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UrbScotty

(23,979 posts)
Mon Feb 17, 2020, 05:40 PM Feb 2020

Former UAW President Owen Bieber dies at 90

Source: WOOD TV8

Owen Bieber, who led the United Auto Workers union from the auto industry’s dark days of the early 1980s to the prosperity of the mid-1990s, has died. He was 90.

Neither as charismatic as his predecessor, Douglas Fraser, nor as confrontational as his successor, Stephen Yokich, the low-key Bieber had an easygoing manner that belied his 6-foot-4, 265-pound frame and the results he produced at the bargaining table.

Taking over as its president in 1983, Bieber shepherded the UAW through a recession, the Reagan era, industry downsizing and rapidly expanding global competition. Bieber led the UAW through contract talks that won its members wages, benefits and job and income security that were unmatched in other major U.S. industries.

Under Bieber, the UAW also actively supported the Solidarity labor movement, which challenged Poland’s Communist government, and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. Bieber traveled to South Africa twice, raising the alarm about the imprisonment of labor activists and smuggling images of torture out of the country. In 1986, he was arrested while marching at the South African embassy in Washington D.C.

Read more: https://www.woodtv.com/news/michigan/former-uaw-president-owen-bieber-dies-aged-90/?fbclid=IwAR25y-2z6f3SnHl9B3FmRwR8NTtgHOdWqW8faMs4OIkJNBfBd5yiUW4lF18

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Former UAW President Owen Bieber dies at 90 (Original Post) UrbScotty Feb 2020 OP
. Dennis Donovan Feb 2020 #1
My dad was a proud UAW member extvbroadcaster Feb 2020 #2

extvbroadcaster

(343 posts)
2. My dad was a proud UAW member
Mon Feb 17, 2020, 08:41 PM
Feb 2020

My dad was a factory worker and a proud member of the UAW. He told me stories about what it was like before the union. The no bathroom breaks, the endless upping of production, no recourse against getting fired for no reason. I am always angry when some people portray unions as bad and protecting lazy workers. My father was not lazy and was a skilled machinist. The UAW won him good wages and a pension. Today, workers beg for scraps from the table of the rich and powerful. It is sad that unions have lost much of their power to do good for the American worker. RIP Owen Bieber.

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