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| UNION PRIDE! JACKETS FOR SALE! | ||
Members who would like to purchase TWU Local 200 jackets are welcome to put in your orders at the union office.
Please indicate your name and size. You can also order by calling the office and leaving your message.The cost of the jacket is $200.00. Sizes range from |
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| SHOP STEWARDS TRAINING | ||
| Forms and Lists | ||
9139 Transit Supervisor Eligible List 9160 Transit Operations Specialist TWU Local 200 Citywide GSU 2010 BID DOCUMENT CONTRACT SURVEY FORMWe are beginning to enter into a contract with the MTA and CCSF. We are requesting member participation in addressing issues in the contract. Don't forget to send comments via email to (click here to download pdf of contract survey) 2008 TWU Local 200 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE MUNICIPAL TRANSPORTATION AGENCY AND THE TRANSPORT WORKERS’ UNION, AFL-CIO LOCAL 200 FOR SERVICE CRITICAL CLASSIFICATIONS AT THE MUNICIPAL TRANSPORTATION AGENCY
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Introducing American Income Life: |
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A True Friend of Labor TWU Local 200 would like to introduce its members to American Income Life Insurance Company (AIL). Established and growing since 1951, its dedication to working people has made it the largest provider of supplemental insurance in the United States. It has earned the respect of Unions nationwide because it is a 100% wall-to-wall Union Label insurance company. A letter will be sent out this month to all members of Local 200 informing them of our Accidental Death & Dismemberment (AD&D) coverage provided to our members at ‘No Cost’ by AIL. Included with this letter will be an enrollment card and we ask that each member and retiree fill out and mail back the postage-paid card within ten days in order to receive the “No Cost” benefits. NOTE: These supplemental benefits do not conflict with or replace any benefits currently provided by Local 200, but are offered in addition to them. The AD&D coverage is automatic for all members and retirees, however, you must return the yellow enrollment card to receive your AD&D Policy and designate your beneficiary, as well as, receive information about other programs and services. Here are some of the many reasons why AIL is the Insurance Company of choice for Unions: 1. It supports the union movement both in deeds and words. AIL contributed $100,000 to help defeat Proposition 226 in California. 2. Premiums are waived for members holding AIL policies while the insured member is on an authorized strike. Those members never have to pay those premiums back. AIL is the only insurance company with strike waiver. 3. AIL maintains a food bank for union families in need. 4. AIL representatives are active in union activities. They promote a “Be Union – Buy Union” philosophy and have been cited as an all-Union Company by the AFL-CIO Union Label and Service Trades Department. 5. AIL is very active in voter registration drives with Local Unions. 6. AIL supports pro-labor candidates and legislation. 7. AIL provides scholarships, strike relief and supports many worthwhile pro-union community causes.
American Income Life looks forward to working with the membership of Local 200 while giving them a union choice for their insurance needs. For any additional information please contact Mark Gagliardi, our representative at American Income Life, at (925) 698-0719. Do not call the Union office. |
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| ARCHIVES 2004 - 2006 | ||
About Us |
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A major strong point for the early TWU was their dedication to equality. The first organizers never discriminated based on race, creed, sex, sexual orientation or nationality, when many other unions did. In the early 1930s the IRT reserved dead-end porter jobs for minority workers who were discriminated against by most every union except TWU. The union fought hard to open up all job titles to everyone. Between January and October of 1937 -in just nine months- TWU organized the entire New York City transit system, a success that had never been achieved before. They signed six major contracts which included the unionization of two subways and 35,000 workers. As company spies were outed publicly, company unions were charged under federal law and ordered to disband. As the scope of pension benefits were cut, wages continued to drop. As the red scare encouraged skepticism, unwarranted firings showed workers in one case after the other that it was in fact the company bosses who could not be trusted. The road to New York City's transit unionization was not smooth. There were many defining moments that helped TWU successfully organize one of the country's most elaborate transportation systems. Read about the defining moments here. TWU organized transit workers around the country after their big win in New York City and continues to fight for all workers rights today.
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| TWU Fights for Civil Rights | ||
Dr. King recognized our tireless dedication to equality almost fifty years ago. We were honored and proud to work with Dr. King then and we are proud today of our continued efforts towards achieving equality and ensuring rights for working people of every race, color, creed, nationality and political perspective. Michael Quill founded our union with this goal and every leader since Quill has upheld his values. In the middle of the 20th century, during times when a society seeped in racism and ignorance helped to bolster Goliath companies who practiced regular discrimination based on prejudice and racism, we defied powerful authorities and fought those giant companies in the name of equality. Quill started his fight for minorities in 1937 when he worked with Local 100 to negotiate a contract with the New York IRT to raise the minimum weekly wage. He successfully won significant pay increases for minority workers who were relegated to the lowest positions by the IRT's discriminatory hiring practices. The following year, TWU worked with the NAACP and the Urban League to get six black porters at the IRT promoted to higher paying station agent and platform men job titles, despite great opposition from the company and other workers. Continuing the effort to fight for hard workers who deserved better jobs, TWU successfully pressured the IRT to appoint two black porters to conductors in 1939. That same year in New Orleans the union defied local authorities who were against integration and held the first ever desegregated trade union meeting in the crescent city. In 1941 TWU led a Harlem bus boycott so successful that it forced the Fifth Avenue Coach Company to start hiring black mechanics and bus drivers. This started the integration of the workforce to reflect the city minority population. Around the same time, tense race relations in Philadelphia were used as a weapon by the then malevolent Philadelphia Transportation Company (PTC) and rival union organizers. TWU won representation for Local 234, which prompted the PTC to ally with rejected company union leaders to use racism in an attempt to overthrow the TWU. The rival group created a race crisis by staging a wildcat strike to protest the promotion of minority workers. Federal troops called in by President Roosevelt quelled the fake strike which helped TWU win the fight and start the integration of Philadelphia's transit system. Ten years later TWU forced the Pennsylvania Railroad to delete the word “colored' from its company travel passes issued to black workers and their families. TWU started a fight for equality in the northeast but was sure to continue the fight in cities across the country as locals formed in places like Miami, where we opened a school to train black mechanics who were barred from other vocational schools in the city, and Tulsa, where we rid the American Airlines base there of its separate white and black facilities. In 1962 Texas Local 260 uncovered a pattern of racial discrimination in the Pioneer Bus Company. The employer and independent union had two separate units, one for white drivers and shop workers and the other for blacks, with separate seniority lists for each group. TWU demanded and won by a 3-to-1 margin a new representation election of the entire group. The “Jim Crow” hiring pattern died with the first TWU contract. One of our most memorable and proudest moments came in 1961 when the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a moving keynote address to our convention. King praised the TWU for its dedication to the cause of equal rights and liberties for all people and we take great pride in having been a part of Dr. Kings dream. Thousands of TWU members participated in the March on Washington D.C. to hear King's “I have a dream” speech, and we eagerly joined other civil rights demonstrators in the famous 50-mile Selma to Montgomery, Alabama march in 1965. Three years later over 2,500 of our members joined the Poor People's March in Washington D.C. Although our country still struggles with racism and prejudice, TWU has always tried to play a big role in the progression towards equality for all. In the 2008 election we were the first union to endorse Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for the presidency, and are proud to have helped President Obama become the nation's first African-American president. |
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| TWU Fights for Women | ||
As the women's movement took hold of the country in the 1960s, TWU recognized the need for more protection of women's rights, in addition to the protection of other minority's rights. The union, and individual members, confident with TWU's support, fought against sexual harassment and for maternity and childcare rights for families. Southwest Airline flight attendants joined TWU in 1975, which promptly ended the company's corporate marketing campaign that had often resulted in the sexual harassment of female flight attendants. In 1986, Philadelphia Local 234 stroke and won breakthrough contract language against harassment and discipline. Local 100 won a similar fight two years later by getting a provision made to their contract which spelled out the right of employees to be treated with dignity and to be free from harassment. TWU first won rights for mothers and for children in 1977 when a Local 101 member won a major court case upholding the New York Human Rights Law which requires private sector employers to furnish disability benefits for pregnancy. Several years later Local 556, representing Southwest flight attendants, won a four month maternity leave. Local 250-A negotiated $110,000 to fund a study of child care and implement recommendations of task force in 1989. Also that year, we established an Equal Rights and Liberties Committee. Our 2001 Convention established a Civil and Human Rights Department, which is headed by Local 260 President Sandra Burleson. For the past seven years the department has supported diversity and equality in the work place, by urging members to support legislation like the Employment Non-Discrimination ACT (ENDA). In 2001 TWU's a women's committee was formed as a constituency of the Civil and Human Rights Department, “to ensure equal pay for equal work. To educate women to seek the confidence to run for leadership positions in their unions. And to elevate the awareness of all working women’s needs in the workplace and outside the workplace. For TWU women to understand the true meaning of 'Each One Teach One.'” Today, our ATD and Transit Division Working Women's Committees, formed in 2005, continue the original Women's Committee's mission. |
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Our History |
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The TWU was formed in 1934 during the depths of the Great Depression when New York City’s transit companies were abusing the nation’s dire situation. Taking advantage of the country’s 25 percent unemployment rate and subsequent surplus of job applicants companies hired and fired at will, and underpaid, overworked and mistreated their employees. Transit companies were all powerful, managers were brutal and working conditions were dangerous and abusive. For the first two decades of the 20th Century company hired goons crushed workers’ attempts at unionization, including four major strikes held between 1905 and 1919. The largely Republican, Irish-born transit workforce reached its threshold just as an ideal leader emerged, Michael J. Quill. Quill’s audacious approach at unionization led to the formation of the desperately needed Transport Workers Union. TWU’s pioneers coined the motto, “United-Invincible,” and strongly believed that an organized, united front was the only way to win fair working conditions for themselves and for their members. They also fought for equality in the workplace, and spoke out against discrimination based on race, job title and ethnicity. TWU’s founders spent the mid-1930s organizing strikes and sit-ins to fight the powerful transit companies until the robber barons realized the union had gained its own power and was there to stay. Read about TWU’s defining moments here. In the early 1940s transit workers from New York, Ohio, Nebraska, New Jersey and Pennsylvania joined the TWU. By the end of the decade, San Francisco and Houston’s transit employees were members, and airline and railroad workers began to join the union by the thousands. Over the last 75 years we have gained members from states spanning the country and have grown to represent the four divisions we consist of today. For each division’s history please click on the links below. TWU’s current President, James Little, and chief officers continue to fight for Quill’s ideals. Our top priority is to ensure our members are being treated the way hard workers should. We want the best health benefits for our members, the best pay for their positions, the best treatment on the job and the kind of respect that all hard working people should be able to expect from bosses, co-workers and employers.
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Defining Moments |
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“The Grand Central Riot”
August 10, 1935 On a sweltering New York summer day three hundred TWU supporters were picketing the IRT offices in lower Manhattan. As they made their way through Grand Central station, en route to the TWU offices, transit company beakies jumped Quill. Several union men rushed over to back him as police swarmed the station carrying riot clubs. The beakies identified themselves as Company employees and demanded that Quill and four of his supporters be arrested. Quill, Herbert C. Holmstrom, Thomas H. O’Shea, Patrick McHugh and Serafino Machado were arrested on the spot, charged with simple assault and held on five hundred dollars’ bail each. News of the arrest spread rapidly along “the road” (the system of transit workers who passed messages along the subway lines) and the incident was widely covered in the press. Hundreds of workers fled to the courthouse to offer their own money to pay bail and refused to leave until the men were released. The charges were dropped but the case moved to a Special Sessions court hearing held six months later. At the hearing the union exposed the aggressive company and its intimidating espionage network for the oppressors they were, weakening the company’s power over workers and strengthening TWU’s image for hundreds of transit workers in New York City. The case was dismissed after only two hours of trial and TWU had gained great respect from workers. TWU meetings quickly gained momentum after the “Grand Central Riot.” The Kent Avenue Sit-down Strike
January 25, 1937 During the fifth week of a sit-down strike at a General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan, TWU leaders were faced with the perfect opportunity to try out the seemingly effective and new kind of strike in their own city, in the borough of Brooklyn. At the Kent Avenue power plant two BMT boil room engineers were dismissed from work and given three minutes to leave the plant because of their involvement with TWU. The two men had spent ten years working at the plant, which was the sole source of electric power for the entire New York City subway network. Quill was outraged by the dismissal and inspired by Flint’s plant workers, who had gained much national attention, to stage a sit-in of TWU’s own. The Kent Ave. sit-in proved to be the most important and defining moment for the longevity of the union. Quill and the 35 TWU members who worked at the plant hatched a radical, unexpected and audacious plan, unsure of what to expect but hopeful that the surprise factor would be enough to win the fight against the BMT. Led by two of the plant’s union men, Ed Pollock and Joe Fody, union workers bolted the doors from inside the plant at three p.m., as 31 union day-shift workers took their positions at the switches that controlled each section of NYC’s subway system. Standing on top of a car in front of the plant, Quill announced that if the fired men were not reinstated by six a.m. the next day all switches would be pulled and the BMT would stop, paralyzing all of the city’s subway lines and seriously disrupting the lives of 2.4 million BMT riders. Only 35 out of 505 men at the Kent plant were TWU members, but the 460 non-union men quickly agreed to help, wore TWU pins and remained loyal to their mission to get the two boiler room engineers reinstated. News reporters broadcast that a “workers’ insurrection” was happening in Brooklyn and the BMT hastily called in goons to threaten the workers and hundreds of picketers who were surrounding the plant. Police, who had never seen such a situation, obeyed Quill and did not rush the plant but allowed the strike to continue without interference. The picketers prevented company police, strike-breakers and strong-arm squads from breaking down the barricaded doors and organized food brigades. Even newspaper men aided picketers in delivering food to the strikers using a make-shift pulley system. Quill emphasized that the BMT had mistreated its workers for too long and that the firing of the two boiler room engineers was in violation of the recently enacted Wagner Act. When goons showed up flashing weapons and muscles, Quill announced that if anyone was hurt the switches would be pulled immediately, which would cause even more trouble for the BMT. At 5:30 a.m., thirty minutes before Quill’s deadline, the BMT gave in to his demands and reinstated the fired men unconditionally and agreed to confer with the TWU members who worked in the Kent plant. The transit industry in the most transit dependent city in the country would never be the same. Workers had seen the power of a union, particularly the power and determination of Michael J. Quill’s TWU, and they signed membership cards by the thousands. Transit bosses saw that they would no longer be free to mistreat and control the lives of their workers. On a larger scale, the way in which American unions were organized changed once the Kent Ave. strike demonstrated that industrial organization could be as effective, if not more effective, as craft organization – a change TWU had been pushing to make since its inception.
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