Quinn, Thomas J.

Thomas J. Quinn was born August 10, 1917 in Pittsburgh, Pa.From 1940 to 1954 he worked as an arc welder at the East Pittsburgh plant of Westinghouse. In 1940 Quinn joined the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE). From 1944-47 he served as a section steward in UE local 601 at the Westinghouse plant in East Pittsburgh. Quinn ran for the Pennsylvania Legislature on the Progressive Party ticket headed by Henry Wallace in 1948. By 1949, Quinn's active participation in the left-led UE caused him to be investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). During the HUAC investigation Quinn cited the Fifth Amendment and was charged with contempt of Congress. These charges were dropped in 1954 after several appeals and with the assistance of the UE National Defense Committee. From 1954-62 Quinn acted as UE field organizer for Western Pennsylvania. From 1962-74 Quinn served as business agent for UE Local 610, which represented workers at Westinghouse Airbrake in Wilmerding, Pa. and Union Switch and Signal in Swissvale. In 1974 Quinn left the UE to join the Pennsylvania Bureau of Mediation, and in 1979 assumed the directorship of the Bureau. During the 1980s Quinn provided labor historians with first hand accounts of his experiences in labor organizing and as the object of investigations by the House Un-American Activities Committee. In addition, Quinn wrote a chapter in the book It Did Happen Here: Recollections of Political Repression in America (edited by Bud and Ruth Schultz, U. Cal. Press, Berkeley, 1989). In 1987 a fund for the UE/Labor Archives was established in Thomas Quinn's honor, and he received a lifetime achievement award from Indiana University of Pennsylvania for outstanding personal contributions to peaceful industrial relations.