European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 31, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Daily Magazine retired a w Leader Douglas prater1 career has panned Rise and Tatt Al Union Power in the United states. Douglas Fraser reviewing labor s political decline Bys Bulpett associated press he future of the american labor movement says a Man who helped shape its past lies More in the help it can get from government than in the Battles it can win against management. Douglas Fraser also says that Industry has too Man competing corporations and labor has too Many competing unions. Both he thinks need to consolidate and reduce their numbers to survive. Because onrushing technology Means fewer factory workers can produce More goods he Fay Jabor must find ways to attract and organize White Collar and service Stry employees. That he predicts Wirtl be the area of collision with management in the years ahead. Fraser is the retired president of the United Auto workers a Man widely admired by capital and labor As a react. At 69, he looks Back at a career that spanned the Rise and fall of Union Power in this country. Forty years ago he slipped food to his father through the Fence at Chrysler during the sit Down strikes that ultimately unionized the Auto Industry he sorted at Nesoto at 75 cents an hour As a Metal finisher and ende Tup Ashead of one of the mos in unions in the country and a member of the Board of Directo s of Chrysler. In his time he also saw Union membership shrink from 35 percent to less than 20 percent of the nation s total work Force. He saw labor s political clout turn anaemic As Ronald Reagan twice made off Wilh an  Large share of Union members Voles. Now Fraser looks Forward to Reagan s last Day in office like a besieged Man waiting for the cavalry to arrive. Things will be better once he leaves Fraser says. He Cut into our membership in a very substantial Way. White Blue Collar workers View him As a Macho Man a Strong Man with a great sense of where the american people Are. The next Guy whoever he is won t be As formidable. You won t see a masterful politician like him come Down the Pike again for years in either  Fraser does t blame labor s political decline entirely on the former president of the screen actors Guild. He also cites the corruption found Insom unions no this an the Public perception that unions by insisting on More and More contributed mightily to horrendous inflation. Fraser recalls that George Wallace made severe inroads into the labor vote Over the busing Issue in Michigan in the 60s. The Issue Cut so deep no matter what we told our members they turned us  but Reagan Hurt More. Was it because he read the minds of Union members better than their leaders i knew says Fraser our members thought we were paying too much attention to the poor the Blacks sunday August 31, 1986 and other minorities and a lot of unpopular causes. I knew they were talking about food stamp Chisling at the checkout counters. I could feel them saying you be left us Reagan is closer to our View but to accommodate the members you would be had to pander to their prejudices we did t and Reagan did and we paid a Price for that. Now without turning our backs on our principles we be got to try to get to broader issues. We were successful in politics when to were promoting things that affected All of us like social Security medicare the go Bill student Loans dealing Wilh people s prejudices takes a Long Long Lime you can t change Archie Bunker with a leaflet " Fraser thinks that much of what ails management and labor in the United Stales is Loo dependent on National policy and politics to be settled at the collective bargaining table. In the last Lour years we be lost 2.3 million manufacturing jobs in precisely the area where we re highly organized. We re losing members not because they Don t want to belong to a Union any More but because we re losing the jobs. We be lost the jobs mostly because of the overvalued Dollar caused by High interest Rales and the enormous deficit. That hampers our ability to Export competitively the japanese can under Price us. The Only Way you can solve that is to change the economic  Only the government can save the staggering steel Industry he says and it can do that by taking the Lead As the japanese did in persuading the Industry to reduce the number of competing companies to make the rest  m not suggesting How to do it but you d have to protect the interests of the workers and the stockholders in those Mills that were either merged or disappeared. If the companies tried it themselves that would violate antitrust Laws. But the government should be interested and innovative enough to sit Down with the Union and the companies and find a Way to save the Industry through Equality of sacrifice As we did at  the labor movement says the former president of the Law needs to prune itself. He would like to see the country s 95 unions consolidated into about 25 unions to become More effective. He is encouraged by an agreement worked out this year in the Al Cio executive Council whereby unions competing in organizational drives would submit the question to mediation rather than Savage each other. Fraser says labor Laws need to be reformed to make it easier for unions to organize workers. As it stands now he says when a Union files for a collective bargaining election the company can resist it in court for As Long As two years by which time the Union has lost its  Are exceptions of course but this country has the most anti Union management of any democracy in the world. In no other Well you find labor consultants whose Only Mission is to prevent the organization of unions or the destruction of unions once they re organized. This would be socially unacceptable in other countries. There labor unions Are accepted As a fact of life. Not  he cites Canada As a country where the climate and Laws affecting labor Are More benign and thus Union labor there is proportionately double that in the United states. Fraser a lean Man with Gray hair and compelling Brown eyes was interviewed at the Walter p. Reuther Library of labor and Urban affairs at Wayne state University where he has been teaching since his retirement in 1983. He was one of the last of the Union leaders who knew firsthand what it was like to work in a factory before unions. There was no dignity. You could t question any decisions. My Boss was a Guy named remsnyder and everybody was really scared of him. He never smiled. He always wore a hat squared on his head he would sit on a Stool at his desk or stand in the Middle of the department and he would look around. Once in a while he would walk around and never Stop to talk to anybody except to Chew him out " Back in those Days a University building devoted to the study of labor and named after a Union Leader was unheard of. And a Union Leader serving on management s corporate Board of directors it was unimagined. I can t picture my father even thinking anything like that says Douglas Fraser. And old Henry Ford he would have called out the  the stars and stripes Page 13