Leo Gerard, RIP

The long-time president of the United Steelworkers of America has died. What made Gerard a special union leader was his ability to shift his union away from the declining steel industry and into all sorts of other workplaces in order to keep the USW alive. Of course his focus was fundamentally on steel, which has long suffered from American policymakers prioritizing its global allies over its unionized workers and welcomed in imports. So this is what Gerard had to deal with and he woudl work with or against the two political parties in order to support his members’ needs. That meant he wasn’t always going to go along with the globalization so supported by Clintonian Democrats, who showed almost complete indifference to the decline of the working class (never forget Chuck Schumer discussing how he was happy to shed working class votes because the middle class would run to the Democrats–always the best instincts Chuck!!). Gerard also built up the Blue-Green Alliance, which was doing great work to bring environmentalists and labor together to support green jobs before Scumbag Don came in and declared war on wind energy in order to fulfill his dream that America be like it was in whatever he thinks 1955 was like. He did a lot of important international solidarity work. Basically, he kept the Steelworkers relevant far longer than they might have been.

Big loss. RIP.