REUTHER, WALTER (PHILIP)

born Sept. 1, 1907, Wheeling, W.Va., U.S. died May 9, 1970, Pellston, Mich. leading U.S. labour leader who was president of the United Automobile Workers (UAW) and of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and was active in national and international affairs. An effective negotiator of wages-and-hours improvements for the UAW, he led in winning various bargaining gains for them, such as annual wage improvements based on productivity advance, cost-of-living increases, supplementary unemployment benefits, early retirement, and health and welfare benefits. Born the son of a trade-union and Socialist activist, Reuther became an apprentice tool and die maker in Wheeling at the age of 16 and, upon moving to Detroit at 19, became a tool and die craftsman and was soon promoted to a foreman's post; in his free time he finished high school and completed three years of college. For three years during the 1930s, Reuther, with his brother Victor, travelled around the world, working for almost two years in an automobile factory in the Soviet Union. Thereafter he was highly critical of the lack of freedom in Communist society and fought the Communist elements in the UAW and CIO. As president of his local union on the west side of Detroit, Reuther was one of the leaders of the sit-down strikes that established the UAW as a power in the automotive industry. He became director of the General Motors Department of the UAW in 1939 and was president of the union from 1946 until his death. In 1952 Reuther succeeded Philip Murray as president of the CIO, in that position becoming an architect of the AFL-CIO merger in 1955. Elected a vice-president of the merged federation and president of its Industrial Union Department, he held positions making him second only to George Meany, president of the combined AFL-CIO. At the same time, Reuther served as vice president of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, a counterforce to the Communist-controlled World Federation of Trade Unions. In the meantime Reuther's relations with Meany, whom he criticized for dictatorial control, conservatism, and inaction, had deteriorated. In 1968 Reuther led the UAW out of the federation, in the following year launching the Alliance for Labor Action in cooperation with the Teamsters, a union that had been expelled earlier from the labour federation for corruption. In 1970 Reuther and his wife were killed when their chartered plane crashed in fog and rain near Pellston, Mich.