(Updates throughout with background, details)
By Justin Hyde
DETROIT, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Former United Auto Workers President Stephen P. Yokich, a lifelong labor activist who led the union to some of its most lucrative contracts with Detroit's Big Three automakers, died on Friday at age 66.
Yokich suffered a stroke, his family said in a statement released by Detroit's St. John Hospital.
In a 46-year career with the UAW, which ended with his retirement in June, Yokich worked his way up from an apprentice tool and die maker to the presidency of one of the world's largest industrial unions.
Thanks in part to Yokich, UAW members at U.S. automakers get generous health care benefits, job security protections and are even guaranteed most of their pay if laid off for up to a year. But automakers have steadily whittled away at the union's membership, while nonunion assembly plants and auto parts makers have grown.
"Our biggest fight will continue to be for the right of workers to organize. It's our lifeblood," Yokich said in a speech to a UAW political convention earlier this year.
"We built this nation. We fight its wars. We pay its taxes. We've got to have a say in what goes on."
General Motors Corp. Chairman Jack Smith, who often clashed with Yokich, said the automaker was "deeply saddened" by his death.
"We have lost a respected business partner, a passionate leader in community and union relations, and most importantly, a good and honorable man," Smith said in a statement. "I value the friendship we forged and will miss his dedication to his fellow UAW members and the auto industry.
Yokich was born Aug. 20, 1935, in Detroit, six days before the United Auto Workers officially organized as a union. His parents, uncles and grandparents were UAW members or activists and Yokich's mother brought him to a UAW picket line when he was just over a year old.
After a stint in the U.S. Air Force, Yokich went to work as an apprentice at Hiedrich Tool and Die Co. in 1956, where his father worked. Yokich made enough of an impression with UAW leaders that in 1969, legendary UAW President Walter Reuther appointed him to a UAW regional staff job. In 1977, he was elected as regional head, and in 1983 became a UAW vice president in charge of the union's Ford division.
A TOUGH NEGOTIATOR
During his rise, Yokich earned a reputation as a tough negotiator with a deep reserve of anger. At the time, Ford executives and Wall Street analysts were concerned that Ford's drive to make itself more efficient in the face of growing Japanese competition would be slowed by UAW demands.
But during his term, Ford and the UAW built a friendly relationship. While Ford won more flexibility for its factories, Yokich won more job security for UAW members.
Yokich's more abrasive side reappeared in 1989, when he was put in charge of the UAW's General Motors unit. The world's largest automaker had a history of bad relations with the UAW, and had yet to make the kind of wrenching job cuts that Ford and Chrysler had.
Over the next decade, as GM attempted to trim its payrolls, Yokich oversaw a series of strikes at the company. The disputes culminated in a 1998 work stoppage at two GM parts plants that crippled the automaker's North American production.
The 1998 action forced GM to shut down 27 of its 29 North American assembly plants at one point, idling more than 200,000 workers. The 1998 strikes were the costliest ever for GM, reducing profits by an estimated $2.5 billion and causing long-lasting damage to its market share goals.
In 1999, as all of Detroit's automakers were enjoying near-record profits, Yokich oversaw new national contracts with several terms that would later prove shrewd.
Instead of a three-year contract, Yokich negotiated a four-year term, locking in the benefits of good economic times. The UAW won a moratorium on the sale or closing of factories. While Ford was able to spin-off its parts unit as a separate company, Visteon, the UAW forced the automaker to keep all of the unit's current UAW employees on Ford's payroll.
Yokich was not able to stop the decades-long slide in UAW membership, which has fallen from a peak of 1.5 million in the late 1970s to about 740,000 today. The UAW has focused on organizing nonunion parts plants with limited success, and has failed to organize the growing number of U.S. assembly plants wholly owned by foreign automakers.
Yokich is survived by a son and a daughter.