The state of unions could be better.

Membership has been on a decades-long downward spiral. Disagreements over strategy caused several key unions to bolt from the AFL-CIO last summer. And organizing efforts at major private sector employers continue to confront resistance.

		Graphics: Many industries, one union

But in the face of all this negativity, Leo W. Gerard sees hope.

The president of the United Steelworkers notes that his union continues to grow, aided by mergers with other unions, a push into such nontraditional sectors as hospitals and nursing homes, and a move across the nation's borders -- all moves he expects to keep making in coming years.

Indeed, as the USW enters its 70th year, including its roots to its precursor, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, Mr. Gerard is confident that his union's best days lie ahead, not behind.

In an interview at the USW headquarters Downtown on the same day Mr. Gerard, the USW's seventh president, was officially sworn in after being re-elected, the tall, tough-talking union chief said the diversity of the occupations represented make the union stronger. If employers in one industry somehow managed to shut it down or move operations elsewhere because of labor strife, he noted, workers in other industries would be able to support their fellow members.

He also spoke of the need for a different type of diversity. "We can't represent America as a union of middle-aged fat white guys," he said. "I hope that four years from now, we'll be a more diverse union by leadership position."

Currently, of the 11 international officers, all are white men except for one black male. But Mr. Gerard noted that several programs were in place to cultivate more diverse leadership, including a four-year leadership training program that offers college credits.

Looking at the national political scene, Mr. Gerard fired volleys at the Bush administration, calling the United States "the only industrialized nation on earth that has a coordinated campaign by the courts, by the government and by the bosses to deny workers their legitimate right" to organize.

His union's response has been to support the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation pushed by unions that will help them replace traditional workplace organizing by requiring companies to recognize unions if a majority of workers sign cards authorizing union representation. The current system requires elections.

The push for card checks, considered easier for unions because it's harder for companies to wage anti-organizing campaigns, is coming under fire in business circles and on Capitol Hill. Some Republican lawmakers in Congress are pushing to pass legislation to forbid the procedure, while companies are speaking out against it in the media.

The union, whose enrollment plummeted with the collapse of the steel industry from a high of more than 1 million in the early 1970s to a little more than 500,000 in 1994, has added 350,000 members since Mr. Gerard assumed the reins from retiring president George Becker in 2001. Most of that growth has come from mergers with other unions whose members may not know an ingot from a forklift.

The largest of those mergers -- and the largest in AFL-CIO history -- was last year's joining with the 250,000-member Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union, itself the product of numerous mergers.

Mr. Gerard said the union was "continuing to look at mergers" as an avenue for further growth -- a growth not limited by national borders. "As the economy becomes more global, the union has to become more global," he said.

In other comments yesterday, Mr. Gerard took aim at:

Spiraling health-care costs that have led many corporations and small businesses to curtail if not outright eliminate coverage. Mr. Gerard called on the government to embrace universal health care such as is done in Switzerland, which spends 12.5 percent to 13 percent of its gross domestic product to provide lifelong coverage while the United States spends "close to 16 percent" on coverage that doesn't even encompass everyone.

The sale of management of U.S. ports to Dubai Ports Worldwide. "What we're in fact doing is trading away our kids' future," he said. Foreign holders of American debt will "control our destiny, unless we turn this around."

The Poncho de Conchos mine disaster in Mexico, in which 65 miners died. Four thousand workers have begun a strike against the mine's owner, Grupo Mexico, as the miners' union investigates the disaster. "There'll be hell to pay" from the USW if the workers there suffer reprisals, he said.

Troubled automaker General Motors, whose difficulties have been linked to those of its primary parts supplier, Delphi. Mr. Gerard said GM wanted to see Delphi go out of business so that GM could then buy its parts from China.