to keep wages uniform across the industry to avoid giving one company a cost advantage over another. Some deeply criticized Fraser's 1979 negotiations, however. They argued that the Chrysler agreement set off a wave of concessionary bargaining among automobile manufacturers that then spread into steel, mining, trucking, meatpacking, airlines and rubber. They also claim that a thirty-year truce between labor and management broke down after 1979, leading automobile manufacturers to abandon pattern bargaining and seek an end to job protections and cost-of-living increases. Social activism Fraser was active in politics his entire life. A Democrat, he was an unabashed liberal. Socially progressive, he was a vocal supporter of the Civil Rights Movement. He defied most UAW in his strong support of desegregation busing in public schools. Despite resistance from both staff and members, he began initiatives within the UAW and the auto industry to recruit more minorities and women. He also pushed for national health insurance. Retirement Fraser retired as UAW president in 1983. He was an adjunct professor at Wayne State University for many years, teaching labor relations and labor history. A major research and study center, the Douglas A. Fraser Center for Workplace Issues, was named after him. Fraser received The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence for his significant contributions to life in America. Death Douglas Fraser died on February 23, 2008, of complications from emphysema at Providence Hospital in Southfield, Michigan. Archival collections His life and professional career is documented in historical materials housed within the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University. His time as UAW president and vice-president and as university professor are chronicled in individual collections. The archival materials include personal correspondence, administrative memoranda, photographs, and other record types. Researchers are encouraged to find the collections at the Walter P. Reuther Library website. Quotes "The Chrysler workers saved the Chrysler Corporation." "Size alone I don't think is the only measurement for a labor union. It's vitality. Your resources are more limited, but it's how you spend those resources. If you spend them on communications and organization and political activity, you can be a very viable force with a much smaller number than we had in the past." "I believe leaders of the business community, with few exceptions, have chosen to wage a one-sided class war today in our country—a war against working people, the unemployed, the poor, the minorities, the