Leo Gerard Sworn in as New USWA President

    PITTSBURGH, Feb. 28 Leo W. Gerard, the son of a Canadian
hard rock miner, was sworn in today as the new International President of the
700,000-member United Steelworkers of America (USWA), succeeding George
Becker, who had served as the union's president since 1994.
    Gerard, 53, became the USWA's seventh president at a swearing-in ceremony
at the William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh.  He had served as the union's
International Secretary-Treasurer during Becker's presidency.  Prior to
becoming an International officer, Gerard had served as Director of the
Canadian National Office, having risen from the ranks of local leadership as a
smelter worker in Sudbury, near the company mining town of Lively, where he
had grown up helping his father organize miners.
    "I think the biggest challenge is to articulate a different vision of
globalization than the one being foisted on workers today by the multinational
corporations that dominate world trading policies," Gerard said.
    "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 percent in the past two decades.  Yet these achievements are being
punished by trade policies that pit workers around the globe against each
other in a pitiless race to the bottom on wages and working conditions.
    "That has to change," Gerard said, "and it can.  There's nothing that says
you can't pay a Mexican worker what you pay an American or Canadian worker."
    Gerard is committed to perpetuating the legacy of activism he is
inheriting from outgoing president George Becker, especially in pursuing a
Steel Revitalization Act designed to stem the collapse of the North American
steel industry, which has recently experienced 16 bankruptcies, 15,000
steelworker layoffs, and a collapse in pricing.
    "Our first responsibility is to our members," he said, "who are the
victims of a global shell game of illegal dumping for dollars and other
predatory practices of our trading partners.   The most productive workers in
the world shouldn't be paying with their jobs for bankrupt trading and fiscal
policies.  Anybody who thinks we're going to stand by and let that happen had
better think again."
    The new USWA president said he values the "extraordinary legacy of
activism" of outgoing president George Becker, a man whom he referred to as "a
leader without equal" in the current Labor Movement.  Gerard said he is
prepared to escalate the activism that Becker became noted for in prior
Steelworker campaigns to win passage of legislation to prevent the demise of
the steel industry.
    "If that means we have to build tent cities in Washington and camp out on
the doorsteps of the constituency offices of senators and congressmen, then
that's what we'll do.  They need to understand that these are real lives
they're playing with, not esoteric numbers."
    Gerard also cited the potential for expanding the considerable diversity
of the Steelworkers current membership through organizing.  "A Steelworker
today," he said, "is as likely to be a lab scientist, a health care worker, or
a grave digger as an industrial worker."  He said the union will soon be
launching new initiatives in these sectors of the labor market.
    "We live in a changing world," he said, "and we have every intention of
being as dynamic a force in the emerging markets of 21st century as we were in
the industrial workplaces of the last one."

    CONTACT: Marco Trbovich, 412-562-2440 or 412-418-7513; or Gary Hubbard,
202-256-8125, both for United Steelworkers of America.

    Website: http://www.uswa.org