Word: reuther
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...first man to propose publicly that this emphasis be reversed was not a businessman, but a labor leader. Walter Reuther, youthful vice president of U.A.W., is the kind of labor leader Westbrook Pegler has yet to dope out. He was seriously concerned about two things: 1) Hitler, 2) the fact than when the U.S. ran short of materials, it would cost his autoworkers jobs. As early as December 1940 he proposed to beat Hitler and secure the jobs by converting auto plants to the mass production of planes...
...Reuther plan was replete with technical impossibilities, which OPM was quick to point out. It also contained a practical idea-the idea of conversion-about which OPM did nothing. Wrote Walter Lippmann eleven months later: "That piece of Philistinism cost us not merely an unconscionable delay in using the resources of the motor industry but it cost us the enthusiastic participation of labor in national defense...
...days after Pearl Harbor, Reuther was back on the radio, with a new version of his plan. He bluntly aired his fight with Knudsen, who had given him the brush-off by claiming that he had no authority to take him through an auto plant to count the convertible machines. His new proposal was that when G.M., Ford and Chrysler got big orders for identical 30-ton tanks, the three should pool their facilities and subcontract to each other. This is a method of simplifying production which many industries (under the name of the Lyttleton plan) have been forced...
...convention in Buffalo, last week pledged to Philip Murray support for reelection as president of C.I.O. Thus were chilled any hopes that John L. Lewis had nursed of wading in and regaining control of C.I.O. with the aid of the auto workers. Meanwhile Right-wingers, led by redheaded Walter Reuther won voting control of the auto union's executive board, and the delegates, who represented over half a million workers in or on the fringe of the defense program, backed the Administration's foreign policy, called for aid to all foes of Hitler. Communists, along with Fascists...
...they commanded a majority of votes. In one skirmish after another they routed the Lewis-Addes side. By week's end it was plain that Mr. Lewis was taking a pratfall. Showdown would be over ousting the Communists, beating George Addes, electing a new executive board with a Reuther majority on it. But the final showdown would be bigger than that. As the convention went into its second hot, tense week in Buffalo, behind the scenes the fight was on for control of U.S. labor...