Stephen Phillip Yokich (August 20, 1935 – August 16, 2002) was an American labor union activist who served as President of the United Auto Workers from 1994 to 2002. Early life and union career Yokich was born in Detroit, Michigan, in August 1935 to Stephen and Julia Yokich, just six days before the first UAW convention. He is of German, Lebanese, Serbian and Syrian descent. Both of his grandfathers, most of his aunts and uncles, and his father were UAW members. When he was 22 months old, his mother (a UAW member of Local 174 who was out on strike at the Ternstedt Plant) took him to his first picket line. His father brought him to a picket line when he was six years old. He served in the United States Air Force from 1952 to 1956, then became an apprentice in 1956 at the Heidrich Tool and Die Company in Oak Park, Michigan. He joined UAW Local 155, the same local where his father had once been shop steward. Many members of his family were members of Local 155. "Working in the same local, I went to all the meetings with my father," he said. "We would take one car, and there would be four or five of us, all riding together to go to the meetings." As the youngest apprentice, he was required to serve as the local union's recording secretary. He was elected chair of Local 155's political action committee after a year in the union. Yokich became notorious for pushing and sometimes fighting with anti-union workers, managers and others while walking the picket line during strikes. He was arrested in the late 1950s after an altercation on a strikers' picket line in Fraser, Michigan. International union career Walter Reuther became acquainted with Yokich after Yokich's arrest. In 1962, Yokich contradicted the legendary UAW president at a public meeting: "All we hear about is the sit-down strike and what we did in '38. We are not interested in '38. We are interested in doing our part now in making this UAW stronger than it was in '38." Reuther hired him as a UAW Region 1 staff representative in 1969. Yokich was elected Director of Region 1 in 1977. Yokich was elected an international Vice President of the UAW in 1980 (he served five consecutive terms), and led the union's Agricultural Implement Department. While head of this department,