密歇根新闻广播 汽车工人联合会主席逝世

 

Former United Auto¹ Workers President Owen Bieber has died.

Bieber led the UAW through a recession, industry downsizing and expanding global competition.

Owen Bieber was a born union man. The son of a UAW member who founded a union local in Grand Rapids, Bieber rose through the union’s ranks becoming president in 1983. He held the job until 1995.

Current UAW President Rory Gamble says Bieber “was not afraid of tough battles.”

Often those tough battles were political.

Later in life, in an interview recorded by the UAW, Bieber stressed the role of the UAW in pushing a national political agenda to strengthen unions.

“We can see what has happened to the middle class in America, and the middle class is our members,” Bieber told the interviewer. “We see what happened…when we elected the wrong people to office.”

The negotiating table was another battlefield. Increasing foreign competition and automakers focused on cutting spending put particular pressure on the union in the 1980s and early '90s.

Arthur Schwartz is a former labor² negotiator for General Motors. He was part of three national contract talks between the automaker and the UAW during Bieber’s presidency³.

Bieber was a big man, but Schwartz says he was mild-mannered, not one to hammer his fist on the negotiating table.

He credits Bieber with leading the union during a challenging time.

“This is when Honda, Toyota and Nissan were coming on. The Detroit Three were losing market share. He was president during a rather rough time,” says Schwartz. “(Bieber) tried to adjust and I think he did a pretty good job leading the UAW for the time he was president.”

But the turbulent economic times took their toll⁴ on the UAW during Bieber’s presidency.

Harley Shaiken is a professor at the University of California Berkeley. He specializes in the history of America’s unions.

Shaiken says the UAW was weaker at the end of Bieber’s time as president.

“But that wasn’t the fault of Owen Bieber. That was the restructuring of the industry, of the economy,” says Shaiken.

Perhaps Bieber’s most lasting⁵ legacy⁶ was the leadership he showed away from the assembly line.

Owen Bieber threw his union’s support behind the emerging free trade union movement in Eastern Europe and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.

“If people are imprisoned⁷ in South Africa, if people can’t vote in South Africa; can’t decide where they want to live in South Africa,” Bieber told an interviewer at the time. “If that goes on, it only means that some point in time, our privileges are also at peril⁸.”

Late in life, Bieber lamented⁹ the strong anti-union message coming from talk radio and other sources. He stressed the need to teach young people about the value of unions.

“We need to educate them,” Bieber said. “We’re shortchanging ourselves if we don’t.”

Former United Auto Workers President Owen Bieber was 90 years old.

1 auto   

n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车

参考例句：

• Don't park your auto here.别把你的汽车停在这儿。
• The auto industry has brought many people to Detroit.汽车工业把许多人吸引到了底特律。

2 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

3 presidency   

n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期)

参考例句：

• Roosevelt was elected four times to the presidency of the United States.罗斯福连续当选四届美国总统。
• Two candidates are emerging as contestants for the presidency.两位候选人最终成为总统职位竞争者。

4 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

5 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

6 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

7 imprisoned   

下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was imprisoned for two concurrent terms of 30 months and 18 months. 他被判处30个月和18个月的监禁，合并执行。
• They were imprisoned for possession of drugs. 他们因拥有毒品而被监禁。

8 peril   

n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物

参考例句：

• The refugees were in peril of death from hunger.难民有饿死的危险。
• The embankment is in great peril.河堤岌岌可危。

9 lamented   

adj.被哀悼的，令人遗憾的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• her late lamented husband 她那令人怀念的已故的丈夫
• We lamented over our bad luck. 我们为自己的不幸而悲伤。 来自《简明英汉词典》