Historic Leadership Roxanne Brown becomes USW International President

On March 1, 2026, Roxanne D. Brown was sworn in as the 10th International President of the United Steelworkers union. She makes history as the first woman and the first Black person to lead North America’s largest industrial union.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Brown grew up in White Plains, N.Y. Union-represented jobs enabled her mom and aunt to break into the middle class, a transformative experience that inspired her lifelong commitment to other working people.

She joined the USW’s Legislative and Policy Department in Washington, D.C., 27 years ago. As she rose through the ranks, she put working families at the centre of the conversations around health care, jobs, manufacturing, retirement security, trade, workplace safety and other issues.

Through this work, Brown realized that workers in the trenches made the biggest impact on decisionmakers and she often enlisted them to tell their own stories “You’re the expert in the room,” she said to a local union president shortly before he addressed then-U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders on the importance of a manufacturing bill in 2011.

“We’re all connected to this union because we share the same set of values. We want to build power for workers. We want a voice on the job. We want to make a good living. We want to come home safely to our families at the end of a shift.” – Roxanne D. Brown, USW International President

Brown makes it a practice to look ahead, recognizing that union members need to shape the future and drive policy or be left on the sidelines.

To that end, under her leadership, the union organized a multi-state “We Supply America” bus tour in 2021 that focused national attention on the need for infrastructure upgrades and highlighted the ways in which manufacturing workers stood to benefit from a modernization drive. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) in the U.S. was the focus on this effort.

“We’re all connected to this union because we share the same set of values. We want to build power for workers. We want a voice on the job. We want to make a good living, we want to come home safely to our families at the end of a shift,” Brown said.

“These are the things we fight for. At the bargaining table, in the halls of congress, in Ottawa, and in state houses and provincial legislatures across our two countries,” she said.

Brown succeeds David McCall, USW International President Emeritus. She credits McCall as the epitome of steady leadership, someone who always focuses on doing the work for the union and its members.

“As a strong international union, the USW is known for its cross-border solidarity. As International President, I will continue to oppose unjust tariffs against Canada and in favour of trade and industrial policies that improve economic and working conditions in both of our countries,” said Brown.

Brown plays a key role in shaping environmental policies with the potential to affect USW jobs. She led the USW’s work on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, helping to avert unintended negative consequences on USW members in the industrial sector. Although the legislation stalled, the provisions she helped to develop became a model for job and manufacturing retention in climate measures.

Brown is a Vice-President on the AFL-CIO Executive Council. She is also a Vice-President of IndustriALL Global Union, which unites 50 million workers across 130 countries. Brown is a member of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU). She was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders in Business for 2023.

Follow Roxanne Brown on Instagram: @uswprezrox

This article appears in the Summer 2026 issue of USW@Work magazine.

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