Walter P. Reuther:Important
American,
Labor Leader,

erhaps one of the most influential labor leaders in the twentieth century, Walter P. Reuther was born in Wheeling, West Virginia on September 1, 1907. He left high school at fifteen to become an apprentice toolmaker to help support his family. He moved to Detroit in 1926 and worked at the Briggs Manufacturing Company and the Ford Motor Company. In Detroit, Reuther became intensely involved in the newly-formed United Automobile Workers Union, founding and becoming the first president of the West Side Local 174, and at the 1936 convention he was elected to the International Executive Board. At the 1942 convention he was elected a vice president.

He was a leader with his brothers, Victor and Roy, in the General Motors sit-down strikes of 1936 and 1937. Reuther served as director of the General Motors Department of the UAW from 1939 to 1948. He also served as director of the Fair Practices and Anti-Discrimination Departments.

Even before the United States' entry into World War II, Reuther conceived the idea of mass production of military planes using automobile plant facilities. Despite initial opposition by industry, the Reuther Plan,as it was known, was implemented once the country entered the war.

After the war, Reuther demanded a wage increase in negotiations with General Motors, coupled with the stipulation that GM not pass the cost along to the consumer through increased prices which would erode the advantage gained for the workers and contribute to inflation. Reuther failed to commit GM to this principle despite a 113-day strike, but the confrontation established him as an innovative negotiator whose sights were set on broader goals than those of traditional unionists.

At the UAW convention in March of 1946, Reuther was elected president of the UAW, an office he would hold for twenty-four years. Later that year, he was elected a vice president of the CIO.

In 1952 Reuther succeeded Philip Murray as president of the CIO, and he led in efforts to merge the CIO and the AFL, which came about in December of 1955. He then became a vice president of the AFL-CIO and president of the Industrial Union Department. Disagreements over social issues, organizing unorganized workers, international labor and foreign policy, the Vietnam War and other matters, in which Reuther urged a more activist stance, led to the withdrawal of the UAW from the AFL-CIO in 1968. In 1969 the UAW formed the Alliance for Labor Action with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in order to further some of the programs Reuther had advocated while in the AFL-CIO.

Under Reuthers leadership, the UAW gained for its members the guaranteed annual wage, supplemental unemployment benefits, cost-of-living provisions, pension plans, health insurance for workers and their families, and profit-sharing plans. During his twenty-four-year administration, the UAW established its identity as a powerful, well-organized union, successful in protecting the rights and interests of its members, yet responsive to its social responsibilities. Reuther worked for improved housing, better education, medical care, consumer rights and environmental causes, and was an active participant in the civil rights movement from its inception. His career was cut short when he and his wife, May, were killed in a plane crash in May 1970.