Walter Philip Reuther (September 1, 1907 – May 9, 1970) was an American
labor unionLabor unions in the United States are legally recognized as representatives of workers in many industries. The most prominent unions are among public sector employees such as teachers and police...
leader, who made the United Automobile Workers a major force not only in the auto industry but also in the
Democratic PartyThe Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
in the mid 20th century. He was a socialist in the early 1930s becoming a leading liberal and supporter of the
New Deal coalitionThe New Deal Coalition was the alignment of interest groups and voting blocs that supported the New Deal and voted for Democratic presidential candidates from 1932 until the late 1960s. It made the Democratic Party the majority party during that period, losing only to Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952...
.
Early life
Reuther was born in
Wheeling, West VirginiaWheeling is a city in Ohio and Marshall counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia; it is the county seat of Ohio County. Wheeling is the principal city of the Wheeling Metropolitan Statistical Area...
, the son of a socialist brewery worker who had immigrated from Germany. Throughout his career he was close to his brothers and co-workers Victor Reuther and Roy Reuther. Reuther joined the Ford Motor Company in 1927 as an expert tool and die maker but was laid off in 1932 as the
Great DepressionThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
worsened. His Ford employment record states that he quit voluntarily, but Reuther himself always maintained that he was fired for his increasingly visible socialist activities. He and his brothers went to Europe and then worked 1933-35 in an auto plant at
GorkyNizhny Novgorod , colloquially shortened to Nizhny, is, with the population of 1,250,615, the fifth largest city in Russia, ranking after Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, and Yekaterinburg...
in the Soviet Union. While a committed socialist, he never became a
CommunistCommunism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
. At the end of the trip he wrote, "the atmosphere of freedom and security, shop meetings with their proletarian industrial
democracyDemocracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
; all these things make an inspiring contrast to what we know as Ford wage slaves in Detroit. What we have experienced here has reeducated us along new and more practical lines." Unhappy with the lack of political freedom in Russia, Reuther returned to the United States where he found employment at General Motors and became an active member of the United Automobile Workers (UAW).
Reuther was a
Socialist PartyThe Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
member; he may have paid dues to the Communist Party for some months in 1935-36; he has been accused of attending a Communist Party planning meeting as late as February 1939. Reuther cooperated with the Communists in the later 1930s; this was the period of the
Popular FrontA popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...
, and they agreed with him on internal issues of the UAW; but his associations were with anti-Stalinist Socialists.
Reuther remained active in the Socialist Party and in 1937 failed in his attempt to be elected to the Detroit Common Council. However, impressed by the efforts by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to tackle inequality, he eventually joined the Democratic Party.
Union career
In 1936 he became president of tiny local 174 (with 100 members), which on paper had responsibility for 100,000 auto workers on the west side of
Detroit, MichiganDetroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
. Reuther led several strikes and in 1937 and 1940 was hospitalized after being badly beaten by strike-breakers. He also survived two assassination attempts, and his right hand was permanently crippled in an attack on April 20, 1948.
He had a highly publicized confrontation with Ford security forces on May 26, 1937, also known as the Battle of the Overpass. By this time, thanks to the sit-down strikes, UAW membership had exploded and Local 174 was a power inside the UAW. As a senior
union organizerA union organizer is a specific type of trade union member or an appointed union official. A majority of unions appoint rather than elect their organizers....
, Reuther helped win major strikes for union recognition against General Motors in 1940 and Ford in 1941.
After
Pearl HarborPearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
, Reuther strongly supported the war effort and refused to tolerate wildcat strikes that might disrupt munitions production. He worked for the War Manpower Commission, the Office of Production Management, and the War Production Board. He led a 113-day strike against General Motors in 1945-1946; it only partially succeeded. He never received the power he wanted to inspect company books or have a say in management, but he achieved increasingly lucrative wage and benefits contracts. In 1946 he narrowly defeated R. J. Thomas for the UAW presidency, and soon after he purged the UAW of all Communist elements. He was active in the
Congress of Industrial OrganizationsThe Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
(CIO) umbrella as well, taking the lead in expelling eleven communist-led unions from the CIO in 1949.
As a prominent figure in the anti-Communist left, he was a founder of the
Americans for Democratic ActionAmericans for Democratic Action is an American political organization advocating progressive policies. ADA works for social and economic justice through lobbying, grassroots organizing, research and supporting progressive candidates.-History:...
in 1947. He became president of the CIO in 1952, and negotiated a merger with George Meany and the American Federation of Labor immediately after, which took effect in 1955. In 1949 he led the CIO delegation to the London conference that set up the
International Confederation of Free Trade UnionsThe International Confederation of Free Trade Unions was an international trade union. It came into being on 7 December 1949 following a split within the World Federation of Trade Unions , and was dissolved on 31 October 2006 when it merged with the World Confederation of Labour to form the...
in opposition to the Communist-dominated
World Federation of Trade UnionsThe World Federation of Trade Unions was established in 1945 to replace the International Federation of Trade Unions. Its mission was to bring together trade unions across the world in a single international organization, much like the United Nations...
. He had left the Socialist party in 1939, and throughout the 1950s and 1960s was a leading spokesman for liberal interests in the CIO and in the Democratic party.
Reuther delivered contracts for his membership through brilliant negotiating tactics. He would pick one of the "Big three" automakers, and if it did not offer concessions, he would strike it and let the other two absorb its sales. Besides high hourly wage rates and paid vacations, Reuther negotiated these benefits for his union: employer-funded pensions (beginning in 1950 at Chrysler), medical insurance (beginning at GM in 1950), and supplementary unemployment benefits (beginning at Ford in 1955). Reuther tried to negotiate lower automobile prices for the consumer with each contract, with limited success (The Brothers Reuther, P. 249).
Toward the end of his life, when he took the UAW out of the
AFL-CIOThe American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...
for a short-lived alliance with the Teamsters Union, and marched with the
United Farm WorkersThe United Farm Workers of America is a labor union created from the merging of two groups, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee led by Filipino organizer Larry Itliong, and the National Farm Workers Association led by César Chávez...
in
Delano, CaliforniaDelano's climate is characteristic of the San Joaquin Valley. The weather is hot and dry during the summer and cool and damp in winter. Frequent ground fog known regionally as "tule fog" can obscure vision. Record temperatures range between 115°F and 14°F...
, Reuther seemed to be dissatisfied, looking for the ability to challenge the injustices that had made the union movement so vital in the 1930s. He strongly supported the Civil Rights movement; Reuther was an active supporter of African American civil rights and participated in both the March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs (August, 1963) and the Selma to Montgomery March (March, 1965). He stood beside Martin Luther King Jr. while he made the "
I Have A Dream"I Have a Dream" is a 17-minute public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered on August 28, 1963, in which he called for racial equality and an end to discrimination...
" speech, during the 1963 March on Washington. Although critical of the
Vietnam WarThe Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, he supported Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey in 1968, and met weekly with President Johnson during 1964-1965. He was instrumental in mobilizing UAW resources to minimize the threat that
George WallaceGeorge Corley Wallace, Jr. was the 45th Governor of Alabama, serving four terms: 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. "The most influential loser" in 20th-century U.S. politics, according to biographers Dan T. Carter and Stephan Lesher, he ran for U.S...
would win more than 10 percent of union votes (Wallace won about 9 percent in the North).
Death
On May 9, 1970, Reuther, his wife May, architect
Oscar StonorovOscar Gregory Stonorov , was a modernist architect and architectural writer, historian and archivist who emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1929.His first name is often spelled "Oskar".-Early life:...
, and also a bodyguard, the pilot and co-pilot were killed when their chartered Lear-Jet crashed in flames at 9:33 P.M. Michigan time. The plane, arriving from Detroit in rain and fog, was on final approach to the
Pellston, MichiganPellston is a village in Emmet County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 771 at the 2000 census. The village is the home of Pellston Regional Airport. Its motto is "Icebox of the Nation"; Pellston recorded the state of Michigan's record low temperature, a frigid -53°F...
, airstrip near the union's recreational and educational facility at
Black LakeBlack Lake is located in Cheboygan and Presque Isle counties in Northern Michigan. With a surface area of 10,130 acres , it is the seventh largest inland lake in Michigan. The largest body of water in the Black River watershed, it drains through the Lower Black and Cheboygan Rivers into Lake Huron...
, Michigan.
In October 1968, a year and a half before the fatal crash, Reuther and his brother Victor were almost killed in a small private plane as it approached Dulles airport. Both incidents are amazingly similar; the altimeter in the fatal crash was believed to have malfunctioned. When Victor Reuther was interviewed many years after the fatal crash he said "I and other family members are convinced that both the fatal crash and the near fatal one in 1968 were not accidental." The FBI still refuses to turn over nearly 200 pages of documents pertaining to Walter Reuther's death, and correspondence between field offices and J. Edgar Hoover.
Walter Reuther appears in
TimeTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
He was awarded the
Presidential Medal of FreedomThe Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with thecomparable Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award in the United States...
posthumously in 1995 by President
Bill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
.
I-696 In
Metro DetroitThe Detroit metropolitan area, often referred to as Metro Detroit, is the metropolitan area located in Southeast Michigan centered on the city of Detroit which shares an international border with Windsor, Ontario. The Detroit metropolitan area is the second largest U.S. metropolitan area...
is named the
Walter P. Reuther Freeway.
Reuther and the 1964 Chicken Tax
- Reuther played a role in a historic episode during the early 1960's, known as the Chicken War. France and West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
had placed tariffs on imports of U.S. chicken. Diplomacy failed and in January 1964, two months after taking office, President JohnsonLyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
imposed a 25% tax (almost 10 times the average U.S. tariff) on potato starchPotato starch is starch extracted from potatoes. The cells of the root tubers of the potato plant contain starch grains . To extract the starch, the potatoes are crushed; the starch grains are released from the destroyed cells...
, dextrinDextrins are a group of low-molecular-weight carbohydrates produced by the hydrolysis of starch or glycogen. Dextrins are mixtures of polymers of D-glucose units linked by α- or α- glycosidic bonds....
, brandyBrandy is a spirit produced by distilling wine. Brandy generally contains 35%–60% alcohol by volume and is typically taken as an after-dinner drink...
, and light truckLight truck or light duty truck is a U.S. classification for trucks or truck-based vehicles with a payload capacity of less than 4,000 pounds...
s. Officially, the tax targeted items imported from Europe as approximating the value of lost American chicken sales to Europe.
In retrospect, audio tapes from the Johnson White House, revealed a
quid pro quoQuid pro quo most often means a more-or-less equal exchange or substitution of goods or services. English speakers often use the term to mean "a favour for a favour" and the phrases with almost identical meaning include: "give and take", "tit for tat", "this for that", and "you scratch my back,...
unrelated to chicken. In January 1964, President Johnson attempted to persuade Reuther not to initiate a strike just prior to the 1964 election and to support the president's civil rights platform. Reuther in turn wanted Johnson to respond to
VolkswagenVolkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer and is the original and biggest-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, which now also owns the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, and Škoda marques and the truck manufacturer Scania.Volkswagen means "people's car" in German, where it is...
's increased shipments to the United States.
The Chicken Tax directly curtailed importation of German-built
Volkswagen Type 2The Volkswagen Type 2, officially known as the Transporter or Kombi informally as Bus or Camper , was a panel van introduced in 1950 by German automaker Volkswagen as its second car model – following and initially deriving from Volkswagen's first model, the Type 1 , it was given the factory...
vans in configurations that qualified them as light trucks — that is, commercial vans and pickups.
In 1964 U.S. imports of "automobile trucks" from West Germany declined to a value of $5.7 million—about one-third the value imported in the previous year. Soon after, Volkswagen cargo vans and pickup trucks, the intended targets, "practically disappeared from the U.S. market." As of 2009, the Chicken tax remains in effect.
Secondary sources
- Barnard, John. American Vanguard: The United Auto Workers during the Reuther Years, 1935-1970. Wayne State U. Press, 2004. 607 pp.
- Boyle, Kevin. The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945-1968 (1995)
- Carew, Anthony. Walter Reuther(1993)
- Kornhauser, Arthur et al. When Labor Votes: A Study of Auto Workers (1956)
- Goode, Bill. Infighting in the UAW: The 1946 Election and the Ascendancy of Walter Reuther (1994)
- Lichtenstein, Nelson. The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor (1995)
- Parenti, Michael and Peggy Norton. The Wonderful Life and Strange Death of Walter Reuther.(1996)
- Zieger, Robert H. The CIO, 1935-1955 (1995)
Primary sources
- Christman, Henry M. ed. Walter P. Reuther: Selected Papers (1961)
- Ruether, Victor "The Brothers Ruether and The Story of the UAW: A Memoir" (1976)
- infoplease
External links