Roxanne Brown

International Vice President at Large

Roxanne Brown is the USW’s International Vice President at Large, overseeing the union’s public policy and legislative agenda as well as its political work. She has spent more than two decades advancing policies on Capitol Hill and with regulatory agencies on behalf of USW members. She has extensive experience in manufacturing, environmental and energy policy. 

Brown has testified on workers’ behalf before the International Trade Commission, on Capitol Hill and before state legislatures, and has represented the USW with global policymakers, including the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. 

She helped advance legislation to strengthen U.S. defense procurement laws, ensuring that tens of thousands of USW members—including the combat vehicle manufacturers at Local 7687 (York, Pa.) and the shipbuilders at Local 8888 (Newport News, Va.)—continue to arm and equip America’s military.

Brown has 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 air pollutants. She worked with USW members and the Environmental Protection Agency between 2010 – 2013 to achieve environmental, worker and community safety goals while avoiding broad negative impacts to workers.

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

In 2002, Brown helped coordinate a 20,000-person rally in Washington, D.C., calling on President George W. Bush to protect the steel industry from foreign dumping.

Brown serves as a vice president on the AFL-CIO executive council, was a founding steering committee member of the BlueGreen Alliance and is a member of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. She serves on the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board as well as the boards of the Center for Community Change, League of Conservation Voters, the National Endowment for Democracy, Carbon 180 and the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Direct Air Capture Advisory Council.

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