Biographies of UAW officers
VICE PRESIDENT
BOB KING
Bob King was elected to a third term as vice president of the UAW on June 14, 2006, at the union’s 34th Constitutional Convention in Las Vegas.
King directs the Ford, Severstal, and Independents, Parts and Suppliers/Competitive Shops Departments. He was first elected a UAW vice president in 1998 and assigned to lead the union’s National Organizing Department. He was re-elected in 2002.
With King’s leadership and with strong support from UAW local unions, regions and departments, the National Organizing Department organized more than 50,000 industrial workers between June 1998 and June 2002. A key to the UAW’s success during this period was the use of innovative partnership neutrality and card check agreements that King pioneered with 11 major automotive suppliers, covering more than 36,000 workers. These agreements include employer neutrality during organizing drives, and fast and fair card-check election procedures.
In his second term as vice president, King also directed the UAW Competitive Shop/Independents, Parts and Suppliers (IPS) Department, representing members in auto parts and other manufacturing industries. In this role he has continued to champion the critical importance of strategic organizing by component and more consistent pattern bargaining by component throughout the UAW. King advocates strongly that the more power we have the more justice we win and the immense importance of strategic organizing to building power.
Prior to his service as vice president, King was elected to three terms (1989-1998) as director of Region 1A, which covers nearly all of Wayne, Monroe and Washtenaw counties in Michigan.
He joined UAW Local 600 in 1970 when he was hired at Ford Motor Co.’s Detroit Parts Depot and began his electrical apprenticeship in 1972. King, a member of the UAW International Skilled Trades Advisory Committee, was elected vice president of Local 600 in 1981 and president in 1984. He was reelected in 1987 and was chair of the UAW-Ford Negotiating Committee.
King has always involved members in standing up for social and economic justice. Region 1A gave strong backing to Detroit newspaper strikers and locked-out workers. King himself was arrested for civil disobedience in the face of illegal and anti-worker actions of newspaper management. He set up region-wide networks to stand behind workers in other nations, from Mexico and Central America to South Africa and Haiti. He is a firm believer in union education, including strategic planning for local union leaders.
King was one of the original members of the AFL-CIO Elected Leader Task Force on Organizing. He also founded the region-wide International Labor Solidarity Network.
A 1968 graduate of the University of Michigan, King received his law degree in 1973 from the University of Detroit. He served in the U.S. Army from 1968-1970. King is a life member of the NAACP, a Michigan Democratic Party precinct delegate, and a member of the Coalition of Labor Union Women.
Born on August 18, 1946, he lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with his wife, Moe Fitzsimons and together they have five children: Jennifer, Kathlene, Jackson, Bernadette and Will.
