What the UAW Made
by Trapper John
Sun Dec 21, 2008 at 02:13:38 PM PST
I spent the summer of 1999 working for the UAW legal department. It was the best job that a union-oriented first-year law student could ask for: great bosses, co-workers who shared your values, and interesting work. But most importantly, there was a pervading sense that you were -- in some small way -- helping to build the one institution that, more than any other, made the American middle class. Every day, I'd walk into the doors of Solidarity House, the massive, International Style union headquarters on the Detroit River, and know that this was the place where Walter Reuther and his team of talented unionists crafted the strategies that built the post-war boom. I'd know that in that same building, Steve Yokich -- the brilliant, if often abrasive, president of the UAW -- and the other leaders of the union were planning to preserve what Reuther had wrought against the depredations of NAFTA and the WTO. And I knew that I was doing my part, however minor, to contribute to the cause. You simply can't buy that feeling.
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