Obituaries

Walter C. WallaceMediator

Walter C. Wallace, 83, the former chairman of the National Mediation Board, died Nov. 27 at a friend's home in Great Barrington, Mass., after a heart attack. He lived in New York.

Mr. Wallace was best known for heading up the contentious negotiations between management, led by chief executive Frank Lorenzo, and labor, specifically the machinists union, just before the Eastern Airlines strike in 1989.

A three-time appointee to the board, Mr. Wallace was deeply involved in several major disputes from 1982 to 1990 between labor and management at Northwest Airlines, Pan American World Airways and the Long Island Rail Road.

He was born in New York and served in the Army during World War II in Italy, receiving the Bronze Star. He graduated from St. John's University in New York and received a law degree from Cornell University.

In the 1950s, Mr. Wallace was appointed assistant secretary of labor by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He represented the nation at the International Labor Organization conference on the timber industry in 1958, introducing a proposal that achieved the industry's first agreement, despite the opposition of the then-Soviet Union.

He participated in mediations and negotiations with the railroad and steel industries and in 1961 served as general counsel of the Presidential Railroad Commission.

In the 1960s, Mr. Wallace integrated the workforce at the Hudson Pulp and Paper mill, the largest southern pulp mill in the South, without violence or interruption of its operations.

By the mid-1970s, Mr. Wallace headed the Bituminous Coal Operators. He was chief spokesman in the industry-wide negotiations with the United Mine Workers in 1975.

He lived in Washington in the 1950s and 1980s.

His wife, Frances Helm, died in 2006.

Survivors include a daughter, Lauren Helm of New York.