Irving Bluestone, 90; bargained for auto workers in ‘70s

Irving Bluestone, 90, chief negotiator for the United Auto Workers in its bargaining talks with General Motors in the 1970s, died of heart failure Nov. 17 at his home in Brookline, Mass., the Detroit News reported.

After a modest start working at a GM plant in Harrison, N.J., Bluestone eventually became vice president of the union’s GM department and an assistant to former UAW President Walter Reuther in Detroit.

He later taught labor studies at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Born in New York City in 1917, Bluestone graduated from City College of New York in 1937.

Intending to become a teacher, he enrolled at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Because of his Jewish heritage he returned to the United States after discovering the mounting threat of Nazi Germany.