Biography
DOUGLAS A. FRASER:
The Elder Statesman of Labor
Dec. 18, 1916 – Feb. 23, 2008
Douglas A. Fraser has been called “the man who never lost touch” and “the labor leader everyone respects.” He rose through the ranks to become the UAW’s sixth International president, a position he held until his retirement in May 1983. Fraser was the last of the “pioneer generation” of UAW presidents.
He was born Dec. 18, 1916, in a working-class district of Glasgow, Scotland, and came to the United States with his parents when he was 6 years old. The family settled in Detroit. After attending Chadsey High School, he went to work as a metal finisher in the DeSoto plant of Chrysler Corp. at the age of 18.
Fraser became active in UAW Local 227. He was elected to various local offices, including steward, chief steward, recording secretary and president in 1943. He served three terms in that position.
In 1947 Fraser was appointed to the staff of the UAW and assigned to the union’s Chrysler Department. He caught the eye of then-UAW President Walter P. Reuther who selected him as an administrative assistant in 1951, a position he held eight years. In that capacity he was involved in many major negotiations.
Fraser was elected co-director of UAW Region 1A in January 1959, and in 1962 convention delegates elected him to the union’s International Executive Board as a member-at-large. He was re-elected in 1964, 1966 and 1968.
He was elected an International vice president in 1970, and president of the union at the May 1977 convention.
In 1964 Fraser, along with Reuther, led the union’s bargaining committee at Chrysler where the UAW won its historic early-retirement program. In 1967 he again led negotiations at Chrysler and won the first U.S.-Canada wage parity agreement.
In 1973 Fraser and then-UAW President Leonard Woodcock led the bargaining team at Chrysler, setting the pattern for the auto industry that year after a successful nine-day strike. Contract gains included restrictions on compulsory overtime, a comprehensive health and safety program, an improved “30-and-out” early retirement plan, dental care and accelerated arbitration. The Woodcock-Fraser team also led the union’s Chrysler negotiators in 1976.
During the 1979 round of auto negotiations – which Fraser headed for the first time in the role of president of the union – the UAW achieved another breakthrough: frequent incremental increases in pension benefits for current and future retirees. Other gains included substantially reduced work time and improvements in the cost-of-living allowance formula.
Another historic breakthrough that year was achieved when the UAW won union representation on the Chrysler board of directors. Fraser was elected to the board in May 1980 after indicating clearly in the proxy statement to stockholders that he would serve as a representative of Chrysler workers. He held that position until May 1984, agreeing to remain on the board for a one-year transition after his retirement as UAW president. The union’s participation is based on the principle, in Fraser’s words, that “workers must have a say in the corporate decision-making process that so affects their lives.”
In 1981 Fraser moved to strengthen the labor movement by leading the UAW back into the AFL-CIO after a 13-year absence. He served on the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO for three years.
Fraser was an officer or member of many labor, civic and governmental bodies including chair of the Health Security Action Council and member of the board of directors of the National Bank of Washington, the Hyatt Clark Corp., a worker-owned company, the Full Employment Action Council, the Villers Foundation, the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., the Economic Club of Detroit and the National Urban Coalition.
In addition, he served on the board of trustees of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, the executive committee of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the board of governors of the United Way of America.
After retiring as UAW president, Fraser continued to work as labor’s ambassador. In addition to his public service, Fraser was a professor of labor studies at Wayne State University in Detroit and the Jerry Wurf fellow and lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University. He was a visiting professor at Columbia University, the University of Michigan and other schools, where his lectures helped broaden the views of new generations of workers, students and scholars on workplace issues, trade unionism and public policy.
In 1998 the College of Urban, Labor and Metropolitan Affairs at Wayne State University chartered the Douglas A. Fraser Center for Workplace Issues. Housed in the university's Walter P. Reuther Library, it is a tribute to the man who focused his career and energy on improving the economic and social well-being of working Americans.
Known as the “elder statesman of labor,” Fraser was regularly sought out by the media for his opinions. His insightful, reasoned perspectives related in countless press interviews and news articles have helped raise the level of public discourse on organized labor – bringing it out of the ideological and into the practical.
He is survived by his wife, Dr. Winifred Fraser, retired professor of psychology and associate dean of the Graduate School of Wayne State University; two daughters from his first marriage, Judith Yonish and Jeanne Fraser; two stepdaughters, Barbara Mackenzie and Sandy Bryner; six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.