Leonard Woodcock

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Leonard Woodcock

Leonard Freel Woodcock (born February 15, 1911 in Providence , Rhode Island , † January 16, 2001 in Ann Arbor , Michigan ) was an American union official , president of the United Automobile Workers (UAW) and diplomat .

Life

Woodcock joined a union in Detroit in 1933 and was recruited by the UAW as a union official for western Michigan in 1940. In 1955 he was elected Vice President of the UAW and as such was responsible for the union departments for agriculture and aircraft industry. He later served as UAW negotiator in wage negotiations with General Motors Corporation and the aerospace industry.

After Walter P. Reuther's death in a plane crash, he was elected as his successor as President of the UAW in 1970. In the same year he led the union in a 67-day strike against General Motors until a collective agreement was signed. Despite the size of the union, which was the second-largest single union in the United States after the International Brotherhood of Teamsters , he received a modest salary. As a union leader, he was also number 9 on the list of enemies drawn up by US President Richard Nixon in September 1971 . In 1977 he resigned as union president and handed this office over to his previous vice-president, Douglas Fraser .

In the same year he was sent by President Jimmy Carter as a negotiator to Hanoi , from where he returned with the remains of twelve US soldiers who were missing during the Vietnam War . At times he was also acted as a minister or close advisor to the president.

It was also President Carter who appointed him the first United States Ambassador to the People's Republic of China in 1979 . He held this office until President Ronald Reagan took office in 1981. In 1979 he was instrumental in a meeting of senior administrative officials from Michigan with Deng Xiaoping in Beijing . At a ceremony in the White House in 2000, ex-President Carter Woodcocks paid tribute to the normalization of diplomatic relations with China and to the conclusion of the first US trade agreement with the People's Republic in 1979. In 1992, he was also involved in the conclusion of a contract to purchase US American automobiles and trucks involved through the People's Republic of China. These were the first US automobiles to be imported into the country after the import ban by China in the late 1980s .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Union salaries . In: Der Spiegel . No. 35 , 1973 ( online ).
  2. ↑ Watergate: Police State in the White House . In: Der Spiegel . No. 27 , 1973 ( online ).
  3. ↑ Very methodical . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 1976 ( online ).
personal data
SURNAME Woodcock, Leonard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Woodcock, Leonard Freel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American union leader and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Providence , Rhode Island
DATE OF DEATH January 16, 2001
Place of death Ann Arbor , Michigan