UAW creates Global Organizing Institute to organize transplants

It sounds ominous. The United Auto Workers union has imported interns from other automaking countries like China, Germany, South Korea and India to teach them the organizing techniques the union uses in the United States. The UAW's Global Organizing Institute will give interns from other car building countries an indoctrination into the practices the union uses for collective bargaining, which they will then take back to their home countries and act as homegrown advocates for the UAW's organizing efforts at non-unionized transplant facilities in the United States.

Bob King, UAW president, has a goal of bringing his union to one of the currently non-unionized transplant auto factories in the American south. With agents arguing for the UAW on the homefront and the union doing its best to get a transplant automaker on board, the union hopes it can not only help workers organize in other countries, but also help its own causes.

The UAW has asked for no interference from the leaders of those car companies and has threatened to use protests and other attention-grabbing practices should any automaker try to strongarm its workers into staying non-union. The interns will be given six weeks of training and field experience before they're sent back to their home countries packing a new arsenal of skills.

[Source: Automotive News – sub. req.]