James J. Reynolds, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetJames J. Reynolds
American politician
Date of Birth: 08-Jan-1907
Place of Birth: Brooklyn, New York, United States
Date of Death: 09-Oct-1986
Profession: politician
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Capricorn 
About James J. Reynolds
- James Joseph Reynolds Jr.
- (January 8, 1907 – October 9, 1986) was the Undersecretary of Labor for Labor-Management relations during the Lyndon B.
- Johnson Administration in the United States.
- Earlier he served as Assistant Secretary for Labor-Management Relations from 1961 to 1965, initially for President John F.
- Kennedy.
- Reynolds was an industrialist, and had been a member of the National Labor Relations Board under President Harry S.
- Truman.One of Reynolds' most well-known moments came in April 1968, when Martin Luther King had gone to Memphis, Tennessee to support African-American garbage workers during the Memphis Sanitation Strike.
- They had walked off the job to "protest unsafe conditions, abusive white supervisors, low wages, and to gain recognition for their union."[1] King was assassinated on April 4.
- The next day, President Johnson instructed Undersecretary Reynolds to go to Memphis to mediate the conflict and settle the strike.
- It took him two weeks.
- The strike had been at a standoff given Memphis Mayor Henry Loeb's adamant refusal to authorize automatic payment of union dues from the sanitation-workers' paycheck.
- Reynolds solved the impasse by using the Federal Credit Union[2], which is employee-owned but federally administered.
- Reynolds argued that the City of Memphis had no right to prevent its employees from designating some portion of their wages for the credit union.
- This offered a face-saving out for Loeb: wages were deducted for the credit union and then transferred for payment as union dues.
- Ultimately, the union was recognized and workers received a 5% raise, to $1.90/hour.[3] Reynolds died at Georgetown University Hospital in 1986.
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