The rapidly growing airline industry was a new frontier for many American workers in the 1940s, as it was for the TWU. Many aviation workers saw themselves as pioneers in a new romantic field and air companies took advantage of this, acting as if working for their companies was a privilege. People spent a lot of time and money training for “Airman” certificates and on job training, but could only secure jobs that paid meager wages and required long hours.

A number of airline industry unions formed and reformed between the 1920s and 1940s, but until TWU organized workers in 1944, none of the attempted unions had achieved much progress.

By the end of World War II, most airline employees were working long hours under poor conditions for terribly low wages, despite many attempts at unionization and airlines’ inclusion into the Railway Labor Act in 1936. Employees were working a normal week of 48 hours with time and a half paid for overtime, but at a distressing wage rate.

As the airline industry grew in the postwar years, employees began to see that their pay, benefits, and working conditions lagged behind those in unionized occupations. As airline employees felt a strong need for unionization, TWU’s subway and bus operations organizers started spreading the union gospel among friends and relatives in the burgeoning airline industry. TWU’s Air Transport Division emerged out of these conditions which has helped shape what the Division is today.

In 1945 TWU chartered a new Local in Miami, Florida to represent ground service employees at the nation’s premier carrier of the day Pan American World Airways. The first TWU ATD contract brought the industry’s initial 40-hour week with no reduction in pay. This historic achievement benefited not only the Pan American workers immediately involved, but was responsible for the establishment of the basic 40-hour week in all other U.S. airlines in the succeeding months. Soon, TWU had chartered similar locals in New York, San Francisco and several other cities. The union’s historic first contract with Pan Am, signed in September 1945, signaled the emergence of TWU as a new force to be reckoned with in the industry.

In the late 1940s, TWU continued to organize other job titles and ensure the opportunity for effective bargaining for better wages, hours and working conditions, and soon became the certified bargaining agent for all Pan Am ground and most flight service personnel.

In 1946 the Union won elections by huge margins and organized employees at American Airlines. The new locals covered maintenance, fleet service and stores workers.

Before TWU, airline employees could not even spend Thanksgiving with their families, but the ATD pioneered the five day week for its early airline members, and established some of the highest wage rates in the industry with its 1947 and 1948 contracts. The Division also managed to use the adjustment machinery under the Railway Labor Act to handle grievances and disputes more effectively than any other organization involved in the Act. The new contracts also established a seniority system to govern job bids, paid vacations, holidays, overtime compensation, and shift differentials.

In the 60 years since its first historic accomplishments in the airline industry, the ATD has scored many victories, including the organizing of Southwest flight attendants in 1975, which through tough bargaining and solid representation helped Local 556 to be a leader among flight attendant groups in the industry; and TWU’s merger with the independent association at Southwest known as ROPA, representing the Ramp, Operations, and Provisioning Agents which formed Local 555, chartered on November 1, 1996. The ATD has seen some bitter losses as well, most notably the shutdowns of Eastern Airlines and Pan Am less than a year apart in 1991.

Today, TWU represents 50,000 workers in the airline industry in almost all class and crafts. We maintain contracts for our members at American, Continental, US Airways, United, Southwest, AirTran, Spirit, Frontier, Ogden Allied, Johnson Controls, Aloha, Hawaiian, Horizon, Alaska Air, at some military bases and most of the flight dispatchers craft in the industry. The ATD is working hard today to maintain fair workers rights in the midst of hard times for America’s airline industry.