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President, United Auto Workers · 1907–1970
Linked raises to productivity — and invented employer-paid benefits.
Led the UAW through its postwar peak. His 1950 GM contract — the "Treaty of Detroit" — traded labor peace for raises tied to productivity and the cost of living, plus company-paid pensions and health insurance.
Productivity bargaining (the "Treaty of Detroit")
Reuther argued workers should share in the gains they helped create, tying wages to productivity and inflation so prosperity was divided by formula rather than fought over every year.
GM bought years of labor peace and predictable costs; autoworkers won the rising wages, pensions, and employer health coverage that helped build the American middle class — and the template for U.S. benefits.
When raises are linked to shared success, bargaining stops being a zero-sum fight and starts funding both sides.
Source: Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University
The framework they used
Distributive vs. Integrative Bargaining