print this page

The son of a union miner who started working at Inco's nickel smelter in Sudbury, Ontario at age 18, and inspired by a lifelong commitment to economic and social justice, Leo W. Gerard rose through the ranks of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) to be appointed the Union's seventh international president on February 28, 2001. He was elected by acclamation in union-wide elections in November 2001.

The second Canadian to occupy the union's highest office, Gerard assumed the presidency in the midst of a global crisis which had devastated the North American steel industry with mass layoffs, plant shutdowns, bankruptcies and liquidations. He 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 are making the Union the decisive force for a humane consolidation of the industry. Gerard has 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 Workers (ICEM).

In recognition of the regional and global strategies of the multi-national employers that our union deals with, Gerard has been negotiating strategic alliance agreements with unions throughout the world. As of March 2005, agreements with unions representing over 2.6 million members had been signed, including IG Metall (Germany), the Australian Workers Union (Australia), the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (Australia) and Sindicato de Trabajadores Mineros y Metalurgicos de la Republica Mexicana (Mexico). Many more such agreements are being discussed with unions in other countries who have members in our union’s core industries.

Gerard was instrumental in the formation of the Industrial Union Council of the AFL-CIO, and in February 2003, was appointed to serve on the AFL-CIO's Executive Committee, as well as serving on its Executive Council. He was also named Chair of the AFL-CIO’s Public Policy Committee in March 2005.

Under Gerard, the USWA has 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 USWA members in the political process.

Prior to his election as President, Gerard served two terms as International Secretary-Treasurer, having been elected to that position in November 1993 and again in November 1997. Before assuming his international office, he served as National Director for Canada, a post to which the International Executive Board appointed him in August 1991, after the retirement of E. Gerard Docquier. He previously served six years as Director of District 6 in Ontario, having been elected in 1985 and reelected in 1989.

As Director of the Ontario district, Gerard was instrumental in achieving many landmark labor agreements and legislative changes. These included the first indexed pensions for all past, current and future retirees, as well as significant advances in safety and health legislation; the successful workers' buyout at Algoma Steel, saving thousands of jobs; and, he secured outstanding victories in occupational health and safety, women's rights, human rights and in organizing the unorganized.

While active in LU 6500, Gerard completed courses in economics and politics at Laurentian University, which awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Laws degree in 1994. He attended the Canadian Labour Congress' Labour College and was appointed a Staff Representative in 1977, initially posted to work in Toronto. In the early 1980s, he was transferred to Elliot Lake, in the midst of a large expansion. His leadership and vision while in Toronto and Elliot Lake marked him as a person destined to serve a much greater number of workers.

While Secretary-Treasurer, Gerard served as chairman of the Steelworkers Health and Welfare Fund, leading the restructuring and revitalization of that important service to USWA members and local unions. He also headed the Steelworkers' organizing program, bringing resources and fierce determination to the Steelworkers' struggles and organizing drives across North America. As President, he has been instrumental in bringing in tens of thousands of new USWA members through innovative merger agreements with the Industrial, Wood & Allied Workers of Canada, the American Flint Glass Workers Union, the Canadian National Railway Track Workers and other independent unions.

Gerard is the driving force behind the Heartland Labor Capital Funds, a network that is creating conceptual, financial and educational tools for capital strategies that will inject the welfare of workers into investment priorities. Working Capital , a book based on research drawn from the second national Heartland Labor Capital Conference, has been published by Cornell University Press. The book, which includes a foreword by Gerard, documents both the problems in current financial investments and offers an agenda to advance labor's capital strategy.

Leo married his high school sweetheart, Susan, and they have two children, Kari-Ann and Meaghan, and two grandchildren, Elyssa and Liam.