He spent his childhood in Nemacolin, Pennsylvania, and went to school at Massanutten Military Academy, in Woodstock, Virginia.
[1][2][3] In 1937, Ruttenberg started his 40-year career in labor as an Ohio Valley field representative of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
[1][2][3][4] Harold J. Ruttenberg, his brother, served as director of research for the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC).
[5] In 1942, the brothers also worked with Hetzel, Lee Pressman, and Vincent Sweeney in writing the initial legal brief to the National War Labor Board (NWLB) for the Little Steel case.
[1][2][3] In 1962, during the Kennedy Administration, Ruttenberg became special assistant to W. Willard Wirtz, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor.
Advocating voluntary compliance, he made clear his willingness to cut employment service monies to non-compliant states.