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Building a Union
Walter P. Reuther helped to unite autoworkers

By Karen English
From Tomorrow Annual Meeting Issue

Appropriately, Walter Reuther was born just in time for Labor Day, on September 1, 1907, in industrial Wheeling, W. Va. His hardworking German immigrant parents were dedicated union supporters who taught their children to work for social justice.

At 16, Reuther became an apprentice die maker. Three years later he moved to Detroit and found a job on Ford's second shift. Off the clock, he finished school, always finding time for the struggle to unionize his adopted city.

Reuther's politics may have cost him his job when the Depression hit. But he took the layoff as an opportunity for an educational tour of Europe.

Reuther at a 1964 Detroit press conference with former UAW President Leonard Woodcock (left).

Returning in 1935, he found that the Roosevelt administration was encouraging unions. Previous attempts to organize autoworkers in the 1920s, including the Auto Workers Union Reuther had joined, hadn't made much progress.

But the Depression changed things, and when the United Auto Workers held its first conference in 1935, it found an eager audience. In the fall, Local 174 was chartered, drawing from many plants. Reuther, then just 29 years old, was elected president.

Reuther worked with the UAW to get the Big Three to the bargaining table. Encouraged by its success in organizing General Motors in 1937, the union took on Chrysler, which signed its first agreement that same year.

The UAW then moved in on Ford, a tougher target. Reuther and a few colleagues were passing out leaflets at the River Rouge plant when they were attacked by Ford "security guards." Even though the union men had a permit to pass out handbills, nearby police didn't stop the beating. Press photos of the brutality aroused public sympathy for the union and helped immortalize this bloody "Battle of the Overpass" in labor history.

During WWII, Reuther worked to keep defense production high while protecting workers. He was also an adviser to the Roosevelt administration, where his intelligence and idealism served the interests of both labor and Western democracy.

The end of the war unleashed a wave of pent-up labor issues, and in 1946 Reuther rode that wave to the presidency of the UAW, an office he held for 24 years. Under his watch, the UAW matured as an industrial union and a strong presence in the international labor movement.

But Reuther's tenure was not untroubled. The worst moment was an assassination attempt in 1948 that left him severely wounded. Undeterred, Reuther recovered to lead an increasingly united union during a period of growth -- the late 1940s to 1970.

Reuther's dream was an educational center that would nurture effective union leaders. This center was nearly completed in 1970, when Reuther and his wife, May, were killed in a plane crash.

Today, the busy Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center in Onaway, Mich., is the perfect memorial to this dedicated leader.