USW@Work: Fall 2025

Illinois Members Take Pride in Producing Gas and Electric Stoves

Mike Keck has worked at the Peerless-Premier Appliance Co. in Belleville, Ill., for 46 years. For all but four of those years, he has also served as the president of Local 182B.

Today, Keck has an eye on retirement in 2026. He and local Vice President Chester Coleman are among the 50 USW members at the site who produce gas and electric ranges for Peerless-Premier.

“I catch myself forgetting that I’ve done it for so long,” said Keck, who works in the factory’s maintenance department. “Time just goes by.”

Read more on Page 4

USW Mourns Loss of Former International President

Leo W. Gerard grew up in a company town in Sudbury, Ontario, a miner’s son who, as a boy, accompanied his father on union organizing drives. By the time he became a union steward at age 22, he was already a veteran of the labor movement.

Gerard, who died on Sept. 21 at age 78, followed in his father’s footsteps and went to work at the nickel smelter in his hometown at age 18, joining the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers. Two years later, that union merged with the Steelworkers, and Gerard’s 52-year career as a USW activist began.

“The company controlled the town but never succeeded in owning the souls of the men and women who lived and worked there,” he once said. “That’s because these were union men and women.”

When Gerard retired as the USW’s seventh international president in 2019, his 18-year tenure made him the longest-serving leader in the union’s history.

Read more on Page 8

Northern Pa. Mill Has Sustained Generations of Families

Long before workers banded together in 1942 to form the USW, Dan Cherry’s great-great grandfather lost his life due to unsafe working conditions at the paper mill in Johnsonburg, Pa.

Cherry, a fifth-generation paper worker with several dozen family members who also worked at the mill over the years, said the presence of the USW at the facility has transformed the quality of life for families like his throughout the small town of 2,000 people.

“I am proud to know how much my family has contributed to the many years of success that Johnsonburg has achieved,” said Cherry, who serves as president of Local 10-701. “The presence of the USW helps keep the work force together.”

Read more on Page 14

USW Emergency Response Team Shows Up When Tragedy Strikes

When an explosion tragically took the lives of Steelworkers Steven Menefee and Timothy Quinn in the late morning of Aug. 11, members of the union’s Emergency Response Team (ERT) and Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) department immediately mobilized to help USW siblings and families.

The disaster at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works, which also hospitalized five workers with serious injuries, set off a chain of texts and calls throughout the union. As soon as news of the event reached them, ERT and HSE activists made their way to Clairton and the Local 1557 union hall, where members were already getting help from across southwestern Pennsylvania.

“Having all of that support already in the making was really gratifying to see,” said ERT coordinator and Local 7687 member Bonnie Reese, who lives about 200 miles east of the mill. “Members were already coming to the union hall. The community was already reaching out to the local.”

Read more on Page 18

USW oil workers are determined to build on their strength and solidarity across the union as they prepare to negotiate a new contract this coming winter.

The USW’s national pattern agreement with the oil industry expires January 31, 2026, and members set a comprehensive agenda for the upcoming negotiations during the National Oil Bargaining Program (NOBP) conference in August.

“As we prepare for bargaining, we need to fight from every angle. We need to make our demands clear,” said International President David McCall as he kicked off the NOBP conference in Pittsburgh. “We must out-organize, out-educate and out-bargain management.”

McCall’s rallying cry resonated with the hundreds of oil workers in attendance at the conference, who share the goal of bargaining a contract that provides them with a fair share of the industry’s massive profits.

Read more on Page 12