A Voice of Labor Liberalism

...For his part, Meany was skeptical of government, of large solutions to difficult problems, of grandiose centralization, and in particular of planners...

...He was, after all, a worker who went to school his entire life—in the factories of Detroit, in the Socialist movement, at night at a state college, among workers in prewar Europe...

...Hard-nosed, yes...

...The interest was appropriate...

...But they did not say so on their return to the United States...

...Both Meany and Reuther spoke to and for organized workers...

...Reviewed by Thomas R. Brooks Author, "Toil and Trouble: A History of American Labor," "Clint" For most liberals in the decades following World War II, Walter P. Reuther was the ideal labor leader...

...Incidentally, I have yet to read a satisfactory account of Walter Reuther's reaction to his years in the Soviet Union in the early '30s...

...To be sure, Reuther was no slouch when it came to intra-union battling...

...He limns the public figure and provides glimpses of the private person...

...Reuther played a prominent part, too, in the founding of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU...

...Further, the American Federation of Labor (AF of L) and the CIO cooperated in rebuilding free trade unions abroad...

...And the fact is that the Reuthers broke away in 1938, when the Communists reneged on an agreement to back Victor Reuther for secretary-treasurer of the Michigan CIO...

...He was one of the first in the CIO to recognize that the World Federation of Trade Unions was Communist-controlled from the start and not simply, as Barnard suggests, "troubled by East-West differences...

...Reuther had some black support, and unlike the Communists, he did not stoop to tokenism or racial quotas...

...Barnard does a fine job weaving together the various strands that compose his subject...

...All the more regrettable, therefore, that the book is marred by some errors of fact and of judgment...

...As Barnard concludes, "The victory...

...As Barnard sums up the man: "Reuther's idealism and inventiveness were products of the American working-class experience, a creative adaptation of social-democratic perspectives to American conditions and realities, manifested not only in words, but also in the daily lives of millions...

...Cigar-chomping George Meany was too crass...

...Reuther was young and vibrant, if a little wordy, and as Eleanor Roosevelt once wrote, a man "who gives us hope for a sane and wise leadership both in labor and in the liberal movement...

...meanwhile, according to the author, Communist dedication to the class struggle "forged a tie between many ordinary workers and Communist spokesmen...

...When he led the UAW out of the Federation in 1968 and then entered into an alliance with the Teamsters (expelled earlier at his insistence for racketeering), the move was an admission of defeat...

...Moreover, I cannot recall Walter Reuther drawing upon his Soviet experiences to illuminate his subsequent anti-Communism...

...As a consequence, the UAW has had an admirable civil rights record...

...Within the union world itself, as Barnard notes, Meany may have been more than a match for Reuther, and the long-lived ex-plumber wasn't about to retire after 65...

...He does not, however, quote them on this score...

...Liberals, alas, tend to cluster around mainstream politicians, not union leaders, a fact of lifethat limitedReuther'sclout...

...pinochle-playing David Dubin-sky too caustic and witty...

...Jim Carey once complained that whenever he went out on a limb for Walter, he'd turn around and find Walter sawing off the branch...

...nonetheless, he did appear to give in when he might have fought back more vigorously...

...In sum, Meany represented a majority, Reuther a minority of American labor...

...For liberals saw that they could defeat Communists democratically without sacrificing their principles or compromising their programs...

...He mistakenly attributes to them a devotion to mere expediency, a craving "to run the UAW from the top" in order to settle personal scores as well as to purge Communists...

...Reuther, by then head of the CIO, and George Meany, president of the AFofL, deserve full credit for that achievement...

...Reuther subsequently appeared to rally, but his great passion in the year or so before his untimely death in an airplane crash on May 9,1970, was the development of a UAW educational center on Black Lake in Michigan...

...Barnard is less than fair to Jay Lovestone and his auto union followers...

...They appeared to join forces with the Communists inside the infant UAW without reservation shortly thereafter...

...Although there were contrasts in approach, contra Barnard, the AF of L did not seek "to turn the ICFTU into a rigid anti-Communist bloc with little program beyond opposition to the USSR...

...The triumph strengthened anti-Communists in the CIO, the American Veterans Committee, and among liberals generally...

...Reuther closed the convention by introducing his father, Valentine Reuther, "an old soap-boxer, an old rabble-rouser...

...rigid, little program, no...

...Barnard writes that the Reuthers observed the constraints imposed by an acceptance of the Popular Front, "the unity of the Left against its common enemies...

...Walter Reuther always believed passionately in education...

...It was a fitting tribute, because the German immigrant father, a fervent Socialist and unionist, had reared his boys, as Barnard notes, "in the conviction that a democratic social commonwealth would ultimately replace capitalism...

...an old fighter in the ranks of labor...

...To this day, I can feel the excitement that swept a Boston hotel room where a Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) convention party of " Reutherites" was in progress when word came of Reuther's 1947 victory over the Communist-backed bosses of the auto union...

...The 1947 upset of the Communists in the UAW, Barnard also maintains, "delayed by several years the emergence of a black leadership to correspond with the increasing number of black unionists...

...The AFL-CIO today stands as a living monument to both men...

...Howsoever the sons—Walter, Victor and Roy—later modified that conviction, they remained true to their father's basic vision of social justice...

...It enhanced the role of Americans for Democratic Action within the Democratic Party, and bolstered the position of Students for Democratic Action on college campuses...

...Reuther had faith in planning for resolving most problems...

...He and his brother Victor worked 18 months in the Gorki auto plant and toured portions of the USSR not readily open to foreigners...

...was the key to a series of postwar setbacks for the Communist-cooperating Left that soon led to its virtual disappearance from union and public life...

...Walter Reuther, I believe, wanted to succeed Meany—to become the spokesman for American labor, and possibly for a broader constituency...

...In his autobiography, cited by Barnard, Victor Reuther claims that the brothers were not misled at the time (1934) by Stalinist charges that Trotsky was responsible for the murder of Sergei Kirov...

...That this promise was in large measure fulfilled is amply demonstrated by John Barnard, chairman of the Department of History at Michigan's Oakland University, in his concise and lively account of Reuther's life and the ascent of the United Auto Workers (UAW...

...This is simply not true...

...While the rank and file certainly admired his bargaining accomplishments, they were not as fond of his prolix proposals...

...Significantly, AFofL and CIO cooperation in the early years of the ICFTU was one of the first steps toward merger in 1955...

...His handling of internecine union quarrels is deft and illuminating, as is his exploration of the complexities of postwar bargaining...

...Perhaps he sensed this...

...This is not the biography of Walter Reuther, nor was it meant to be, yet within its limits the treatment is an excellent one...