Word: laborer
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...with queasy stomachs had no place one afternoon last week on the overpass at the No. 4 gate of Henry Ford's great River Rouge plant." So began TIME's account of the Battle of the Overpass, the confrontation that made May 26, 1937, a red-letter day in labor history and brought to national attention a young United Auto Workers official named Walter P. Reuther...
...pictures, ironically, capture the wrong image of Walter Reuther. While he arrived on the national scene as a scuffler with blood on his face, he would evolve into one of labor's most dynamic and innovative leaders, as well as a humanitarian whose impact ranged well beyond his field. His achievements were guided by his oft expressed philosophy of human endeavor: "There is no greater calling than to serve your fellow men. There is no greater contribution than to help the weak. There is no greater satisfaction than to have done it well." Reuther believed it wholeheartedly and, as they...
Reuther was 29 in 1936, when he became president of Local 174. It was a tumultuous period in labor history, when the U.A.W. literally fought for survival. Reuther became one of the union's generals, directing a series of sit-down strikes and other guerrilla tactics to try to organize auto plants. He soon gained national prominence and even entry into President Roosevelt's White House. He and his wife May also became great friends of Eleanor Roosevelt's. It's not difficult to see why he was welcome. In 1940, a year before Pearl Harbor, he proposed converting available...
...U.A.W. convention, Reuther emerged as president in a closely fought race, on a platform against Soviet communist "outside interference" and for a new, more socially conscious approach to collective bargaining. He pledged to work for "a labor movement whose philosophy demands that it fight for the welfare of the public at large...We won the war. The task now is to win the peace." Two years later, a would-be assassin, for reasons still unknown, fired shots through Reuther's kitchen window, shattering his right...
...president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, Reuther negotiated a historic merger with the American Federation of Labor, headed by George Meany. Reuther then headed up the AFL-CIO's Industrial Union Department, but 13 years later, sharp differences over policy and programs led to the U.A.W.'s withdrawal from the organization--it would stay out until reaffiliating...