In the late 70’s and early 80’s, American Airlines was servicing Miami passengers with B-707 and B-727 aircrafts. American only had management personnel at the station and all of the ground service was contracted to Dispatch Services, a ground service company.
In 1983, American Airlines opened the Miami station to TWU employees from the system. Employees from the company transfered to Miami and were given a twelve thousand five hundred bonus for transferring to the station. Not many employees from the system decided to transfer to Miami and American back filled the vacancies with new hire employees from Dispatch Services that had previously been in servicing American Airlines at Miami Interrnational Airport. American hired approximately twenty ground workers and aquired appoximatly fifteen transfered employees. Hence, American commenced its ground service with thirty five fleet service clerks that were affiliated with the Transport Workers Union Local 513 based in Dallas Fort Worth Texas. The union body at Miami was composed of a section chairman and various union stewards.
Throughout the following years, all of the contractual concerns and grievances were settled through the local union at DFW. In the late eighties after the closing of Eastern Airlines and then Pan American Airways, American Airlines purchased the south and central American routes from Eastern Airlines and Pan Am. The Miami station was expanding at an incredible rate and new employees were hired from the Miami area along with many former Eastern and Pan American employees. Consequently, the station grew from thirty five initial ground employees to over twelve hundred.
In 1990, local union representatives began talks with union officials of local 513 (DFW) and voiced concerns about the size of the station and the logistical intricacies of representation at Miami with an excess of twelve hundred members. The DFW local executive board members began to explore the feasibility of Miami creating its own local union and agreed that the time had come for Miami to have its own Local union. As a result, Local 513 gave members of the Miami station a forty thousand dollars gift to initiate its own local start up and elections.
In 1991 the TWU International approved the organization of Local 568 and bylaws were created and an election ensued.
