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28 February, 2001Leo Gerard has become the seventh international president of the 700,000-member steelworkers' union.
NORTH AMERICA: Leo Gerard has been sworn in as the new international president of the 700,000-member United Steelworkers of America. He succeeds George Becker, who had served as the union's president since 1994.
Gerard, 53, became the USWA's seventh international president after serving as the union's international secretary-treasurer during the Becker presidency, following two years as national director for Canada and six years as the union's Ontario director.
The new USWA international president believes that the biggest challenge for trade unions will be "to articulate a different vision of globalisation than the one being foisted on workers today by the multinational corporations that dominate world trading policies." He stated that "we're not going to roll technology back. In fact, we're moving it forward at a headlong pace. Productivity in the steel industry has risen 174 per cent in the last two decades. Yet these achievements are being punished by trade policies that pit workers around the globe against each other in a race to the bottom in terms of wages and working conditions." This had to change, said Gerard.
Although he emphasised that the union's first responsibility was to its members, he underlined his commitment to stemming the collapse of the North American steel industry, which has recently experienced numerous U.S. bankruptcies, thousands of steelworker layoffs, and a collapse in pricing.
Gerard also cited the potential for expanding the considerable diversity of the USWA's current membership through organising. "A Steelworker today is as likely to be a lab scientist, a health care worker, or a grave digger as an industrial worker," he said.
Source: USWA
Gerard, 53, became the USWA's seventh international president after serving as the union's international secretary-treasurer during the Becker presidency, following two years as national director for Canada and six years as the union's Ontario director.
The new USWA international president believes that the biggest challenge for trade unions will be "to articulate a different vision of globalisation than the one being foisted on workers today by the multinational corporations that dominate world trading policies." He stated that "we're not going to roll technology back. In fact, we're moving it forward at a headlong pace. Productivity in the steel industry has risen 174 per cent in the last two decades. Yet these achievements are being punished by trade policies that pit workers around the globe against each other in a race to the bottom in terms of wages and working conditions." This had to change, said Gerard.
Although he emphasised that the union's first responsibility was to its members, he underlined his commitment to stemming the collapse of the North American steel industry, which has recently experienced numerous U.S. bankruptcies, thousands of steelworker layoffs, and a collapse in pricing.
Gerard also cited the potential for expanding the considerable diversity of the USWA's current membership through organising. "A Steelworker today is as likely to be a lab scientist, a health care worker, or a grave digger as an industrial worker," he said.
Source: USWA