Past Sins, Future Challenges Hang Over First UAW Election

The United Auto Workers faces its biggest leadership challenge since 1950, when then-President Walter Reuther made a landmark deal with General Motors Co. to improve pay and benefits conditions in exchange for five years of labor peace, setting the standard for the US labor movement.

Workers for the first time will directly elect someone to carry on Reuther’s legacy— a change that could reorder the union hierarchy and usher in a more combative round of contract negotiations with Detroit automakers next year. Nearly 400,000 members are filling out mail ballots, due back Nov. 28, to pick the next president and ...