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GEORGE
BECKER
George Becker was inaugurated as the sixth
international president of the United Steelworkers of America on March 1,
1994. Since assuming the Steelworkers' presidency, he has restructured the union
by reducing the number of U.S. districts to nine from eighteen. He has
led the successful merger of the former United Rubber Workers into the
USWA, and he has reached agreement with the presidents of the United Auto
Workers and International Association of Machinists to unify into a new
union by the year 2000. Becker has also played a leading role in the
revitalization of the AFLCIO. As a vice president on the federation's
executive council, he was a strong supporter of John Sweeney for
president, RichardTrumka for secretarytreasurer and Linda ChavezThompson
for executive vice president in the leadership election of last October. Becker
now serves as 1chair of the AFLCIO Executive Council's Committee on
Economic Policy.
He was elected USWA international vice president for administration in
1985 and re-elected in 1989. As vice president he chaired aluminum
industry negotiations and led the 20 month global corporate campaign against
Ravenswood Aluminum Co. in West Virginia, which achieved the historic firing
of 1,300 permanent scab replacements and return to work of 1,600
lockedout USWA members.
Becker went to work at Granite City Steel in Granite City, IL., in 1944,
and later worked at Dow Chemical's aluminum rolling mill in Madison, IL.,
where he became president of USWA Local 4804. He was appointed a USWA
staff representative in Illinois in 1965 and transferred to the union's
Pittsburgh headquarters in 1975 as a safety and health technician. As a
safety specialist, Becker led the fight in the 1970's to establish health protections
for workers exposed to lead, arsenic and other toxic substances. He later served
as assistant to Lloyd McBride and Lynn Williams when they were USWA
officers. Becker is an executive committee member of the International
Metalworkers Federation (IMF) and chairman of
the world rubber council for the International Federation of Chemical,
Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). He was appointed
by President Clinton to the President's Export Council and received
congressional confirmation
to the U.S. Trade and Environmental Policy Advisory Committee. Both positions
afford him an opportunity to
speak out strongly for worker rights |
