Roxanne Brown

Roxanne Brown is the USW’s new International Vice President at Large. For 20 years, she has served USW members from the union’s Legislative Office in Washington, D.C., most recently as Legislative Director. Brown will continue to oversee the union’s public policy and legislative agenda as well as its political work.

Throughout her career, Brown has worked with members and allies to advance policies on Capitol Hill and with regulatory agencies to help workers. She has extensive experience in defense procurement policy, environmental regulation, energy, cement, specialty metals and biomass carbon neutrality.

She helped advance legislation to strengthen U.S. defense procurement laws, ensuring that the vehicles, planes and ships used by our military – and built by USW members in Newport News, Va. (Local 8888) and York, Pa. (Local 7687) – are made with USW-produced materials.

Brown also played a key role in shaping environmental policies with the potential to affect USW jobs, including the Boiler Maximum Achievable Control Technologies (Boiler MACT) rule intended to reduce hazardous air pollutants from boilers. Brown worked with USW members and the EPA to achieve environmental, worker and community safety goals while avoiding a broad negative impact to USW members.

Brown led the USW’s work on the “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,” ensuring that the climate legislation did not have unintended negative consequences for workers. Though the legislation stalled in the U.S. House, the provisions she helped develop became a model for job retention in climate measures.

Brown has testified at and participated in briefings on behalf of USW members at the International Trade Commission (ITC), on Capitol Hill and before state legislatures. She has represented the USW with global policy-makers, including at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Brown also helped coordinate a 20,000-person rally calling on President George W. Bush protect the steel industry from foreign dumping.

Brown was a founding Steering Committee member of the BlueGreen Alliance and is a member of the Democratic National Committee and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. She serves on the boards of Georgetown University’s Institute of International Economic Law and the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Direct Air Capture Advisory Council.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Brown was raised in White Plains, New York.