UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AEROSPACE AND AGRICULTURAL ...

also called (194162) United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, or (193541) United Automobile Workers of America (UAW) American industrial union of automotive and other vehicular workers, headquartered in Detroit, Mich. The United Automobile Workers was a product of the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO), which began to organize automotive workers with the passage of the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) in 1935. As long as the constitutionality of the act remained in doubt, the industry refused to yield; the union's rank-and-file organizers retaliated by importing from France the technique of the sit-down strike. The success of this tactic, together with President Franklin D. Roosevelt's overwhelming success in the election of 1936 and the sustaining of the Wagner Act by the Supreme Court the following year, prompted General Motors to change its policy. The company agreed to accept the UAW as the bargaining agent for its employees, whereupon most of the rest of the industry followed suit. Some years of violent conflict ensued before the Ford Motor Company and the UAW finally came to terms in 1941, however. Walter Reuther, an early and vigorous organizer, became president of the union in 1946 and held that position until his death in 1970. (He also became president of the CIO in 1952.) Under Reuther's leadership, the UAW signed a series of multiyear contracts with the major automotive manufacturers that set the standard for all industrial unions in the United States. These guaranteed wages adjusted to the cost of living, health plans and annual vacations, and even unemployment benefits supplementing those paid by the government. When the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the CIO merged in 1955, Reuther held positions making him second only to George Meany, president of the combined AFL-CIO. Their relationship was uneasy, and in 1967 the friction between the two men broke into the open. As a result, the UAW withdrew from the AFL-CIO that year and joined the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in a new alliance. Dissatisfaction with the corruption in the Teamsters, however, led to dissolution of the alliance in 1972. In 1981 the UAW reaffiliated with the AFL-CIO. The union subsequently had to concede some of its members' vaunted economic benefits in order to help American car manufacturers compete against foreign imports. This policy provoked the separation of Canadian autoworkers from the parent body in 198586.