AKRON, OHIO
Following TWU's entrance in the Committee for Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1937, Local 1 was chartered to cover employees of the Akron Transportation Company.

A first contract established union pay scales and working conditions. The following year the contract renewal included a closed shop clause. Further progress was made in 1939, 1940, and 1941 pacts.

With the war-time controls on prices and pay, the union had to petition the War Labor Board for any increases. In 1943, the union was able to break through the Little Steel Formula of 15 percent by securing Local 1's members a 25 percent increase.

Following WWII, employers in America set out to break organized labor's back. Workers in Akron, the nation's rubber center, were a principle target. Local 1 was pushed into a bitter 13-day strike in 1945, and a 12-day strike in 1946 to win decent contracts.

Today the Local represents about 300 employees of the Metro Regional Transit Authority.

THE LONG ISLAND STORY
TWU arrived on Long Island, NY, when it won a State Labor Board representation election over two company unions among Bee-Line, Long Beach Bus and Utility Lines workers on Feb. 17, 1941 and was chartered as Local 252.

The Long Island story is replete with strikes and struggles to save the jobs and lift the pay, benefits and working conditions of these workers to TWU standards. A 14 percent pay increase to 80 cents an hour for Operators highlighted the first contract. Later, the 1944 agreement secured time-and-a-half after 40 hours a week with the guarantee of 48. In January of 1946 these Long Island busmen had to strike for 13 days to raise the Operator's rate 12 cents an hour to $1.35. That top rate was obtained after two years. Today, the Local continues to represent bus and transit workers on Long Island.

COLUMBUS, OHIO
The Columbus & Southern Electric Co. bus workers voted for TWU representation in a Nov. 12, 1941 National Labor Relations Board election. In April of the following year, the fist contact raised wages 7, 8, and 9 cents an hour. The 1943 agreement added 8 cents more.

In October, 1945, an agreement added 9 cents an hour in wages and improved hours, vacation, and meal relief. In December of the following year, an arbitration victory netted 15 cents an hour more.

Today, Locals 208 and 212 represent workers in Columbus, Ohio.

NEW JERSEY
Bus workers at Manhattan Transit and Westwood Coach in New Jersey abandoned their company unions in November, 1941 to enroll in the rapidly growing ranks of TWU. They were soon joined by their cohorts at Orange and Black and Mohawk Coach Lines. Contracts were negotiated for these three groups.

Orange and Black negotiators successfully reached agreements, but a 10-day strike was necessary in December, 1945 to secure a 14-cent-an-hour increase and time-and-a-half after eight hours in a day, with a nine hour guarantee for Manhattan Transit, Westwood Transportation, and Mohawk Coach Workers.

The O & B workers added a 15.8 percent boost in Jan. 1946, and bus men at the other three lines got 16 cents more to $1.28 an hour on Jan. 1, 1947. Gray Line employees, who had just joined Local 225, went to $1.25 an hour in the same month.

Local 225 representation had expanded to seven companies by January 1, 1949, when wages were boosted by 15.1 cents an hour, and holidays, vacations, and benefits were also improved. The following year O & B and Gray Line had to be struck to win small pay increases, extra men's guarantee, and better vacations. The Manhattan and Westwood members were later granted the same gains.

Today, Local 225 has four separate branches and represents bus and transit workers and employees of several municipalities in New Jersey.

REAPING GAINS IN OMAHA
When TWU first came on the property of the Omaha Transit Company in 1941, Operators there earned a measly 56 cents an hour. They had no paid vacation or holidays with pay, no protections if illness or injury struck, and the pension plan was not up to TWU standards.

The first contract was ratified on Nov. 28, 1941 and provided pay increases of 11.6 to 13.5 percent and secured other valued improvements.

The union made substantial gains in each contract over the next 10 years. But those improvements were then endangered when Omaha Transit merged with the nearby Council Bluffs Iowa transit company, and tried to weaken the union's effectiveness by splitting the workers.

But Local 223 rose to the occasion by conducting a hard-hitting organizing and education effort among the Council Bluffs workers. It paid off with a smashing TWU NLRB election victory. A new contract covering the recently merged work force secured the highest pay rates in this Midwest region.

Today, Local 223 continues to represent transit workers in Omaha.