Leo W. Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers (USW - United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union) is in his second full term since being elected in 2005.

The USW, the largest manufacturing union in North America,represents 1.2 million active and retired industrial and service sector workers in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Under Leo's leadership, the USW's executive board launched a nationwide mobilization to gain congressional support for health insurance reform, the Employee Free Choice Act, the economic stimulus bill that includes a 'Buy American' provision to promote job creation, and climate protection legislation that serves working families.

In 2008, he signed a merger agreement creating the first trans-Atlantic union with leaders of the UK-based manufacturing union called Unite. The new global union, 'Workers Uniting' (www.workersuniting.org), is a fully functional and registered trade union in the UK, U.S., Ireland and Canada.

He serves on the AFL-CIO's Executive Council (www.aflcioi.org), where he chairs the AFL-CIO's Public Policy Committee. He serves on the U.S. National Commission on Energy Policy, and is a charter board member of the Apollo Alliance (www.apolloalliance.org), a non-profit public policy initiative for creating good jobs in pursuit of energy independence.

Gerard is a founding partner in 2006 with the Sierra Club of the Blue Green Alliance (www.bluegreenalliance.org), which today includes the Natural Resources Defense Council and four other unions dedicated to expanding jobs in the green economy. He also helped create the Washington-based Alliance for American Manufacturing (www.americanmanufacturing.org), a unique non-partisan, non-profit partnership forged to strengthen manufacturing in the U.S. that's made up of America's leading manufacturers and the USW.