Chicago Tribune (Illinois), February 6, 2007, Tuesday

Copyright 2007 Chicago Tribune

Chicago Tribune (Illinois)

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News

February 6, 2007 Tuesday

SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS

HEADLINE: George Becker: 1928 - 2007: Ex-union leader was voice of steelworkers

BYLINE: Stephen Franklin, Chicago Tribune

BODY:

Feb. 6--Long before dawn he would be sweating furiously, lifting iron or riding an exercise bike, his legs pumping like pistons.

George Becker was a firm believer in certain traditions, including staying in shape years after serving as a Marine and working at a steel mill in southern Illinois.

Another was never letting his union lose a battle. It often didn't matter how ambitious the plans were to him. Winning and having a plan on how to win mattered more.

The son of a son of a steel-mill worker, Mr. Becker rose up in the ranks of the United Steelworkers (USW) union, serving as its president for seven years and becoming a voice for blue-collar unions within organized labor.

Mr. Becker, 78, died after a long battle with prostate cancer, Saturday, Feb. 3 in Gibsonia, Pa., USW officials said.

"He was perceived by many as being direct and gruff and in your face. Yet as a human, he was kind and passionate and caring," said USW president Leo W. Gerard, who succeeded Mr. Becker in 2001.

As a young union representative from Northern Ontario, Canada, Gerard recalled bonding early with Mr. Becker when he met him at the USW headquarters in Pittsburgh.

"We both grew up in the shadow of our workplaces, and we talked about that all the time. We always went home. He would always say, 'You need to never forget that there are people working night-shift work tonight," Gerard said.

The campaign that sealed Mr. Becker's rise to the USW's presidency was waged against Ravenswood Aluminum Corp., a West Virginia firm that had locked out about 1,700 steelworkers in 1990. At the time, Becker was the USW's vice president and head of its corporate campaigns.

It became a global crusade that cost millions and lasted nearly two years. But the union won, putting its members back in their jobs.

Several years later, Mr. Becker, then the union's president, led a 28-month effort against Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. The Japanese tiremaker had replaced more than 6,000 workers amid an ill-fated strike started by the rubber workers union.

Mr. Becker, who had welcomed a merger with the rubber workers union after the strike began, threw the USW's resources into a worldwide campaign against the tiremaker. The union eventually won a contract that stripped away some of the company's demands, which had triggered the strike.

One of the union's winning strategies under Becker, said Kate Bronfenbrenner, a Cornell University labor expert, was forming ties with workers around the world. This allowed the union to develop a form of leverage that had been rarely used by U.S. unions

When environmentalists and student activists marched in protest in 2000 at the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization, the USW offered its support, and Mr. Becker was on hand for the rallies.

"It was under his leadership that the union changed its views on the environment. He understood that it isn't the choice between jobs and the environment because his members and their families have to live in bad environments," Bronfenbrenner said.

Often shy about his limited education, Mr. Becker would explain that he went to school with the steelworkers. Born in Madison, Ill., he grew up in Granite City, and started at 15 years old on an open-hearth labor gang in Granite City in the summer of 1944.

He was a Marine at the end of World War II, and later served in the Army in Korea. His advocacy of workers' safety and health conditions as president of a USW local in Madison led to a job with the union, and a march up its ranks.

Mr. Becker is survived by his wife, Jane; three sons, George, Greg and Matthew; 10 grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; and a sister, Jacqueline Strauss.

"He will be buried in Granite [City], Ill. Because he always wanted to go home," Gerard said.

Services will be held Tuesday in Pittsburgh.

sfranklin@tribune.com

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