| NYC transit workers strike | |||
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| Date | Jan 1st, 1996 - Jan 13th, 1966 | ||
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In 1966, the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) and Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) called a strike action in New York City after the expiration of their contract with the New York City Transit Authority (TA). It was the first strike against the TA; pre-TWU transit strikes in 1905, 1910, 1916, and 1919 against the then-private transit companies had all failed. There had also been some partial TWU strikes in the 1930s but no citywide actions. [2] The strike led to the passage of the Taylor Law, which redefined the rights and limitations of unions for public employees in New York. [3]
The strikers were led initially by the Irish-born Mike Quill, the TWU's founder, who had been the union's president since its founding. The strike effectively ended all service on the subway and buses in the city, affecting millions of commuters. It was an ominous beginning for the mayoralty of John V. Lindsay, but is perhaps better remembered for the jailing of Quill and for his death only weeks afterwards.
The twelve-day strike began on New Year's Day; the last trains rolled at 8:02 am. An injunction to end the strike was issued later that day, under the 1947 Condon-Wadlin Act. [3] On January 2, the union reduced its economic demands, but the TA responded only by getting a judge's order for the arrest of Quill and eight other union leaders. (The others were Matthew Guinan, Frank Sheehan, Daniel Gilmartin, Ellis Van Riper, and Mark Kavanagh of the TWU and John Rowland, William Mangus, and Frank Kleess of the ATU). The arrests were set for 1 a.m. on January 4. Quill was obviously in ill health, but immediately before his arrest he told reporters at the Americana Hotel, "The judge can drop dead in his black robes. I don't care if I rot in jail. I will not call off the strike."
Quill spent little time in jail: his poor health soon had him transferred to Bellevue Hospital and later to Mount Sinai Medical Hospital, leaving TWU Secretary-Treasurer Doug MacMahon (a close associate of Quill's, with him since the union's founding) to lead the strike. On January 10, 15,000 workers picketed City Hall. Negotiations moved forward through mediators, with movement from both sides. At 1:37 A.M. on January 13, MacMahon announced that the union was recommending settlement. [2]
The package, worth over $60 million, included wages increases from $3.18 to $4.14 an hour, an additional paid holiday, increased pension benefits, and other gains. Gains averaged nine percent for the next eight years. Quill's health at first seemed to be improving; he was actually released from hospital January 25. He gave a speech to the victorious strikers and another press conference at the Americana, but the apparent improvement in his health was an illusion: he died on January 28. [4]
Democratic Party New York City mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. granted collective bargaining rights to city employees in 1958. This led to the unions replacing Tammany Hall as the city's most powerful political force. Wagner formed a close alliance with the public-sector unions. [5] John Lindsay, a reformist within the Republican Party, won the 1965 New York City mayoral election by campaigning against the city's often corrupt political machines. With the transit contract set to expire the same day Lindsay would take office, the stage was set for confrontation. [4]
Lindsay's "Protestant rectitude" [4] proved no match for the "fiery" [6] Quill. The true sources of power in New York became clear, a point that would be further driven home by 1967 and 1968 teachers strikes and a 1968 strike by sanitation workers. [3] By the time Lindsay ran for re-election in 1969 as the candidate of the Liberal Party of New York, he had made his peace with the public sector unions, and ultimately won their support. [4] However, and partly as a result, the city's social and economic decline was rapidly intensifying.
John Vliet Lindsay was an American politician and lawyer. During his political career, Lindsay was a U.S. congressman, mayor of New York City, and candidate for U.S. president. He was also a regular guest host of Good Morning America. Lindsay served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from January 1959 to December 1965 and as mayor of New York City from January 1966 to December 1973.
The New York City Transit Authority is a public-benefit corporation in the U.S. state of New York that operates public transportation in New York City. Part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the busiest and largest transit system in North America, the NYCTA has a daily ridership of 8 million trips.
The Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) is a labor organization in the United States and Canada that represents employees in the public transit industry. Established in 1892 as the Amalgamated Association of Street Railway Employees of America, the union was centered primarily in the Eastern United States; today, ATU has over 200,000 members throughout the United States and Canada.
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.
Michael Joseph "Red Mike" Quill was one of the founders of the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU), a union founded by subway workers in New York City that expanded to represent employees in other forms of transit. He served as the President of the TWU for most of the first thirty years of its existence. A close ally of the Communist Party USA (CP) for the first twelve years of his leadership of the union, he broke with it in 1948.
Immediately after World War II, New York City became known as one of the world's greatest cities. However, after peaking in population in 1950, the city began to feel the effects of suburbanization brought about by new housing communities such as Levittown, a downturn in industry and commerce as businesses left for places where it was cheaper and easier to operate, an increase in crime, and an upturn in its welfare burden, all of which reached a nadir in the city's fiscal crisis of the 1970s, when it barely avoided defaulting on its obligations and declaring bankruptcy.
Roger Toussaint an American worker who led the December 20th, 2005 New York City transit strike which lasted three days and shut down bus and subway service in the city. Toussaint was the president of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 in New York City (NYC) from January 2001 through December 2009. TWU Local 100 represents the majority of hourly employees at the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA), Manhattan and the Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority (MaBSTOA), MTA Bus and is the largest local transportation union in the USA. As a result of this strike, the union was fined heavily and Toussaint jailed briefly. The December 2005 strike was the first strike shutting down public transportation in NYC in 25 years.
The Public Employees Fair Employment Act, more commonly known as the Taylor Law, is Article 14 of the state Civil Service Law, which defines the rights and limitations of unions for public employees in New York.
A 1980 transit strike in New York City halted service on the New York City Transit Authority for the first time since 1966. Around 33,000 members of Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 walked off their jobs on April 1, 1980, in a strike with the goal of increasing the wage for contracted workers. All subway and bus lines in the five boroughs of New York City were brought to a complete standstill for twelve days. The strike was resolved on April 11.
The 2005 New York City transit strike, held from December 20 through 22, 2005, was the third strike ever by the Transport Workers Union Local 100 against New York City's Transit Authority and involved between 32,000 and 34,000 strikers.
The 2006 Toronto Transit Commission wildcat strike was an unlawful strike in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, that occurred on May 29, 2006. It was initiated by 800 Toronto Transit Commission mechanical and janitorial workers who were protesting proposed changes in work schedules, including permanent reassignment of 100 workers to night shifts.
Matthew "Ted" Guinan was an Irish labor organizer who served as the second president of Transport Workers Union of America (TWU).
Most Toronto Transit Commission personnel are members of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113. Total membership (2016) is approximately 10000 members. The ATU has represented Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) workers since 1899; workers of predecessor operators have been represented by the ATU's predecessor, the Amalgamated Association of Street Railway Employees of America. The president of ATU Local 113 was Bob Kinnear from 2003 to February 2017, Carlos Santos from January 2019 to December 2021 and Marvin Alfred since December 2021.
The 2008 Toronto Transit Commission strike was a legal strike action by Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) unionized employees that began on April 26, 2008, at 12:01 a.m. EDT. All bus, streetcar and subway service in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, was suspended, leaving thousands of people stranded across the city. Although the strike action was legal, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 113 did not provide 48-hour notice of the service withdrawal as they had previously promised they would do. Instead, the ATU only provided 90 minutes' notice before the service withdrawal. Bob Kinnear, president of ATU Local 113, claimed that the lack of an advance notice was necessary to protect the TTC employees from "angry and irrational members of the public".
Bob Kinnear is a union leader in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was the leader of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 from 2003 to 2017. Kinnear joined the TTC as a janitor in 1988 at age 18 and worked his way up as bus operator and subway guard/operator before becoming union head.
Thomas H. O'Shea was an Irish revolutionary and one of the founders of the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU), subway workers in New York City that expanded to represent members in other forms of transit nationwide. O'Shea was appointed the first President of the TWU in 1934 and later ousted and replaced by longtime TWU President Michael J. Quill. O'Shea subsequently spent some years battling reported Communism within the union culminating in his 1940 testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities chaired by Rep. Martin Dies of Texas and commonly referred to as the Dies Committee at the time.
The Philadelphia transit strike of 1944 was a sickout strike by white transit workers in Philadelphia that lasted from August 1 to August 6, 1944. The strike was triggered by the decision of the Philadelphia Transportation Company (PTC), made under prolonged pressure from the federal government in view of significant wartime labor shortages, to allow black employees of the PTC to hold non-menial jobs, such as motormen and conductors, that were previously reserved for white workers only. On August 1, 1944, the eight black employees being trained as streetcar motormen were due to make their first trial run. That caused the white PTC workers to start a massive sickout strike.
William Daniel Mahon (1861–1949) was a former coal miner and streetcar driver who became president of the Amalgamated Association of Street Railway Employees of America, now the Amalgamated Transit Union.
John F. O'Donnell was an Irish-born 20th-century American "leading labor lawyer" who represented the national Transport Workers Union (TWU) and American Postal Workers Union (APWU) and also "played a central role in New York City's transit strikes" from the 1930s to the 1980s.
John Lindsay served as the 103rd Mayor of New York City from January 1, 1966, to December 31, 1973. His mayoralty presided over a rising budget from below $5 billion to almost $10 billion, high deficit spending, the reorganization of the city's government, a corruption investigation into the New York City Police Department, and largescale union strikes.
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