Owen Bieber

Owen Frederick Bieber (December 28, 1929 – February 17, 2020) was an American labor union activist.

Owen F. Bieber was born in December 1929 to Albert F. and Minnie (Schwartz) Bieber in the hamlet of North Dorr, Dorr Township, Allegan County, Michigan.

His father was of German descent and an autoworker at McInerney Spring and Wire Company (an automotive parts supplier) who had co-founded UAW Local 687.

It was the first UAW local organized within the city limits of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The family were devout Roman Catholics, and Bieber attended Visitation Elementary School (a two-room school) and Catholic Central High School in nearby Grand Rapids.

As a child, he worked pulling weeds in onion and celery fields.

He graduated from high school in 1948, and in July of that year took a job at McInerney Spring and Wire as a wire bender, making seats for Cadillac and Hudson cars.

"You had to bend 8- and 9-gauge spring wire, sometimes five wires at a time. Those Hudsons, they had a seat four Miles Long ... It was a hard job. After the first hour in there, I felt like just leaving. If my father hadn't worked there, too, I probably would've", he later said.

Bieber himself became active within the local, rising from shop steward to its president between 1949 and 1956.

Bieber was elected a shop steward of Local 687 (which covered Grand Rapids and most of the immediate surrounding area) in 1949, and in 1951 was elected to the local's executive board.

Bieber married his high school sweetheart, the former Shirley M. Van Woerkom, on November 25, 1950, and the couple had three sons (all of them became autoworkers) and two daughters.

They maintained a home in North Dorr as well as Southfield.

Although his wire bending job was supposed to be only summer employment, Bieber stayed and did not go on to college.

He was elected to Local 687's collective bargaining committee in 1955, and became the local's president in 1956.

In 1961 he became a part-time union organizer for the UAW's international union and retired as president of the local a year later, to work full-time for the international UAW.

In 1961, he became a part-time union organizer for the international union.

Bieber retired as Local 687's president in 1962, and took a full-time position as an international representative and organizer with the UAW.

He worked closely with Kenneth W. Robinson, the director of UAW Region 1D (then the largest region in the international union).

Robinson promoted Bieber to servicing representative in 1964, and made him his personal aide.

Irving Bluestone, who had led the GM Department since 1970, had retired.

The UAW Steering Committee (a body of about 400 local union presidents) unanimously endorsed Bieber for the position.

Also nominated for vice president slots were Donald Ephlin, Ray Majerus, and Stephen Yokich.

On December 18, 1972, Robinson appointed Bieber assistant director of Region 1D after the incumbent, Charles Rogers, was diagnosed with cancer and stepped down.

In 1974, Robinson stepped down as director of Region 1D due to ill health.

UAW membership had fallen to 1.2 million from a peak of 1.5 million in 1979.

In 1980 he was elected as the head of the UAW's General Motors Department.

Bieber was elected as his successor, and held the position until 1980.

In 1980, Bieber won election as vice president of the General Motors Department of the UAW.

Bieber won the election at the UAW's national convention in June 1980, receiving the highest number of votes of any candidate.

The early 1980s recession and competition from Japanese automakers had cut very deeply into GM's market share, and the company had laid off more than 140,000 of its 330,000 production workers (roughly half its workforce).

Bieber was GM Department director for just two and a half years, but negotiated a historic contract with General Motors (GM) in 1982.

He was president of the United Auto Workers (UAW) from 1983 to 1995.

Born in Michigan, Bieber joined the McInerney Spring and Wire Company, an automotive parts supplier in Grand Rapids, after finishing high school.

His father was also employed at the company, and had co-founded a UAW local there.

After a hotly contested election in 1983, he was chosen to head the union in October of that year.

His time as president of the union was marked by support of several political causes, including the boycott against South African apartheid and opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

He oversaw the union during the shrinking of the automobile manufacturing industry in the US, and led them through a number of tense negotiations with the Big Three automobile manufacturers that included strikes and other labor action.

While he set a goal of adding new union members throughout his presidency, he largely failed as union organizing efforts at Honda and Nissan plants were defeated.

His presidency also saw the splintering of his own union, with the Canadian division breaking off to form its own independent organization (the Canadian Auto Workers), amid deep internal divisions which developed throughout his term.

He retired from the UAW in 1995.