Quill, Mike, 1905-1966

Much of the Transport Workers of America’s (TWU) history centers around the fiery figure of Mike Quill, President of the TWU from 1935 to 1966. Quill, born in Kilgarven, Ireland in 1905, started with the IRT subway as a ticket taker. With the financial support of the Communist Party, Quill, together with Maurice Forge, Austin Hogan, and Harry Sacher, was able to lead a successful organizing drive among New York City transit workers beginning in 1934. With Quill as President, the TWU organized subway, bus, and taxi workers in New York and improved wages and working conditions. When he was elected to the City Council (1937-1939, 1943-1949), Quill also used that position to fight for the transit workers, even when it meant going against the American Labor Party, his base of support. With the consolidation of New York City’s subway system under one transit authority in 1941, TWU gained more bargaining power. By 1950, their membership grew to over 100,000 transport workers. In the post- World War II period, Quill split with the Communist Party over a fare increase, and he then joined in the CIO effort to eliminate communist-dominated unions from the organization. By the 1950's, the TWU was the exclusive bargaining agent for New York Transit. TWU also expanded during the 1940s and 1950s to establish locals across the country for railroad and airline workers, utility workers, and taxi drivers, among others. The usual pattern of threatened strike and last minute negotiation was upset in 1965 when Quill led the TWU out on a massive strike. In spite of Quill and other TWU leaders being jailed for refusal to abide by a court order, TWU and New York City reached a settlement. Quill died of a heart attack less than three weeks after the settlement.

Shirley Quill, Brooklyn native and the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, became active with leftist and labor organizations in the 1930s while in college. She was a staff member of the Electrical Workers Union in New Jersey during the early 1940s. Quill met her future husband, Michael J. (Mike) Quill, in 1943 while helping with his campaign for New York City Council. She also served as Mike Quill’s legislative secretary after his election to the city council. Their mutual commitment to union organizing and progressive politics led to a friendship and a long relationship. They married in 1961 (both had been previously wed). After Mike Quill’s death Shirley Quill continued to be politically active, particularly in women’s causes and New York City West Side Democratic Party politics; she was also instrumental in putting together the Association of Tenants of Lincoln Towers (the 4,000-apartment complex on the West Side of Manhattan, where she lived until her death), and wrote a biography of Mike Quill, Mike Quill-Himself: A Memoir. She died in 1991.

• Quill, Shirley. Michael Quill, Himself: A Memoir. Greenwich, CT: Devin-Adair, 1985.

• Cerra, Frances. “Tenant Group Put Clout to Work.” The New York Times. December 26, 1982. Accessed June 14, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/1982/12/26/realestate/tenant-group-puts-clout-to-work.html

• “Shirley Garry Quill, Tenant Organizer, 76.” The New York Times. September 28, 1991. Accessed June 14, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/28/obituaries/shirley-garry-quill-tenant-organizer-76.html

From the guide to the Shirley Quill Transport Workers Union of America Photographs, Bulk, 1941-1966, 1913-1997, (Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive)