Owen Bieber, who led the UAW in negotiating landmark labor deals that expanded health care coverage and job protections, helping to ease the pain for workers during a turbulent period as Detroit automakers battled economic downturns and the rise of Japanese and European brands, died on Monday, the union said in a statement. He was 90.
Bieber, a tall, quiet man with roots in rural western Michigan, was the last of the UAW's top leaders to come out of the era of Walter Reuther, the fiery UAW chief who built the union into a powerful social force from 1946 until 1970, when he died in a plane crash.
During Bieber's tenure steering the UAW, from 1983 to 1995, the union battled job cuts and membership losses as the Detroit 3, notably General Motors, lost market share to Japanese and other automakers.
Under Bieber, the Canadian Auto Workers union split off from the UAW while the union won the establishment of a Jobs Bank program at GM, Ford and Chrysler. …