Reuther, Walter

Reuther, Walter (Philip)

(born Sept. 1, 1907, Wheeling, W.Va., U.S.—died May 9, 1970, Pellston, Mich.) U.S. labour leader. He became an apprentice tool- and diemaker at age 16. He traveled around the world in the 1930s, developing a lifelong distaste for communism after spending two years in a Soviet auto factory. He became a local union leader in Detroit, Mich., and helped organize sit-down strikes—during which he suffered brutal physical attacks—that made the United Automobile Workers (UAW) a power in the auto industry. As president of the UAW from 1946 until his death, he was an effective negotiator of wages-and-hours gains. He became president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1952 and was an architect of the AFL-CIO merger in 1955. He was second in power to George Meany at the AFL-CIO; however, their repeated clashes, partly stemming from Reuther's strong support for civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam War, resulted in Reuther's leading the UAW out of the AFL-CIO in 1968 and forming a short-lived federation with the Teamsters Union. He died in a plane crash.

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Reuther, Walter (Philip) (1907–70) labor leader; born in Wheeling, W.Va. He worked at a Ford plant (1927–32) and then went to the Soviet Union to work at the Gorki Auto plant (1933–35). On return to the U.S.A. he became one of the founders of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and took an active role in forcing General Motors to recognize the UAW. During World War II he solidified his reputation as a responsible labor leader and was elected UAW vice-president (1942–46) and then president (1946–70). After World War II he became an outspoken opponent of Communists in the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), to which the UAW belonged, and in 1952 he was elected president of the CIO. He worked for the merger with the AFL in 1955, but by 1968 he led the UAW out of the AFL-CIO because of differences with George Meany.