Leo Gerard | |
|---|---|
 Gerard speaking at anAFSCME rally for Obama in 2008. | |
| 7th President of the United Steelworkers | |
| In office 2001–2019 | |
| Preceded by | George Becker |
| Succeeded by | Tom Conway |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1947 (age 77–78)[1] Creighton Mine, Ontario |
| Spouse | Susan Gerard[1] |
| Children | Kari-Ann, Meaghan[2] |
| Occupation | Labor leader Steelworker |
Leo W. GerardCC (born 1947)[1] is a retired steelworker andCanadian andAmericanlabour leader. He was elected president of theUnited Steelworkers (USW) in 2001, becoming the second Canadian to head the union.[3][4] He served in the role until July 2019.[5] He also served on the Executive Council of theAFL-CIO.[6]
Gerard was born in 1947 inCreighton Mine,Ontario, at the time an unincorporated suburb ofSudbury.[1][2] His father, Wilfred Gerard, was a miner at the Creighton Mine and a key organizer with theInternational Mine Mill and Smelter Workers' Union (which merged with the United Steelworkers in 1967).[2][3][7] He grew up in Sudbury.[8] Taught that unions were supposed to be engaged onsocial issues and not justcollective bargaining, Gerard often listened in on union meetings conducted in the family home.[2] He handed out leaflets on the eve of a strike at the age of 11,[3] and accompanied his father on a union organizing drive at the age of 13.[2]
After graduating from Lively District Secondary School, Gerard took a job at theInco nickel smelter in Sudbury, uncloggingtuyeres with a sledgehammer.[3][8] He was elected steward and then chief steward of the 7,000-member Local 6500.[2][3] He enrolled atLaurentian University, studyingeconomics and planning to be an economics professor.[9] He quit college in 1977 when he was just a few credits short of graduation, and took a job as a staff representative for the international union.[1][3][8]
He married his high school sweetheart, Susan, and they have two daughters.[2]
Gerard rose steadily within the Steelworkers union hierarchy over the next two decades. He was elected director of USW District 6 in 1985 and re-elected in 1989, and was appointed national director of the Canadian division of the USW in August 1991.[1][2][3][8] He was elected secretary-treasurer of the international union in 1993, and again in 1997.[1][2][8] While USW secretary-treasurer, Gerard instituted a number of important administrative initiatives. He implemented cost-saving and revenue-generating initiatives, reorganized the secretary-treasurer's office, created an information technology department, developed a new union-to-member communications network, restructured member and local union servicing, and reinvigorated the union's organizing efforts.[2]
Gerard eventually returned to Laurentian University and received abachelor's degree ineconomics andpolitics.[2] The university awarded him an honoraryDoctor of Laws degree in 1994.[2][8]
Concerned that his age hindered the USW's ability to deal effectively with the problems confronting workers, PresidentGeorge Becker resigned effective February 28, 2001, seven months before his term of office was to end.[3][10] The Steelworkers' executive council appointed Gerard his successor on February 21.[1][3][8][11] Gerard quickly assembled a slate of supporters (many of them incumbent officers in the international union), and announced he would run for the presidency in the union's regularly scheduled elections in November 2001.[12] He was elected without opposition to four-year terms in 2001, 2005 and 2009.[8][13] Gerard was the second Canadian to head the United Steelworkers, afterLynn R. Williams (1983-1994).
In his first two terms in office, Gerard oversaw in a significant number of union mergers with the USW. The USW merged with the 12,000-memberAmerican Flint Glass Workers' Union in 2003,[14][15] the 50,000-memberIndustrial, Wood and Allied Workers of Canada in 2004,[14][16] 3,000 former members of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees in Canada in 2004,[8] and the 1,150-member Independent Steelworkers Union in 2007.[17] But the most important merger was in 2005 with the 250,000-memberPaper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union (PACE), a merger which made the USW the largest industrial union in North America.[14][18]
Gerard has adopted a global perspective on unionization. Beginning in 2003, he has signed strategical alliances pledging mutual support on workers' rights, organizing, and collective bargaining with the World Aluminum Conference of theInternational Metalworkers' Federation,Australian Workers' Union,Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union of Australia,Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists,National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic,Confederação Nacional dos Metalúrgicos of Brazil, and the Canadian Region of theCommunications Workers of America.[19][20] In 2005, Gerard negotiated a strategic alliance with the million-memberAmicus, theUnited Kingdom's second-largest trade union and the largest private sector union.[21][22] Two years later, this strategic alliance led to a merger between the USW and Amicus' successor, the 1.8 million-memberUnite.[22] The two unions adopted a new name,Workers Uniting, although both unions will retain their individual identities for at least a few years.[23]
He returned to Sudbury for a visit in 2008 after an arson incident burned down the historicSudbury Steelworkers Hall, where he had gotten his start as an organizer with Local 6500, and told the city's media that seeing the burned building was one of the most traumatic events of his life. Steel's head office subsequently donated $10,000 to the city's police force as a reward for any information that led to an arrest.[24]
Among his strategic alliances is the controversial friendship and support to the Mexican senator Napoleón Gómez Urrutia a disgraced[25] union leader accused of having embezzled US$55 million that was supposed to be used to pay workers' severance payments at the Mexicana de Cananea mining company and that ended up being diverted[26] by Gómez Urrutia, who later fled to Canada to avoid arrest. In April 2021, Gómez Urrutia was sentenced[27] to return the US$55 million. He is currently free from jail thanks to the immunity he benefits from as a senator.
Gerard suffered a blood clot (thrombus) in his heart in February 2008, and successfully underwent heart surgery to remove the blockage.[8]
Gerard retired in 2019, and was replaced by Thomas M. Conway as International President.
In 2023, he was named aCompanion of the Order of Canada.[28]
In 2002, he chaired the Second World Rubber Industries Conference in São Paulo, Brazil and served as chair of the Rubber Sector of theInternational Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).[19] A member of the executive committee of theInternational Metalworkers' Federation, he co-chaired the federation's World Aluminum Conference in 2003.[19]
Gerard is a member of the Labor Advisory Committee to the United States Trade Representative and the Secretary of Labor and the National Commission on Energy Policy. He is also a member of the Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations (ACTPN).[19]
Gerard was elected a vice president of the AFL-CIO in 2001, elected to the AFL-CIO Executive Council in 2001, and appointed to serve on the labour federation's Executive Committee in February 2003.[19] He was instrumental in the formation of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council, and was named chair of the AFL-CIO's Public Policy Committee in March 2005.[19]
He also is a member of the Apollo Alliance, a group which works towardNorth American energy independence and cleaner and more efficient energy alternatives, and is co-chair of the board of directors of the Blue Green Alliance[19][29]
Gerard was appointed to the Order of Canada in June 2023, with the rank of Companion.[30]
News footage of Gerard is included in the 2008documentary,Battle in Seattle byStuart Townsend. Gerard and USW vice president Tom Conway are seen dragging two large concreteplanters into an intersection near theWashington State Convention and Trade Center during the1999 WTO protests in an attempt to help protesters block access to the WTO meetings.[31] Gerard and Conway came under fire by Seattle police during the incident.[31]
Media related toLeo Gerard at Wikimedia Commons
| Trade union offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | President of theUnited Steelworkers 2001 - 2019 | Succeeded by Tom Conway |