Rolf Gerstenberger

Who is Rolf Gerstenberger?

Rolf Gerstenberger is president of the United Steelworkers, Local 1005 at the Hamilton Works of U.S. Steel Canada in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He is also a prominent member of the Communist Party of Canada and vice-president of its electoral arm, the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada. He was a candidate for the Canadian House of Commons in the 1997 and 2000 Canadian federal elections, running in Hamilton East and Hamilton Mountain, respectively. However he lost.

Born in Stuttgart, Germany, Gerstenberger first came to Canada from the United States in the late 1960s. He left the United States because he opposed the Vietnam War. Gerstenberger has worked at Stelco for over thirty five years, and worked as a vessel operator in the steel-making division for fifteen years prior to his first election as local union president in April, 2003. He holds a Master's degree in theoretical nuclear physics from McMaster University in Hamilton.

On November 7, 2010 US Steel Canada locked out it's 900 active employees when the Local 1005 bargaining committee would not agree to the company's demands for major concessions to the pension plan.