Victor Reuther
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Victor George Reuther (January 1, 1912 – June 3, 2004) was a prominent international labor organizer. He was one of three Reuther brothers (
Walter Walter may refer to: People and fictional characters * Walter (name), including a list of people and fictional and mythical characters with the given name or surname * Little Walter, American blues harmonica player Marion Walter Jacobs (1930–19 ...
and Roy) who were lifelong members of the U.S. labor movement. His older brother Walter became the president of the
United Auto Workers The United Auto Workers (UAW), fully named International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico) and sou ...
union (UAW) and Victor became the head of that union's Education Dept. and an organizer on the international level. He was a proponent of
social democracy Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...
.


Early years

He was born in Wheeling,
West Virginia West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...
, the son of Anna (Stocker) and Valentine Reuther, a
socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
brewery worker who had immigrated from Germany. His father was a union activist and supporter of Eugene Debs, a socialist candidate for the presidency. He attended college as a freshman at
West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia, United States. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Ins ...
in Morgantown. Later, at the urging of his brother Walter, he attended what is now
Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public university, public research university in Detroit, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 375 programs. It is Michigan's third-l ...
. Subsequently, he then joined Walter on an extended trip to
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and
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, when the brothers worked in the Gorky Automotive Plant. The Reuthers were eventually
blacklisted Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list; if people are on a blacklist, then they are considere ...
and expelled from the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
after leading a
strike Strike may refer to: People *Strike (surname) * Hobart Huson, author of several drug related books Physical confrontation or removal *Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm * Airstrike, ...
, demanding safer working conditions. Returning to the United States in 1936, Victor took a job at the Kelsey-Hayes Wheel Company, in
Flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...
,
Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...
. It was there that he started to organize the workers into a union that would eventually become the UAW. Reuther lent his support and leadership to the 1936 General Motors Strike where he faced down the billy clubs and
tear gas Tear gas, also known as a lachrymatory agent or lachrymator (), sometimes colloquially known as "mace" after the Mace (spray), early commercial self-defense spray, is a chemical weapon that stimulates the nerves of the lacrimal gland in the ey ...
of the violent pro-company police. He was famous for driving around Flint in a car with a loudspeaker mounted on the roof, encouraging the striking workers who were occupying the factories. Reuther was then 24.
General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...
(GM) workers in Flint took action, and the strike eventually spread to over 100 other production facilities. During the strike, 90% of GM production was stopped for lack of parts and labor. The strike was eventually settled in February 1937, with many gains for the workers, but Victor had to leave town with his wife, Sophie (the union's first female organizer), to evade a warrant that had been issued for his arrest by a GM-owned
judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...
. He and Sophie ended up in
Anderson, Indiana Anderson is a city in and the county seat of Madison County, Indiana, United States. The population was 54,788 at the 2020 census. It is named after Chief William Anderson. The city is the headquarters of the Church of God and its Anderson ...
, to support another strike taking place there and another battle against thugs, corrupt police, and public officials "in the pocket" of the corporations that were determined to wipe the union out.


World War II

The United States entered
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
on December 7, 1941, and for millions of American workers, industrial production was converted to supplying war material. Reuther was among the first to sense the waste and extravagant spending that the large
corporations A corporation or body corporate is an individual or a group of people, such as an association or company, that has been authorized by the State (polity), state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law as ...
were engaging in now that they were getting lucrative military contracts. Reuther went to
Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
, and informed the Roosevelt (
New Deal The New Deal was a series of wide-reaching economic, social, and political reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, in response to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depressi ...
) Democrats of the idle machinery and infrastructure that could be turned over to military production, and subsequently there were much stricter controls on how, when, and where government allocations to private corporations could be spent.


Postwar

After the war, Reuther traveled to
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
and was instrumental in the reorganization of its
labor unions A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...
. Through the remainder of his life he continued to be a strong supporter of the union movement in Germany and the rest of Europe. In 1947, his brother Walter was elected as the president of the UAW. Shortly after that Victor became the head of the union's Education Department. He was a vocal advocate of the recruitment of women, minorities, and young people into leadership positions for the union. Reuther saw the positive results that offering further education to the rank-and-file workers would bring to the workplace and to future generations of workers.


Assassination Attempt

In 1949, Victor began receiving calls from the Detroit Police Department claiming that neighbors were complaining about his dogs barking. When he went outside to check on the dog, a parked car drove away from the front of his house. After the police issued a "final warning" he gave the dog to some friends. The next evening, while he was reading a newspaper, a shotgun-wielding assassin fired at him through a closed window, hitting Reuther in the face and upper body. Waking in the hospital Reuther told his surgeon, "Take my eye, or my arm or leg, but spare my tongue. I've got a living to make." Reuther lost an eye and the partial use of one arm but survived. The gunman was never caught. Even though the Detroit police had some very good eyewitness accounts and descriptions, they never followed up successfully on any of the leads. One neighbor offered descriptions of the shooter to police, but he was rejected and began receiving anonymous phone calls telling him to shut up. His brother Walter had earlier survived an April 1948 incident in which he was hit by a shotgun blast through his kitchen window. Reuther happened to turn towards his wife, and was hit in the arm instead of the chest and heart. That crime also was never solved.


Later life

Reuther recovered from the assassination attempt and continued to lead the union's Education Department for several more years. He was eventually named the UAW's International Director. He was active in the labor movement of many European countries, and became very well known in the Canadian union scene. His brother, Walter, was killed in a plane crash in 1970, and in 1973, Victor decided to retire and write his memoir "The Brothers Reuther and the Story of the UAW," which was published in 1976. He continued to speak at union conventions and rallies and earned much respect for his unyielding view that working people should always be making gains in terms of wages and working conditions. During the separation of the UAW and the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) in the mid-1980s, he was fully supportive of the Canadian workers' motives. He felt that the UAW had been giving too much in the way of concessions to the US corporations, and it was his belief that the Canadian union would set a good example for their US counterpart. He remained active well into his declining years and died in Washington at the age of 92.


Archives

His life and roles in the United Automobile Workers are documented through several archival collections at the Walter P. Reuther Library. Materials include personal papers, such as correspondence and notes, as well as administrative files relating to his activities in various UAW departments. Researchers are encouraged to find the collections at it
website


Bibliography

*Reuther, Sources G. "The Brothers Reuther and the Story of the UAW: A Memoir." Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976. *Reuther, Victor G. "Die Brueder Reuther. Eine Autobiographie sowie die Geschichte der amerikanischen Automobilarbeitergewerkschaft UAW." Koeln: Bund Verlag GmbH, 1989 *Reuther, Victor G. "Verraten in Gorki. Die Tragödie der ausländischen Arbeiter in den sowjetischen Autowerken in Gorki." Bonn: Verlag J.H.W. Dietz Nachf. GmbH, 2002 (in German)


References

* Barnard, John. ''American Vanguard: The United Auto Workers during the Reuther Years, 1935-1970.'' Wayne State U. Press, 2004. 607 pp. * Kempton, Murray. "The Reuther Brothers" in ''Part of Our Time: Some Ruins and Monuments of the Thirties'' (1955, repr. 1998, repr. 2004) * Zieger, Robert H. ''The CIO, 1935-1955'' (1995) {{DEFAULTSORT:Reuther, Victor Trade unionists from West Virginia West Virginia University alumni Wayne State University alumni United Auto Workers people American amputees 1912 births 2004 deaths People from Wheeling, West Virginia Walter Reuther