's political action committee, provides information designed to help members become knowledgeable and influential with regard to the legislative process, and records the platforms and voting records of government officials on specific items of legislation. Another newsletter, the Legislative Alert, keeps members up to date on legislative issues and ballot initiatives of interest to the union. Recent editions of these newsletters can be viewed at the TWU Web site. For further information on the COPE Reader or Legislative Alert, contact COPE at (212) 873-6000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chen, David W. "President of Transport Union Re-elected after Bitter Fight." New York Times, 22 May 1998.

Freeman, Joshua Benjamin. In Transit: The Transport Workers Union in New York City, 1933–1966. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Greenhouse, Stephen. "Workers United? Debating Union Dues and Political Don'ts." New York Times, 12 October 1997.

Jennings, Kenneth M. Labor-Management Cooperation in a Public Service Industry. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1986.

Lacayo, Richard. "Will Voters Unplug Labor's Money Machine?" Time, 18 May 1998.

Leuck, Thomas J. "Transit Repairs Are Rushed, Unions Warn." New York Times, 6 October 1998.

Lieb, Robert C. Labor in the Transportation Industries. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1974.

Newman, Andy. "Direction of the Transit Union Is at Stake in Ballot Counting." New York Times, 16 December 1997.

Snyder, Robert W. Transit Talk: New York's Bus and Subway Workers Tell Their Stories. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1997.

"Transport Workers to File Petition for Delta Vote." Wall Street Journal, 12 September 1997.