Museum Collections

Metal badge with folding grip, blue letters on silver metal ground: Around edge: "TRANSPORT WORKERS UNION OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO" In center: "50th/ ANNIVERSARY/ 1934-1984"

Prior to 1934, New York City’s transportation workers, faced with powerful, exploitative owners, brutal managers, and dangerous working conditions had made several attempts at unionization. Spurred on by worsening conditions brought on by the Great Depression, an effective Union was finally formed in 1934 under the leadership of the charismatic Michael J. Quill. As an industrial union, it was originally affiliated with the CIO; the AFL affiliation came when the two confederations merged in 1955.