Mike Quill
Encyclopedia
Michael J. 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, and the President of the TWU for most of the first thirty years of its existence. A close ally of the Communist Party USA
for the first twelve years of his leadership of the union, he broke with it in 1948. He drove his former allies out of the union as they tried to control the union rather than continue to help it.
Quill had varying relations with the mayors of New York City. He was a personal friend of Robert Wagner but could find no common ground with Wagner's successor, John Lindsay
, or as Quill called him "Linsley", and led a twelve-day transit strike in 1966 against him that landed him in jail. However, he won significant wage increases for his members. He died of a heart attack
three days after the end of the strike.
, County Kerry
, Ireland
. He was a dispatch rider for the Irish Republican Army
from 1919 to 1921 while still a teenager; then a member of the IRA itself in the Irish Civil War
that followed. One canard has him robbing a bank to raise funds for the IRA. Quill worked as a carpenter's apprentice, then a woodcutter after the end of the Civil War. He was brought to the United States in 1926 by his uncle Patrick Quill who was a conductor in the subway and got him his first job. He followed his brothers, Patrick and John. In New York City Quill first lived with his O'Sullivan cousins in upper Manhattan. Quill's IRA record of service was confirmed by his commanding officer John Joe Rice, Kerry 2nd Brigade years later to Quill's widow Shirley.
Through his uncle Quill got a job on the IRT later that year, first as a night gateman, then as a clerk or "ticket chopper". Moving from station to station, Quill got to know a large number of IRT employees, while using the quiet of the late hours to read labor history and, in particular, the works of James Connolly
. The name that Quill and others chose for their new union was, in fact, a tribute to the Irish Transport and General Workers Union led by Jim Larkin and Connolly twenty years earlier.
That union grew out of a unique mixture of two revolutionary traditions: the Irish insurrectionary history of Connolly and the IRA and the Communist Party. The IRT was, in fact, filled with veterans of the recent Troubles in Ireland, to the point that some jokingly referred to it as "Irish Republican Transit". All of the founding members of the TWU belonged to the Clan na Gael
, a secretive Irish organization, and the first discussions of forming a union took place across the street from a Clan meeting.
The other factor, the Communist Party, supplied organizers, operating funds, and connections with organizations outside the Irish-American community. Two Trade Union Unity League organizers, John Santo and Austin Hogan, met with the Clan na Gael
's members in a cafeteria on Columbus Circle on April 12, 1934, the date now used to mark the foundation of the union.
The CP was at that time in the last years of its ultrarevolutionary Third Period
, when it sought to form revolutionary unions outside the American Federation of Labor
. The party therefore 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 Tom O'Shea — who would later become a witness against Quill before the Dies Committee
— as its first president, assigning Quill a secondary position.
Quill proved to have more leadership potential than O'Shea, however. He was a persuasive speaker, willing to "soapbox" outside of IRT facilities for hours, and capable of great charm in individual conversations. He also acquired some renown after an incident in 1936, in which some "beakies", the informants used by the IRT to spy on union activities, attacked Quill and five other unionists in a tunnel as they were returning from picketing the IRT's offices. Arrested for inciting to riot, Quill came off as a fighter in his defense of the charges, which were eventually dismissed.
Quill was closely associated with the Communist Party from the outset, but proved rebellious as well. When the Third Period gave way to the Popular Front
era, Santo and Hogan 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 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.
Given the level of surveillance, and consistent with the conspiratorial traditions of Irish political movements, 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. Those few workers, such as Quill, who were willing to accept identification as union activists also spread the word about the new union by handing out flyers and delivering soapbox speeches in front of company facilities. After a year of organizing, the union formed a Delegates Council, made up of representatives from sections of the system.
In the meantime the new union continued its patient organizing campaign, conducting a number of brief strikes over workplace conditions, but avoiding any large-scale confrontations. That changed on January 23, 1937, when the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) fired two union members at the Kent Avenue powerhouse plant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
for union activity. The union launched a successful sitdown strike
two days later that solidified the union's support among BMT employees, helped lead to its overwhelming victory in an NLRB
-conducted election among the IRT's 13,500 employees later that year and helped bring thousands of other transit employees into the union.
in 1936 in order to link itself to the AFL in 1936. The union severed its relations with the Machinists and joined the Congress of Industrial Organizations
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 soon faced challenges within, as dissidents within the union and the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists outside it challenged the CPUSA's dominant position within its officialdom and staff. The CP at that time had almost complete control over the union's administration and CP membership was necessary both to get a job with the union and to rise through its ranks. Former allies such as O'Shea attacked Quill and the CP, both in the publications of rival unions, such as the Amalgamated Association of Street Railway Employees
, and in testimony before the Dies Committee
.
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 the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union
in 1941. Quill shrugged off most of this criticism from outside, haranguing the Dies Committee when it attempted to question him, and disposed of his internal critics by bringing union charges against more than a hundred opponents.
The union faced more serious challenges at home as Mayor Fiorello La Guardia threatened to revoke the union's status as representative of the employees of the IRT and BMT when the City bought those lines in 1940. Quill had cooperated with La Guardia when the former ran, successfully, for City Council in 1937, as a candidate of the American Labor Party
. In 1940, however, both La Guardia and Quill became bellicose opponents of each other, with Quill calling a bus drivers' strike that served to demonstrate the union's power if challenged while La Guardia came out in opposition to collective bargaining, the closed shop and the right to strike for public employees.
The invasion of the Soviet Union
changed the Party's opinion of strikes. It is simplistic, on the other hand, to treat this change in strategy as solely the result in the change in Comintern
policy. Throughout his career Quill preferred to threaten strikes as leverage to calling them and provoking a decisive test of strength. In addition, the union leadership had reservations in 1941 about the depth of its support among the general public and the employees of the IRT and BMT, many of whom believed that civil service protections gained as employees of the City made union representation less critical. National leaders of the CIO
and the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration intervened in 1941 to avert a subway strike with an ambiguous agreement that preserved TWU
's right to represent its members, even though the City continued to deny it exclusive representation.
. These pressures fell especially hard on the TWU: the government arrested Santo for immigration law
violations, and began proceedings to deport him. At the same time, Quill found the CP'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 CP'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 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 CP 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 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.
— after his split with the CP. Quill was the most vocal opponent within the CIO of its merger with the AFL, attacking it for "racism, racketeering and raids". He and the TWU were early supporters of the civil rights movement and Quill was one of the first in the labor movement to oppose the Vietnam War
in the 1960s.
Quill and the TWU became even more important figures in New York City politics in the 1950s. 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 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 relationship with the administration of John V. Lindsay, a liberal Protestant Republican who had rebuked Quill shortly before taking 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 a complete halt. The City obtained an injunction prohibiting the strike and succeeded in imprisoning Quill and seven other leaders of the TWU and the Amalgamated Association, which joined in the stoppage, for contempt of court. The labor lawyer Theodore W. Kheel
mediated the agreement that ended the strike.
Quill did not waver, responding at a crowded press conference: "The judge can drop dead in his black robes!" The union successfully held out for a sizeable wage increase for the union. Other unions followed suit demanding similar raises. Quill also burned the judge robe which was later quoted in Miesha Eire by the Band Seanchai.
Ironically, it was Quill, who dropped dead at age 60, three days after the union's victory celebration. He had an initial heart attack
when he was sent to jail for contempt. He was interred at Gate of Heaven Cemetery
in Hawthorne, NY, after a funeral Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral (New York), his casket draped by the Irish tricolor.
Transport Workers Union of America
Transport Workers Union of America 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,...
(TWU), a union founded by subway workers in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
that expanded to represent employees in other forms of transit, and the President of the TWU for most of the first thirty years of its existence. A close ally of the Communist Party USA
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
for the first twelve years of his leadership of the union, he broke with it in 1948. He drove his former allies out of the union as they tried to control the union rather than continue to help it.
Quill had varying relations with the mayors of New York City. He was a personal friend of Robert Wagner but could find no common ground with Wagner's successor, John Lindsay
John Lindsay
John Vliet Lindsay was an American politician, lawyer and broadcaster who was a U.S. Congressman, Mayor of New York City, candidate for U.S...
, or as Quill called him "Linsley", and led a twelve-day transit strike in 1966 against him that landed him in jail. However, he won significant wage increases for his members. He died of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
three days after the end of the strike.
Early years in Ireland
Quill was born in Gortloughera, near KilgarvanKilgarvan
-History:Kilgarvan was the site of the Battle of Callan in 1261 which reduced Norman power in Ireland for almost 300 years. The battle site is located in the townland of Callan ....
, County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. He was a dispatch rider for the Irish Republican Army
Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916...
from 1919 to 1921 while still a teenager; then a member of the IRA itself in the Irish Civil War
Irish Civil War
The Irish Civil War was a conflict that accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State as an entity independent from the United Kingdom within the British Empire....
that followed. One canard has him robbing a bank to raise funds for the IRA. Quill worked as a carpenter's apprentice, then a woodcutter after the end of the Civil War. He was brought to the United States in 1926 by his uncle Patrick Quill who was a conductor in the subway and got him his first job. He followed his brothers, Patrick and John. In New York City Quill first lived with his O'Sullivan cousins in upper Manhattan. Quill's IRA record of service was confirmed by his commanding officer John Joe Rice, Kerry 2nd Brigade years later to Quill's widow Shirley.
Through his uncle Quill got a job on the IRT later that year, first as a night gateman, then as a clerk or "ticket chopper". Moving from station to station, Quill got to know a large number of IRT employees, while using the quiet of the late hours to read labor history and, in particular, the works of James Connolly
James Connolly
James Connolly was an Irish republican and socialist leader. He was born in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh, Scotland, to Irish immigrant parents and spoke with a Scottish accent throughout his life. He left school for working life at the age of 11, but became one of the leading Marxist theorists of...
. The name that Quill and others chose for their new union was, in fact, a tribute to the Irish Transport and General Workers Union led by Jim Larkin and Connolly twenty years earlier.
That union grew out of a unique mixture of two revolutionary traditions: the Irish insurrectionary history of Connolly and the IRA and the Communist Party. The IRT was, in fact, filled with veterans of the recent Troubles in Ireland, to the point that some jokingly referred to it as "Irish Republican Transit". All of the founding members of the TWU belonged to the Clan na Gael
Clan na Gael
The Clan na Gael was an Irish republican organization in the United States in the late 19th and 20th centuries, successor to the Fenian Brotherhood and a sister organization to the Irish Republican Brotherhood...
, a secretive Irish organization, and the first discussions of forming a union took place across the street from a Clan meeting.
The other factor, the Communist Party, supplied organizers, operating funds, and connections with organizations outside the Irish-American community. Two Trade Union Unity League organizers, John Santo and Austin Hogan, met with the Clan na Gael
Clan na Gael
The Clan na Gael was an Irish republican organization in the United States in the late 19th and 20th centuries, successor to the Fenian Brotherhood and a sister organization to the Irish Republican Brotherhood...
's members in a cafeteria on Columbus Circle on April 12, 1934, the date now used to mark the foundation of the union.
The CP was at that time in the last years of its ultrarevolutionary Third Period
Third Period
The Third Period is a ideological concept adopted by the Communist International at its 6th World Congress, held in Moscow in the summer of 1928....
, when it sought to form revolutionary unions outside the American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
. The party therefore 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 Tom O'Shea — who would later become a witness against Quill before the Dies Committee
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
— as its first president, assigning Quill a secondary position.
Quill proved to have more leadership potential than O'Shea, however. He was a persuasive speaker, willing to "soapbox" outside of IRT facilities for hours, and capable of great charm in individual conversations. He also acquired some renown after an incident in 1936, in which some "beakies", the informants used by the IRT to spy on union activities, attacked Quill and five other unionists in a tunnel as they were returning from picketing the IRT's offices. Arrested for inciting to riot, Quill came off as a fighter in his defense of the charges, which were eventually dismissed.
Quill was closely associated with the Communist Party from the outset, but proved rebellious as well. When the Third Period gave way to the Popular Front
Popular front
A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...
era, Santo and Hogan 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 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.
Given the level of surveillance, and consistent with the conspiratorial traditions of Irish political movements, 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. Those few workers, such as Quill, who were willing to accept identification as union activists also spread the word about the new union by handing out flyers and delivering soapbox speeches in front of company facilities. After a year of organizing, the union formed a Delegates Council, made up of representatives from sections of the system.
In the meantime the new union continued its patient organizing campaign, conducting a number of brief strikes over workplace conditions, but avoiding any large-scale confrontations. That changed on January 23, 1937, when the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) fired two union members at the Kent Avenue powerhouse plant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Williamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordering Greenpoint to the north, Bedford-Stuyvesant to the south, Bushwick to the east and the East River to the west. The neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 1. The neighborhood is served by the NYPD's 90th ...
for union activity. The union launched a successful sitdown strike
Sitdown strike
A sit-down strike is a form of civil disobedience in which an organized group of workers, usually employed at a factory or other centralized location, take possession of the workplace by "sitting down" at their stations, effectively preventing their employers from replacing them with strikebreakers...
two days later that solidified the union's support among BMT employees, helped lead to its overwhelming victory in an NLRB
National Labor Relations Board
The National Labor Relations Board is an independent agency of the United States government charged with conducting elections for labor union representation and with investigating and remedying unfair labor practices. Unfair labor practices may involve union-related situations or instances of...
-conducted election among the IRT's 13,500 employees later that year and helped bring thousands of other transit employees into the union.
Leadership of the TWU
The TWU had joined the International Association of MachinistsInternational Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers is an AFL-CIO/CLC trade union representing approx. 646,933 workers as of 2006 in more than 200 industries.-Formation and early history:...
in 1936 in order to link itself to the AFL in 1936. The union severed its relations with the Machinists and joined the Congress of Industrial Organizations
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
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 soon faced challenges within, as dissidents within the union and the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists outside it challenged the CPUSA's dominant position within its officialdom and staff. The CP at that time had almost complete control over the union's administration and CP membership was necessary both to get a job with the union and to rise through its ranks. Former allies such as O'Shea attacked Quill and the CP, both in the publications of rival unions, such as the Amalgamated Association of Street Railway Employees
Amalgamated Transit Union
The Amalgamated Transit Union is a labor union in the United States and The Amalgamated Transit Union Canadian Council in Canada, representing workers in the transit system and other industries...
, and in testimony before the Dies Committee
Martin Dies, Jr.
Martin Dies, Jr. was a Texas politician and a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives. His father, Martin Dies, was also a member of the United States House of Representatives.-Biography:...
.
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
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
in 1939, then coming out against strikes after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in 1941. Quill shrugged off most of this criticism from outside, haranguing the Dies Committee when it attempted to question him, and disposed of his internal critics by bringing union charges against more than a hundred opponents.
The union faced more serious challenges at home as Mayor Fiorello La Guardia threatened to revoke the union's status as representative of the employees of the IRT and BMT when the City bought those lines in 1940. Quill had cooperated with La Guardia when the former ran, successfully, for City Council in 1937, as a candidate of the American Labor Party
American Labor Party
The American Labor Party was a political party in the United States established in 1936 which was active almost exclusively in the state of New York. The organization was founded by labor leaders and former members of the Socialist Party who had established themselves as the Social Democratic...
. In 1940, however, both La Guardia and Quill became bellicose opponents of each other, with Quill calling a bus drivers' strike that served to demonstrate the union's power if challenged while La Guardia came out in opposition to collective bargaining, the closed shop and the right to strike for public employees.
The invasion of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
changed the Party's opinion of strikes. It is simplistic, on the other hand, to treat this change in strategy as solely the result in the change in Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
policy. Throughout his career Quill preferred to threaten strikes as leverage to calling them and provoking a decisive test of strength. In addition, the union leadership had reservations in 1941 about the depth of its support among the general public and the employees of the IRT and BMT, many of whom believed that civil service protections gained as employees of the City made union representation less critical. National leaders of the CIO
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
and the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration intervened in 1941 to avert a subway strike with an ambiguous agreement that preserved TWU
TWU
TWU may refer to:* Texas Woman's University, the second largest public university in Denton, Texas* Telecommunications Workers Union, a trade union in Canada* Transport Workers Union of America, a trade union in United States of America...
's right to represent its members, even though the City continued to deny it exclusive representation.
Breaking with the CP
The pressure on CP-led unions intensified after the end of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. These pressures fell especially hard on the TWU: the government arrested Santo for immigration law
Immigration law
Immigration law refers to national government policies which control the phenomenon of immigration to their country.Immigraton law, regarding foreign citizens, is related to nationality law, which governs the legal status of people, in matters such as citizenship...
violations, and began proceedings to deport him. At the same time, Quill found the CP'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 CP's support for the candidacy of Henry Wallace
Henry Wallace
Henry or Harry Wallace may refer to:*Henry A. Wallace , U.S. Vice President 1941-1945, presidential candidate for the Progressive Party 1948**Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center...
threatened to split the CIO. When William Z. Foster
William Z. Foster
William Foster was a radical American labor organizer and Marxist politician, whose career included a lengthy stint as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA...
, then the general secretary of the CPUSA, told him that the party was prepared to split 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 CP 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
William O'Dwyer
William O'Dwyer was the 100th Mayor of New York City, holding that office from 1946 to 1950.-Biography:O'Dwyer was born in County Mayo, Ireland and migrated to the United States in 1910, after abandoning studies for the priesthood...
, in his support, winning 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.
Postwar controversies
Unlike some others, such as Joe Curran of the National Maritime Union, "Red Mike" Quill remained on the left within the labor movement — albeit in a political atmosphere in which the boundaries had shifted drastically during the Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
— after his split with the CP. Quill was the most vocal opponent within the CIO of its merger with the AFL, attacking it for "racism, racketeering and raids". He and the TWU were early supporters of the civil rights movement and Quill was one of the first in the labor movement to oppose the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
in the 1960s.
Robert F. Wagner, Jr.
Robert Ferdinand Wagner II, usually known as Robert F. Wagner, Jr. served three terms as the mayor of New York City, from 1954 through 1965.-Biography:...
'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 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 relationship with the administration of John V. Lindsay, a liberal Protestant Republican who had rebuked Quill shortly before taking office in 1966. Lindsay decided to take on the TWU, provoking a twelve day strike
1966 New York City transit strike
The 1966 New York City transit strike was a strike in New York City called by the Transport Workers Union and Amalgamated Transit Union after the expiration of their contract with the New York City Transit Authority . It was the first strike against the TA; pre-TWU transit strikes in 1905, 1910,...
. The world's largest subway and bus systems, serving eight million people daily, came to a complete halt. The City obtained an injunction prohibiting the strike and succeeded in imprisoning Quill and seven other leaders of the TWU and the Amalgamated Association, which joined in the stoppage, for contempt of court. The labor lawyer Theodore W. Kheel
Theodore W. Kheel
Theodore Woodrow Kheel was an American attorney and labor mediator who played a key role in reaching resolutions of long-simmering labor disputes between managements and unions and resulting strikes in New York City and elsewhere in the United States, including the 114-day long 1962-63 New York...
mediated the agreement that ended the strike.
Quill did not waver, responding at a crowded press conference: "The judge can drop dead in his black robes!" The union successfully held out for a sizeable wage increase for the union. Other unions followed suit demanding similar raises. Quill also burned the judge robe which was later quoted in Miesha Eire by the Band Seanchai.
Ironically, it was Quill, who dropped dead at age 60, three days after the union's victory celebration. He had an initial heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
when he was sent to jail for contempt. He was interred at Gate of Heaven Cemetery
Gate of Heaven Cemetery
The Gate of Heaven Cemetery, approximately 25 miles north of New York City, was established in 1917 at 10 West Stevens Ave. in Hawthorne, Westchester County, New York, United States, as a Roman Catholic burial site...
in Hawthorne, NY, after a funeral Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral (New York), his casket draped by the Irish tricolor.
Family
He was first married to Maria Theresa O'Neill, who predeceased him, and had a son, John Daniel Quill (named for Quill's own father). His second wife, who survived him, was Shirley Quill.See also
- Communists in the U.S. Labor Movement (1919-1937)Communists in the U.S. Labor Movement (1919-1937)The Communist Party and its allies played an important role in the United States labor movement, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, but never succeeded, with rare exceptions, either in bringing the labor movement around to its agenda or in converting their influence in any particular union into...
- Communists in the U.S. Labor Movement (1937-1950)Communists in the U.S. Labor Movement (1937-1950)The Communist Party and its allies played an important role in the United States labor movement, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, but never succeeded, with rare exceptions, either in bringing the labor movement around to its agenda or in converting their influence in any particular union into...
- Michael J. Quill Bus Depot
- Union OrganizerUnion organizerA union organizer is a specific type of trade union member or an appointed union official. A majority of unions appoint rather than elect their organizers....
Further reading
- Freeman, Joshua B., In Transit: The Transport Workers Union in New York City, 1933-1966, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
- Quill, Shirley, Mike Quill, Himself : a Memoir, Greenwich, Connecticut: Devin-Adair, 1985
- Whittemore, L.H., The Man Who Ran the Subways; The Story of Mike Quill, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968