Owen Bieber - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Owen F. Bieber was born in December 1929 to Albert F. and Minnie (Schwartz) Bieber in the hamlet of North Dorr, Dorr Township, Michigan. His father was of German ethnicity and an autoworker at McInerney Spring and Wire Company (an automotive parts supplier) who had co-founded UAW Local 687. It was the first UAW local organized within the city limits of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The family were devout Roman Catholics, and Bieber attended Visitation Elementary School (a two-room school) and Catholic Central High School in nearby Grand Rapids. As a child, he worked pulling weeds in onion and celery fields. He graduated from high school in 1948, and in July of that year took a job at McInernery Spring and Wire as a wire bender (making seats for Cadillac and Hudson cars). "You had to bend 8- and 9-gauge spring wire, sometimes five wires at a time. Those Hudsons, they had a seat four miles long ... It was a hard job. After the first hour in there, I felt like just leaving. If my father hadn't worked there, too, I probably would've," he later said.

Bieber married his high school sweetheart, the former Shirley M. Van Woerkom. on November 25, 1950, and the couple had three sons (all of them became autoworkers) and two daughters. They maintained a home in North Door as well as Southfield.

Although his wire bending job was only supposed to be summer employment, Bieber stayed and did not go on to college. Bieber was elected a shop steward of Local 687 (which covered Grand Rapids and most of the immediate surrounding area) in 1949, and in 1951 was elected to the local's executive board. He was elected to Local 687's collective bargaining committee in 1955, and became the local's president in 1956. In 1961, he became a part-time union organizer for the international union. Bieber retired as Local 687's president in 1962, and took a full-time position as an international representative and organizer with the UAW. Bieber worked closely with Kenneth W. Robinson, the Director of UAW Region 1D (then the largest region in the international union). Robinson promoted Bieber to servicing representative in 1964, and made him his personal aide.

On December 18, 1972, Robinson appointed Bieber Assistant Director of Region 1D after the incumbent, Charles Rogers, was diagnosed with cancer and stepped down. In 1974, Robinson stepped down as Director of Region 1D due to ill health. Bieber was elected as his successor, and held the position until 1980.