Transport Workers Union of America

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. The TWU is a member of the AFL-CIO.

The TWU established 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.

The 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, 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, Northwest Airlines, Continental Airlines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, America West Airlines and Alaska Airlines.

It also represents employees of Amtrak, Conrail and several small short line carriers. The TWU began representing railway employees in 1954, when it absorbed 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.