Owen Bieber
| Owen F. Bieber | |
|---|---|
| Born |
December 28, 1929 Dorr Township, Michigan |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Labor leader |
| Known for | President, United Auto Workers |
Owen Frederick Bieber (/ˈbiːbər/; born December 28, 1929) is an American labor union activist. He was president of the United Auto Workers (UAW) from 1983 to 1995.
Owen F. Bieber was born in December 1929 to Albert F. and Minnie (Schwartz) Bieber in the hamlet of North Dorr, Dorr Township, Michigan. His father was of German ethnicity and an autoworker at McInerney Spring and Wire Company (an automotive parts supplier) who had co-founded UAW Local 687. It was the first UAW local organized within the city limits of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The family were devout Roman Catholics, and Bieber attended Visitation Elementary School (a two-room school) and Catholic Central High School in nearby Grand Rapids. As a child, he worked pulling weeds in onion and celery fields. He graduated from high school in 1948, and in July of that year took a job at McInernery Spring and Wire as a wire bender (making seats for Cadillac and Hudson cars). "You had to bend 8- and 9-gauge spring wire, sometimes five wires at a time. Those Hudsons, they had a seat four miles long ... It was a hard job. After the first hour in there, I felt like just leaving. If my father hadn't worked there, too, I probably would've", he later said.
Bieber married his high school sweetheart, the former Shirley M. Van Woerkom on November 25, 1950, and the couple had three sons (all of them became autoworkers) and two daughters. They maintained a home in North Door as well as Southfield.
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