Irving Bluestone: ‘Passionate fighter’ for all workers

Irving Bluestone dreamed of being a teacher.

After graduating from City College of New York in 1937, he headed for Switzerland to do a year of postgraduate work at the University of Bern, hoping to begin his career as an educator.

More than 40 years later at age 64, he finally realized his dream, joining the faculty of Wayne State University in Detroit in 1980 as a professor of labor studies.

But along the way, Bluestone organized, educated and helped improve the lives of generations of workers through the labor movement.

He joined the UAW, moved up to become vice president of the union’s General Motors Department and became nationally known as a fighter for workers’ rights.

Bluestone died of heart failure on Nov. 17, 2007, at his home in Brookline, Mass. He was 90.

“Irving Bluestone will be deeply missed by his brothers and sisters in the labor movement as well as by civil rights leaders, health care activists, members of the academic community and progressives everywhere. His contributions to the cause of social justice will be remembered for many years to come,” UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said. “He was a passionate fighter for working men and women.”

Bluestone’s 1938 trip to Europe was a turning point in his life. He was in Vienna when Hitler’s troops seized the country. As a Jewish American, he saw firsthand the dangers of the Nazi regime, fled Austria and returned home to the United States.

At that point, he changed his career plans. He decided to become a unionist because it was the “best antidote to fascism,” his daughter Maura Bluestone said.

Bluestone was hired at GM’s Hyatt Ball Bearing Division plant in Harrison, N.J., as a grinder operator and repairman in 1942 and quickly became a union activist with UAW Local 511. He served as editor of the local union newspaper and chairman of the education and political action committees, before getting elected as committeeman and then as shop chair.

In 1945 Bluestone was appointed to the staff of UAW Region 9A, servicing local unions from Philadelphia to Massachusetts. He was named to the union’s GM Department staff in 1947 where he coordinated the umpire section and performed general field service work until 1955.

In 1955 he was named as administrative assistant to then-Vice President and GM Department Director Leonard Woodcock. From 1955-1961, Bluestone was involved in negotiations and contract administration with GM and aerospace companies.

Bluestone became UAW President Walter Reuther’s administrative assistant in 1961 until he was named director of the GM Department in 1970, replacing Woodcock, who became UAW president after Reuther’s death in a plane crash.

Bluestone was elected vice president at the 1972 UAW Constitutional Convention and served in that position until his retirement in 1980.

Besides participating in every GM contract negotiations from 1948 until 1980, Bluestone was heavily involved in community, state and national activities, including memberships in the National Committee for Full Employment, Work in America Institute, NAACP, Michigan State Housing Development Authority, Michigan Quality of Work Life Council, Health Care Institute and National Trade Union Council for Human Rights.

“He was very much concerned about the union as a social movement,” said Alan Reuther, director of the UAW Legislative, Governmental and International Affairs Department in Washington and a nephew of Walter Reuther.

Bluestone is survived by daughters Maura and Karen Bluestone, son Barry and four grandchildren. His wife, Zelda, died in 2001.

A memorial service was held in Boston, and another is scheduled for Detroit.