‘Retirement’
Just another day on the job, working for the people
Doug’s retirement years were shaped by the same goal that had always been a driving force in his life: educating people to build a stronger union and a better society.
“The labor movement, the whole movement, is a constant struggle. It’s a never-ending struggle. And you have to view it that way. And if you rest on your oars, then you’re going to witness the demise of the labor movement. Practically, I can’t see that happening,” he said in a National Public Radio interview in 1997.
Doug joined the Wayne State University (WSU) faculty shortly after his retirement as UAW president in 1983. He taught masters level courses in labor and industrial relations, and undergraduate classes in labor studies.
Although he dropped out of high school in his senior year, Doug became a self-made scholar. One of the first classes Doug taught was “The Labor Movement in the Next Decade.”
“The people in the plants today are younger. They’re more educated. They raise more questions. They’re more demanding. They will simply not accept the working conditions of their fathers or grandfathers,” he said in a lecture at Harvard University in 1984.
Doug’s work as a teacher and scholar earned him recognition from some of this nation’s top universities, and he received numerous honorary degrees.
“Students loved him. Doug had a keen intellect second to none, and a wealth of experience in the labor movement and American politics, and the ability to teach from that vast experience. He was a great professor,” said Mike Smith, director of WSU’s Walter P. Reuther Library.
In November 1997 the College of Urban, Labor and Metropolitan Affairs at WSU created the Douglas A. Fraser Center for Workplace Issues. In recent years, Doug helped the Reuther Library preserve the historical record of the UAW and the American labor union movement.
In 2006 Doug received one of the greatest honors he could ever imagine: the Walter P. Reuther Humanitarian Award.
