Leo W. Gerard
International President
United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, AFL-CIO, CLC
United Steelworkers International President Leo W. Gerard has launched a wide range of new initiatives that have brought more than 350,000 workers into the union's ranks - a sixty-percent increase.
In addition, the union has utilized strategic bargaining to secure tens of thousands of jobs throughout North America, strengthened workers' bargaining leverage by forging strategic alliances with unions across the globe, and advanced the USW's historic leadership in the Blue Green Alliance and the Apollo Alliance - coalitions that are committed to protecting the health, safety, and environment of workers, their families and their communities.
Under Gerard's leadership, the USW has also won tariff relief that helped to save the American steel and tire industries, a Workers First law in Canada that gives workers top priority for consideration in corporate bankruptcies, and, with the Canadian National Office and the New Democratic Party, passed the landmark Westray Bill that makes corporations criminally liable when they kill or seriously injure their employees or members of the public.
The union's growth over Gerard's years as president includes mergers with the American Flint Glass Workers, the Industrial, Wood and Allied Workers of Canada (IWA), the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union (PACE), the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees (Canada), and other smaller independent unions.
These mergers and the union's continuing commitment to organizing new members have made the new United Steelworkers (USW) - officially the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union - the largest and most diverse industrial union in North America and the dominant union in paper, forestry products, steel, aluminum, tire and rubber, mining, glass, chemicals, petroleum and other basic resource industries, in addition to a grow¬ing membership of more than 130,000 members in the education and service sector.
Gerard has also led the effort to restore the financial strength of the USW's Strike and Defense Fund, and launched a union-wide Building Power program designed to educate and mobilize the membership for continuing success in collective bargaining, expanded communications and organizing capabilities, and for renewed political activism to protect and improve the economic security and quality of life for workers, their families and their communities in both of our countries.
On Nov. 22, 2005, Gerard led a ticket of International Officers and District Directors that was elected without opposition to lead the new union for the next four years. It was the first time in the union's 63-year history that a slate of candidates won election unopposed. He was re-elected by acclamation in 2009.
The son of a union miner, Gerard started working at Inco's nickel smelter in Sudbury, Ontario at age 18. Inspired by a lifelong commitment to economic and social justice, Gerard rose through the ranks to become the first president of the new USW. Before be¬ing elected to his first full term by acclamation in 2001, Gerard had served as the Steelworkers' seventh international president, having been appointed to the presidency by the union's International Executive Board upon George Becker's retirement.
The second Canadian to occupy the USW's highest office, Gerard immediately embarked the union on a course of renewed activism, demanding - and winning - government action to halt an unprecedented flood of illegal steel imports and negotiating precedent-setting labor agreements that positioned the USW as the decisive force for a humane consolidation of the industry. Gerard also secured a prescription drug benefit for the retirees of liquidated steel companies, financed by hundreds of millions of dollars of VEBA contributions negotiated with the new companies.
Gerard has also exerted global leadership in demanding worldwide standards for workers in the tire, rubber, aluminum, mining and forestry products industries. In October 2002, he chaired the Second World Rubber Industries Conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil and serves as the Chair of the Rubber Sector of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). The following year, Gerard cochaired the International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF) World Aluminum Conference in Montreal, where delegates formed a global network of unions to strengthen workers' rights in the aluminum industry. He later helped to create the first ArcelorMittal Global Health and Safety Committee.
In recognition of the regional and global strategies of the USW's multinational employers, Gerard championed strategic alliance agreements with unions throughout the world. Under his leadership, the USW joined with Unite - the biggest union in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland - to create Workers Uniting, the first global union, which draws on the energies of more than three million active and retired workers. Other alliance partners include IG Metall, the German metalworkers' union; AWU, the Australian Workers Union; CFMEU, Australia's Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union; CNM-CUT, the largest metalworkers' union in Brazil; SNTMMSRM, and the National Union of Mining, Steel and Allied Workers of the Republic of Mexico. Many more such agreements are being discussed with unions in other countries who have members in our union's core industries.
As president of the USW, Gerard was instrumental in the formation of the Industrial Union Council of the AFL-C10, and in February 2003, was appointed to serve on the AFL-C10's Executive Committee, as well as its Executive Council. He chairs the AFL-C10's Public Policy Committee.
Gerard also serves on the U.S. National Commission on Energy Policy and is a founding board member of the Apollo Alliance, a non-profit public policy initiative for creating good jobs in pursuit of energy independence. He is also co-chairman of the board of the Blue Green Alliance, a national partnership of labor unions and environmental organizations dedicated to expanding the number and quality of jobs in the green economy.
Under Gerard, the USW heightened its focus on reversing the alarming decline of U.S. manufacturing and the negative impact of it on America's growing health care crisis. He has worked with equal fervor in developing strategies to inject the rights of workers into trade agreements, investment priorities and corporate governance. He has also dramatically increased participation by USW members in the political process.
Finally, Gerard has led the crusades against illegally and unfairly traded imports, often testifying before congressional sub-committees that handle issues related to trade and industry.
Prior to his election as USW President, Gerard served as the union's International Secretary-Treasurer (1994-2001), as National Director of Canada (1991-1994), and as Director of District 6 in Ontario (1986-1991). He was appointed a USW Staff Representative in 1977.
Gerard is also the driving force behind a network of activists who are creating conceptual, financial and educational tools for capital strategies that will inject the welfare of workers into investment priorities.
Leo married his high school sweetheart, Susan, and they have two children, Kari-Ann and Meaghan, and two grandchildren, Elyssa and Liam.
