Key aide to UAW’s Reuther had ‘amazing respect’ for others

Mike Wilkinson / The Detroit News

Irving Bluestone, a top lieutenant to one-time UAW president Walter Reuther who later was vice president of the union’s General Motors department, died Saturday, Nov. 17, 2007, at his home in Brookline, Mass. He was 90.

Mr. Bluestone died of heart failure, his daughter Maura Bluestone said.

Born and raised in New York, Mr. Bluestone intended to become a teacher until a trip to Europe in the late 1930s. He was in Vienna when Hitler seized the country. A Jew, Mr. Bluestone traveled quickly to Switzerland and then fled Europe.

Upset by the experience, Mr. Bluestone decided to become a unionist as the "best antidote to fascism," his daughter said. He then chose the UAW, getting a job at a GM ball-bearing plant in New Jersey.

Within a few years, he had advanced through the union’s ranks and was working in Detroit, where he became the administrative assistant to Mr. Reuther. By 1972, he was elected vice president of the GM department, a post he held until 1980.

Throughout his work with the UAW, Mr. Bluestone was an advocate for the union’s role in society. "He was very much concerned about the union as a social movement," said Alan Reuther, a UAW official and a nephew of Walter Reuther.

Mr. Bluestone later became a professor of labor studies at Wayne State University, where he helped shape the careers of future labor leaders. After he retired from Wayne State, he and his wife, Zelda, moved to Brookline. Zelda Bluestone died in 2001.

In retirement, Mr. Bluestone continued to work for others. At his senior citizens’ complex in Brookline, he created and led a residents’ council, addressing complaints and advocating change. Management even had Mr. Bluestone show residents at some of its other buildings how to create such a council.

A hallmark of Mr. Bluestone’s life was his respect for everyone he met, be it the auto worker, the waiter or the company official. "He treated everybody with amazing respect," his daughter said.

Mr. Bluestone is survived by daughters Maura and Karen Bluestone, son Barry and four grandchildren. There will be no funeral and a memorial service in the Boston area is yet to be scheduled.