Former UAW boss Douglas Fraser dead at 91

“That experience was so searing, I think it changed my politics forever,” Fraser said in a 1997 interview with The AP.

“In an auto neighborhood like ours, hardly anybody worked,” he recalled. “People lost their sense of dignity. They all were very proud, like my father. And it was shattering not being able to support a family.”

Fraser dropped out of high school in his senior year and joined the UAW in 1936. He said he was fired from his first two jobs for union organizing but eventually found steady work as a “ding man,” smoothing out dents in body panels at Chrysler’s DeSoto plant.

At age 25, Fraser was president of the UAW local. When he returned from serving in the Army during World War II, DeSoto executives offered him a management job.

He instead joined the UAW staff in 1947 and steadily moved up the ranks through the 1950s and ’60s.

He was considered a potential successor to President Walter Reuther. But after the revered leader died in a plane crash in 1970, Fraser narrowly lost a poll of the executive board to Leonard Woodcock, head of the big GM unit. Fraser withdrew his bid for the presidency rather than divide the union, and he served as vice president with Woodcock.

He succeeded Woodcock in 1977. U.S. auto sales grew to a then-record of 12.7 million units that year, but by 1979 they tumbled to 8.3 million as imports, with their stress on fuel economy, captured a surprising 21.7 percent share of the market.

Chrysler was on the verge of bankruptcy. Fraser worked with the Carter administration and Congress to get the loan guarantees approved. Chairman Lee Iacocca helped convince Republican members of Congress, but Fraser said Iacocca was given too much credit.

“I resent it a bit, not for myself but for the Chrysler workers, when people say Lee Iacocca saved the Chrysler Corporation,” Fraser said. “The Chrysler workers saved the Chrysler Corporation.”

In 1982, Ford was in dire straits as the nation sank into a recession. The UAW offered major concessions in wages and benefits. To avoid a three-tier wage system, the same wage concessions were given to GM.

“When I look back, although we obviously had considerable opposition, I’m glad we did it,” Fraser said. “That was a turning point in Ford’s economic well-being.”

In 1997, he said he had no regrets about his life.

“I can say, without equivocation, I’d do the same thing,” he said. “You get a lot of satisfaction from that.”

Fraser has two daughters from his first marriage, Judith Yonish and Jeanne Fraser, and his wife has two daughters from her first marriage, Barbara Mackenzie and Sandy Bryner. The Frasers also have several grandchildren.

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