AKRON, Ohio -- Milan Stone, president of the United Rubber Workers Union, has retired after 47 years of service to the organization.
Stone was one of 11 URW staff members who, last month, accepted incentives to retire early.
He will receive $25,000.
Stone was defeated in a union election for president in 1990 by Kenneth Cross, the union's secretary-treasurer. Stone finished his union career working as an international representative for locals in Wisconsin and surrounding states.
The son of tenant dairy farmers from Eau Claire, Wis., Stone worked as a farmer and at a pressure cooker plant in Wisconsin before going to work for the Uniroyal Co. in Eau Claire.
His 1946 appointment as a steward for the URW Local 19 at Uniroyal was the first of many union jobs he held. He was elected URW president in 1981.
Stone made many enemies by his urging local union leaders to work hard for their companies, saying the union could not demand wages and benefits if its members were not productive.
He even supported contract concessions at various U.S. plants that were threatened with closing.
Stone said at the end, his forthrightness cost him the union presidency.
'People don't like to hear the truth sometimes,' hesaid. 'All the plants we saved by making concessions, nearly all of them voted against me.'
