Sudbury at the centre of Steelworker union power shuffle

The race for leadership of the Steelworkers' biggest Canadian district is shaping up as one of the most significant in years

By: Mick Lowe

  Big changes are in the offing within the United Steelworkers of America, changes which should both enliven the organization and further enhance Canada's already considerable influence within one of North America's largest international unions.
  On March 1st, Sudbury native Leo Gerard will become President of the Pittsburgh-based USWA, making him the second Canadian ever to take the helm of the 750,000 member union. Gerard is currently International Secretary-Treasurer.
  Another Sudburian, Wayne Fraser, who is currently the union's Northeastern Ontario Coordinator has been named Assistant to the Director of the union's District Six (Ontario and the Maritimes) in Toronto. With 90,000 members, District Six is the most populous of the USWA's Districts.
  The move sets the stage for Fraser to throw his hat into the ring to succeed present District Six Director Harry Hynd, who will announce his retirement well before the union's international elections this coming November.
  But Fraser will not rise to leadership of the strategic District Six without a fight, union insiders say. Hamilton-area Steelworker activist and former Local Union President Peter Leibovitch is also expected to seek the Director's spot.
  Fraser should enjoy the backing of fellow Sudburian Gerard, as well as most of the union's Ontario staff. Leibovitch, on the other hand, may cultivate a "rank and file" image by seeking the support of Local Union and Steelworkers' Area Council presidents.
  The race for District Six is shaping up as one of the most interesting leadership contests the Steelworkers' Union has seen in many years, and will further reinforce Sudbury's reputation as a cradle for Steelworker leadership.
  That reputation was born twenty years ago this May when then Local 6500 President Dave Patterson upset incumbent (and staff-backed) rival Stew Cooke. (Local 6500 represents the production and maintenance workers at Inco Ltd., and it was then and still is the union's second largest Canadian local.)
  The following year Lynn Williams became the first Canadian to head the USWA, which then numbered some 1.2 million members. Williams and Patterson never did get along and when it came time for the latter to seek re-election in 1985, Williams hand-picked Patterson's opponent.
  That selection was none other than union staff rep Leo Gerard who appeared to many as something of a Patterson clone. Both men were relatively youthful (still in their mid-30s), and both had cut their trade union teeth in Sudbury's Local 6500.
  And so it was in 1985 that two Sudburians faced off for the leadership of District Six. Gerard won handily, and never looked back. The son and nephew of Sudbury Mine Mill Local 598 activists, Gerard moved from District to Canadian Director to International Secretary-Treasurer to International President.
  Unlike most other unions which elect their senior leadership at conventions, the Steelworkers hold quadrennial International Elections, at which each member in every local in every district is eligible to cast a vote for his or her District and International leadership.
  The elections alone are a massive logistical undertaking, with polling places established at literally thousands of shop floors and union halls from California to Alaska to Nova Scotia to Florida on the same day.
  But the whole is often disappointingly less than the sum of its parts, because the union "establishment" usually fields a solid slate of candidates who are prohibitive favourites to win election.
  Still, as Dave Patterson proved in 1981, upsets can happen, which is why a Fraser-Leibovitch contest should renew interest in internal Steelworkers Union politics, at least in Ontario.

Next week Straight Goods will post a feature interview with Leo Gerard concerning the political landscape and the state of the labour movement in Canada and the United States.

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