Leo Gerard - USW Presidency

USW Presidency

Concerned that his age hindered the USW's ability to deal effectively with the problems confronting workers, President George Becker resigned effective February 28, 2001, seven months before his term of office was to end. The Steelworkers' executive council appointed Gerard his successor on February 21. 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. He was elected without opposition to four-year terms in 2001, 2005 and 2009. Gerard was the second Canadian to head the United Steelworkers, after Lynn 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-member American Flint Glass Workers Union in 2003, the 50,000-member Industrial, Wood and Allied Workers of Canada in 2004, 3,000 former members of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees in Canada in 2004, and the 1,150-member Independent Steelworkers Union in 2007. But the most important merger was in 2005 with the 250,000-member Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union (PACE), a merger which made the USW the largest industrial union in North America.

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 the International 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 the Communications Workers of America. In 2005, Gerard negotiated a strategic alliance with the million-member Amicus, the United Kingdom's second-largest trade union and the largest private sector union. Two years later, this strategic alliance led to a merger between the USW and Amicus' successor, the 1.8 million-member Unite. The two unions adopted a new name, Workers Uniting, although both unions will retain their individual identities for at least a few years.

He returned to Sudbury for a visit in 2008 after an arson incident burned down the historic Sudbury 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.

Gerard suffered a blood clot (thrombus) in his heart in February 2008, and successfully underwent heart surgery to remove the blockage.