a revote was done three months later and the contract was overwhelmingly approved. However, the MTA has said the contract is off the table and sought binding arbitration in settling the negotiation, which ended on December 15, 2006, almost a year after the strike. Expansion Transit workers in Long Island, New York, in Akron and Columbus, Ohio, in Omaha, Nebraska, and in Hackensack, New Jersey joined the union around 1941. After a seven-year struggle to organize, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania joined the TWU in 1944; Houston, Texas in 1947, and San Francisco, California in 1950. Ann Arbor, Michigan and Miami, Florida joined much later. Expansion also came in the form of other industries, namely, the railroads, air transportation; public utility and university service employees also joined the union. In 1941 Brooklyn Union Gas employees joined, followed by the blue collar workers of Columbia University two years later. In 1945 the workers of Pan American World Airways joined the TWU with the union's successful negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement, three years in the making. Workers of American Airlines joined a year later, in 1946. In 1954 members of the United Railroad Workers Organizing Committee, formed in 1943 by the old CIO, voted to join the TWU. Today the union represents employees of many other railroad companies, including Conrail, Amtrak, SEPTA, Metro North, and PATH. List of International Union presidents Michael J. Quill, 1934–1966 Matthew Guinan, 1966–1979 William G. Lindner, 1979–1985 John E. Lawe, 1985–1989 George E. Leitz, 1989–1993 Sonny Hall, 1993–2004 Michael O'Brien, 2004–2006 James Little, 2006–2013 Harry Lombardo, 2013–2017 John Samuelsen 2017–present See also Communists in the U.S. Labor Movement (1919–1937) Communists in the U.S. Labor Movement (1937–1950) 1966 New York City transit strike 1980 New York City transit strike 2005 New York City transit strike References Freeman, Joshua B., In Transit: The Transport Workers Union in New York City, 1933-1966, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Quill, Shirley, Mike Quill, Himself : a Memoir, Greenwich, Connecticut: Devin-Adair, 1985 Whittemore, L.H., The Man Who Ran the Subways; The Story of Mike Quill, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968 External links TWU Local 100 Official history of TWU Local 100's history of the TWU An Irish unionist's appreciation of Quill Transportation Pension Resource AFL–CIO Road transport trade unions Trade unions established in 1934 Transportation trade unions in the United States 1934 establishments in the United States