Richard "Dick" Frankensteen (born in Detroit on March 6, 1907; died 1977) was the first president of the Automotive Industrial Workers Association.

He attended Central High School, playing in the all-city and all-state high school football teams and earned the All-American honors in his senior year at University of Dayton

University of Dayton

The University of Dayton is a private Roman Catholic university operated by the Society of Mary located in Dayton, Ohio...

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At age 15, he worked summers at Chrysler's Dodge plant for more than six years. He went on to work full time at Dodge, and studied law at night at the University of Detroit. He rose to the bargaining council of the company union at the Dodge plant, and later became leader of the movement that reorganized it into an independent union.

See also

• The Battle of the Overpass
  The Battle of the Overpass
  The Battle of the Overpass was an incident on May 26, 1937, in which labor organizers clashed with Ford Motor Company security guards.The United Auto Workers had planned a leaflet campaign entitled, "Unionism, Not Fordism", at the pedestrian overpass over Miller Road at Gate 4 of the Rouge complex...
  
  
• Communists in the U.S. Labor Movement (1937-1950)
  Communists in the U.S. Labor Movement (1937-1950)
  The Communist Party and its allies played an important role in the United States labor movement, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, but never succeeded, with rare exceptions, either in bringing the labor movement around to its agenda or in converting their influence in any particular union into...
  
  
• Walter Reuther
  Walter Reuther
  Walter Philip Reuther was an American labor union leader, who made the United Automobile Workers a major force not only in the auto industry but also in the Democratic Party in the mid 20th century...