Walter Reuther (1907 - 1970)

Sun Sep 01, 1907

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Walter Reuther, born on this day in 1907, was an American leader of organized labor and civil rights activist who helped build the United Automobile Workers (UAW) into a politically progressive labor union.

Reuther saw labor movements not as narrow special interest groups but as instruments to advance the causes of social justice and human rights.

Reuther leveraged the UAW’s resources and influence to advocate for workers’ rights, civil rights, women’s rights, universal health care, public education, affordable housing, environmental stewardship and nuclear nonproliferation around the world. Reuther survived two attempted assassinations, including one at home where he was struck by a 12-gauge shotgun blast fired through his kitchen window.

Reuther was an ally of MLK Jr. and César Chavez, marching with the former on several occasions. A lifetime environmentalist, Reuther also played a critical role in funding and organizing the first Earth Day on April 22nd, 1970.

Despite Reuther’s advocacy for social justice, he did not seek systemic change. Socialist autoworker Beatrice Hansen had this to say of Reuther in 1955:

"Yes, Reuther, like the capitalists, is satisfied to live with things substantially as they are, instead of fighting to change things fundamentally, the way [Eugene V. ] Debs did. Reuther shrugged his shoulders after the Ford settlement and said, ‘You never get everything.’

What a far cry that is from Eugene Debs, whose mission it was to educate the workers so that they would not stop fighting and would not be satisfied until they had succeeded in forever wiping the system of wage exploitation from the face of the earth!"

Reuther died in plane crash on May 9th, 1970, and when an inspection revealed that parts of the plane were installed incorrectly, some speculated he had been assassinated. Public intellectual Michael Parenti wrote “Reuther’s demise appears as part of a truncation of liberal and radical leadership that included the deaths of four national figures: President John Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Senator Robert Kennedy.”

“There is no greater calling than to serve your fellow man. There is no greater contribution than to help the weak. There is no greater satisfaction than to have done it well.”

- Walter Reuther