However the Member of Parliament for Pointe-a-Pierre and Labour Minister in the People's partnership government is not resigning as MP or minister.
McLeod contested the May 2010 general election as a candidate for the United National Congress (UNC) although he represented the MSJ in the five-member coalition that formed the government.
McLeod announced that he is giving up the MSJ leadership as party activists called for the MSJ to leave the partnership. The organisation is made up of mainly labour representatives, with Mc Leod himself being one of Trinidad & Tobago's most identifiable labour leaders.
MSJ members are angry with the government, claiming that the administration has betrayed the working class with its insistence of putting a five per cent wage cap on unions on public sector negotiations.
Government Senator David Abdullah will now head the MSJ. Abdulah is also the leader of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions and Non-Governmental Organisations (FITUN).
McLeod made the announcement at the Communications Workers Union Hall on Henry Street, Port of Spain.
Local media reports say he was surrounded by key players in the MSJ, including president general of the Oilfields Workers' Trade Union Ancel Roget, president of the Banking, Insurance and General Workers Union Vincent Cabrera and president of the Communications Workers Union Joseph Remy and other MSJ executives.
Mc Leod's labour colleagues have openly called for action against the government and have said they will bring down the government since labour controls the majority of the floating votes in the country. They have also called for the formation of a Labour Party to contest the next general election.
The UNC, which has the majority of seats in the Parliament, has come out of the labour movement, with its first incarnation being the United Labour Front (ULF) led by Basdeo Panday. The ULF contested the 1976 general election and formed the opposition.
Panday later merged the party with other opposition political groups to form the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR), which created history by defeating the People's National Movement (PNM) in a landslide 33-3 result. However NAR did not last and Panday later and his colleagues created the UNC, which formed the government in a coalition with NAR in 1995.
The People's Partnership was a different attempt at coalition, with each of the five component parts keeping its identify and presenting a common platform to voters. The experiment resulted in the partnership's resounding victory over the Manning PNM on May 24, 2010.
"We have been considering this for some time now, a brief couple of months but it was decided and accepted by the central executive of the MSJ and the Activist Council that I would step down from the office of political leader and reside in the plenipotentiary position as a member of the national executive as we concentrate our efforts on the labour agenda and building the party," McLeod told party supporters.
He said he did not want the MSJ to be inhibited in any way "by one who might be considered to be an absentee leader of this developing political movement."
The labour minister added that his absence from the leadership of the MSJ would allow him to deal better with his responsibilities as an MP and cabinet minister.
Abdulah said McLeod remains a part of the MSJ and when "Comrade McLeod speaks in Parliament he is speaking as member of national executive and has the support of the executive of the MSJ."
Abdulah also stated that Sunday's development will not have any negative impact on the People's Partnership. "Our party is independent as are all the other political parties. It has its own structure, its own constitution," he said.
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