John William Livingston, 1908-1997

A Biographical Sketch

By Rudolph Lewis

John W. Livingston, born August 17, 1908, on a farm in Iberia, Missouri (the foothills of the Ozarks),  served the AFL-CIO in the post of Director of Organization for ten years, from the merger of the AFL and CIO in December 1955 to December 1965. During this period, Livingston demonstrated his well‑known skills as an administrator, negotiator, and organizer.

By the time Livingston was twenty-six, he was well into a lifelong career as a trade unionist. In December 1927, after attending Iberia Academy for two years, Livingston worked five years at the Fisher Body Division of the General Motors Corporation in St. Louis, Missouri, where he worked in the trim department.

In  1930, he had a brush with management when he and some thirty other workers demanded an increase in their 40-cents-per-hour wage. For their boldness, Livingston and thirty-one other workers were summarily fired. A skillful worker, Livingston was soon back at Fisher.

The day the NRA was passed, June 1933, Livingston began his union activity. Eighteen workers met to plan how to organize workers in the Fisher plant. This meeting laid the groundwork for the establishment of Local No. 18386, which later became Local 25 of the UAW-CIO. Between 1934-1939, Livingston was elected and reelected president of this local union of auto workers.

In 1939, UAW-CIO employed Livingston as an International Representative in the General Motors Department. During his three years in this position, Livingston served as Vice‑Chairman and Chairman of the National UAW-GM Negotiating Committee.

In 1942, the UAW-CIO Convention elected Livingston Director of UAW Region 5 (Missouri, Kansas, Texas, Colorado, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and New Mexico) and a member of the International Executive Board. During the first eighteen months of his directorship, the UAW‑CIO membership in this region was increased thirteen‑fold.

Livingston continued to move up the organizational ladder of responsibility. In 1946, he was made co‑director, with UAW President Walter P. Reuther, of the union's General Motors Department. In 1952, Livingston assumed sole responsibility for this post. At the Atlantic City Convention in 1947, Livingston was first elected as one of the two international union vice‑presidents. He was reelected in 1949, 1951, 1953, and 1955.

In 1947, Livingston was also appointed director of the aircraft, airline, McQuay-Norris, and piston ring departments. Late in 1948 he became director of the agricultural implement department of the UAW-CIO. In 1952, he resigned from the directorship of this department, but kept the directorship of the national aircraft department.

Even with his many departmental duties, Livingston still participated in several organizing campaigns. He provided some leadership in the 1948 campaign to bring all farm implement workers in the UAW‑CIO ranks. He also coordinated the UAW‑Political Action committee campaign drive for the 1948 national Presidential election.

Before he became AFL-CIO's first Director of Organization, Livingston participated in virtually all UAW contract negotiations with the General Motors Corporation. In 1948, he was the chief international officer assigned to the General Motors wage and contract negotiations, in which the annual wage improvement and cost‑of‑living escalation was introduced.

In 1950, Livingston took part in the talks between the UAW and General Motors Corporation, which resulted in an unprecedented five‑year agreement later used as the model for agreements in many other industries. As leader of the UAW's bargaining team in the 1955 General Motors negotiations, Livingston established for the first time a full union shop and the principle of guaranteeing wages to laid‑off industrial workers.

Before 1955, Livingston had played important roles in both national and international assignments in which he helped to establish policies favorable to labor. During the summer of 1950, Livingston was chairman of a twelve‑man UAW-CIO delegation that visited England, France, Italy, and West Germany. In Paris, he presided over the first conference of the automotive and truck department of the international Metalworkers Federation. After conferring with European trade union official and with representatives of the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), Livingston presented a program, later adopted in a large measure, for implementing the Marshall Plan so that it would benefit people from all walks of life.

In May 1951 Livingston served for a year on the National Wage Stabilization Board in Washington. He played an important  role in establishing policies free from the limitations of the War Labor Board, its World War II counterpart.

At the December 1965 convention of the AFL-CIO in San Francisco, Livingston retired at the youthful age of 57. From then until October 2, 1967, Livingston operated his cattle farm in the Ozarks. From then until 1968, he worked on the assembly line at the Fisher body plant in St. Louis and farmed on  weekends.

In March 1968, President George Meany appointed Livingston as director of union relations of the National Alliance of Businessmen (NAB). To demonstrate the importance of the assignment the AFL‑CIO contributed Livingston's services with the NAB, established at the suggestion of President Johnson to undertake a program to employ the hard‑core unemployed.

John William Livingston married Rubye Britt on May 9, 1931. He is known to his friends as Jack. In his leisure hours he enjoys hunting and fishing. Business Week (November 19, 1955) noted that he had "a jovial, likeable personality; he is  scrupulously honest and fair. His staff members swear by him."

At 88 years old, on May 25 in Westphalia, Missouri, Livingston died of unreported causes.

*   *   *   *   *

updated 25 July 2008