We are stronger together”: women unite at USW Women of Steel conference

"Women of Steel is not a programme or a meeting,"

said Randie Pearson, director of Women of Steel, at the opening of the conference.

"It is a movement inside the union."

Delegates from the United Steelworkers (USW) Women of Steel Conference gather at an outdoor rally in Toronto, Canada, April 2026.

The conference, held in Toronto from 30 March to 2 April 2026, brought together approximately 1,000 women union members from across the United States and Canada under the theme "Education for a New Era" and the slogan "Know Your Power." It was the first major gathering since Roxanne Brown became the 10th international president of the United Steelworkers (USW), the first woman and the first black woman to lead the union.

Structures build leaders

The conference opened with a land acknowledgement by a traditional grandmother and knowledge keeper, grounding the week in a spirit of reconciliation and responsibility. What followed was four days of plenaries, workshops and conversations built around one central conviction:

women's leadership does not appear by itself. It is built, deliberately, over time, by structures that refuse to wait for permission.

Women of Steel predates female representation on the USW executive board. Since its founding, it has won pregnancy accommodations, lactation spaces, PPE designed for women's bodies and contract language that reflects the realities women actually live.

Today, the majority of USW department heads are women. Three women sit on the executive board. The international president is a woman.

Randie Pearson addresses delegates at the opening session of the USW Women of Steel Conference in Toronto, Canada, March 2026.

Randie Pearson put the significance plainly:

"Every single one of you in this room has that same power. Maybe you don't see it yet. Maybe you've been told to sit down and stay quiet or wait your turn. But you don't have to wait. Your voice matters right here and right now."

Former USW vice president and former IndustriALL executive committee member Carol Landry put the journey into perspective at the closing reception.

It was the women of District 6 who, in the early 1990s, brought the proposal to then-international president Leo Gerard, the push that would eventually give birth to Women of Steel. Landry became the first woman elected to the USW executive board and also served on IndustriALL's executive committee. Decades later, she was in that room in Toronto watching a woman as international president.

Carol Landry addresses delegates at the opening of the United Steelworkers (USW) Women of Steel Conference in Toronto, Canada, March 2026. Photo: USW.

Politics is personal

The second day opened with a session on politics, policy and women's place. Amber Miller, newly elected international vice president at large, made the connection immediate and visceral.

Amber Miller VP at large addresses a rally during the USW Women of Steel Conference in Toronto, Canada, March 2026.

Drawing on her own experience as a woman in industrial workplaces, the unsafe conditions, the shift she worked two weeks after giving birth because her family could not afford for her to stay out any longer, she made the case that politics is never abstract.

"Politics is who gets believed, who gets opportunities, who gets protected, who gets dismissed," she said. "Those things don't happen by accident. They happen because people are making decisions and those decisions are shaped by policy, culture and the people who hold power."

Know your power

Throughout the week, workshops gave participants practical tools to take back to their locals, on health and safety, bargaining, legislative engagement and leadership.

USW international president Roxanne Brown charged every woman in the room to know who she is before the world tries to tell her.

"At some point, the world is going to try to tell you who they think you are," she said. "So it's really important that you know who you are. So that when that moment comes, you stand in the power of the knowledge of who you are."

Roxanne Brown addresses a rally during the USW Women of Steel Conference in Toronto, Canada, March 2026.

On day three, the Women of Steel rally drew delegates onto the streets of Toronto, joined by the mayor of the city, in a show of solidarity that made the week's themes visible and public.

The global fight is one fight

A panel on women's leadership and global solidarity brought together IndustriALL assistant general secretary Christina Olivier, Carla Castro from EMIH, the independent monitoring group in Honduras, and Ruth Lopez from IndustriALL affiliate Los Mineros in Mexico.

Panelist Christina Olivier AGS takes part in a solidarity discussion at the opening of the USW Women of Steel Conference in Toronto, Canada, March 2026.

Olivier named the backlash directly: in 2024, one in four countries went backwards on women's rights. She connected this to the green and digital transitions reshaping industry, noting that women are absorbing the costs of transformation without being in the rooms where those decisions are made.

"As capital globalizes the exploitation of workers, we must globalize our solidarity," she said.

Carol Castro described the violence, harassment and physical toll facing women in Honduras's maquila sector, age discrimination beginning at 35, mandatory overtime, obstetric violence and lack of childcare. She closed with her organisation's motto: "They are afraid of us because we are not afraid. No more dead women in our country."

Ruth Lopez spoke about the visibility women have won in a historically male-dominated sector, at the bargaining table and on health and safety commissions. She also spoke about the work that remains, to create spaces where women do not just enter, but lead.

A global solidarity workshop later in the week, in which CNM-CUT, IndustriALL's Brazilian affiliate, made a powerful intervention. She underlined what the panel had made clear: the struggles women face in their industries cross every border, and so must the solidarity.

Delegate from CNM-CUT speaks at workshop on international solidarity

"The 2026 USW Women's conference was not just a gathering. It was evidence. Evidence that when unions commit to building women's leadership, not as a side project but as the foundation, the results follow,"

said Christina Olivier.

"And evidence that the hunger for cross-border solidarity among women workers is real, deep and ready to be met."