Michael John Quill was an Irish immigrant born in County Kerry in the southwest of Ireland, September 18, 1905, an Irish Catholic farm kid who was IRA all the way.  Quill died of a heart attack in New York on January 28, 1966, sixty years ago, right after leading a historic and important strike by the Transport Workers Union. He was jailed for violating the infamous Taylor Law prohibiting strikes by public employees. He died a few days after being released from jail. At the time, many of us thought that Mike had been murdered. The judge knew he had a weak heart and that jail could kill him. 

In 1966 I was a college student at the University of Wisconsin and a part-time casual in a Teamster warehouse called Central States Warehouse and Storage in Madison. This was a time of great turmoil and struggle. Malcolm X had been assassinated in February, 1965.  James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in the summer of 1964.  And Viola Liuzzo was also murdered by the Klan in March of 1965.  The war in Vietnam was raging and escalating with 100 or more young Americans dying every day. In the midst of these roiling historical moments I found great inspiration in the actions and leadership of Mike Quill.

On December 29, 1965 Quill announced that the TWU would not bargain with the City of New York after midnight on New Year’s Eve. That afternoon Quill was served with papers telling him he had to explain in court why the union should not be stopped from striking. Quill called the press and went on TV that night and tore the summons up. Quill’s union put over 8,000 workers on the street stopping NYC from moving 6,280 subways cars at 481 stations and over 720 miles of track. He acted in defiance of a court order and went to jail. On Day 4 of the strike Quill suffered a heart attack and was transferred to Bellevue hospital. The strike lasted 12 days and resulted in a great victory. Quill was sent to Mt Sinai after settlement and rested there until he was released on January 25. He died three days later at home.

Mike Quill was one of the strongest and most effective labor organizers in the United States. He militantly pushed for industrial unionism and led many strikes. He was a significant leader of the CIO and of public employees as well as of contracted transit workers. A great advocate for racial equality, Quill was an early negotiator of non-discriminatory language in collective bargaining agreements.  His youthful work as a courier for the IRA (Irish Republican Army) showed an early hostility to colonialism, and he remained a lifetime fighter against imperialism.  He was an inspiration to thousands of youth and adults. Studying his life and actions will help us deal with the current Fascist threat and Gestapo tactics we are facing in the United States. Viva industrial unionism! Viva Mike Quill!
 

Learn about Mike Quill:

– Mike Quill Himself: A Memoir by Shirley Quill (his wife and coworker)

– In Transit: The Transport Workers Union in New York City, 1933-1966 by Joshua B. Freeman

– A Mighty Union: Quill, Connolly, and the TWU by Lorcan Collins

Patrick Kelly was born in Northwest Iowa at a time when the private sector was between 30 and 40% unionized. He joined The Teamsters in 1966 (same year Quill died) in New York City. He became a job steward under the National Master Freight Agreement in 1973 and an elected business agent in 1978. Kelly worked for the Teamsters beginning in 1978 and still serves as a Union Trustee on the Western Teamsters Welfare Trust Fund. He was a Iowa Delegate to the 2024 Chicago Democratic Convention.