Torchbearers of labor

Multi-national corporations have for too long whipsawed workers against one another in their frenzy to maximize profits at the expense of basic human rights. Amid a climate of layoffs and outsourcing, the high standard of living the UAW fought so hard to win for American workers will only decline unless real efforts are made to foster international solidarity.

In this global economy, the only way to maintain stability for our union will be through a network of global support. In order to build power internationally, the UAW has added to its National Organizing Department the Global Organizing Institute (GOI). This novel initiative will work through a variety of channels both in the United States and abroad to promote the right to organize.

The campaign to improve conditions for workers the world over will not be easy. A global middle class will not be built overnight. But through multi-faceted and long-term efforts, it can be done. What’s more – it must be done.

The GOI will strive to create an international network of activists to provoke corporate accountability and promote workers’ rights around the world. Specifically, it will coordinate internships for young people from various countries to carry our mission back to their home, recruit labor activists in this country to lead direct action campaigns and network with unions in other countries to build solidarity across borders.

International internships

One facet of the GOI’s mission involves selecting undergraduate students from various corners of the world to spend eight weeks interning with the UAW. In addition to numerous activities designed for the interns to gain an understanding of the union’s mission and structure, each has the chance to embark on an organizing drive. Their experiences on the ground will offer a sense of the struggles American workers face when forming to a union.

The first round of this program will bring in dozens of interns from South Korea, China, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Germany and India. These are all countries in which auto sales are rapidly on the rise. GOI interns will help coordinate direct actions when they return home. Ideally, they will support the UAW’s organizing efforts and corporate campaigns at their universities, and also incorporate the union’s mission into their various careers.

Domestic actions

In addition its international student interns, the GOI will also recruit and support progressive youth in the United States to carry out direct actions at car dealerships and corporate offices across the country. It is the hope of the GOI that thousands will join this program and influence many more to develop a generation of social justice activists to lead lifelong efforts to support the cause of labor.

This mass movement of social justice activists will begin with training programs through the UAW. The number of trainings will only multiply as more and more sign on to this dynamic program. This group of progressive people will then offer a moral compass to help steer corporate decisions from college campuses and communities across the country.

Progressive alliances

While the GOI aspires to invigorate young people to carry the labor movement into the future, it is also eager to deepen connections with progressive groups and international unions that have continued to support our work. Notably, the GOI will build solidarity with autoworker unions around the world through the auspices of the International Metalworkers Federation.

Country coordinators will be recruited to represent the UAW among foreign unions to ensure collaborative growth. Through these coordinators, the GOI will develop close relationships with unions representing foreign autoworkers to pressure companies such as Hyundai and Toyota to allow workers in America to unionize. Through a mutually beneficial labor alliance, the GOI seeks to undermine national boundaries that have for so long pitted workers against each other in order to promote shared gains.

A global union

Through each of these initiatives and others like them, the mission of the GOI will be to promote and defend workers’ right to organize, no matter where they live. Its multi-tiered approach will cultivate new relationships and build upon existing ones, draw from the knowledge of longtime social justice activists and train young progressives to become torchbearers for the labor movement.

As jobs travel to lower-wage countries, workplace safety and job security in the United States is inextricably tied to the conditions faced by workers the world over. In these trying economic times, it is clear that the very stability of our union is being shaken – and will continue to be unless we engage in efforts to build a network of stability through international solidarity.

The Global Organizing Institute is an integral part in the new global outlook of the UAW – one that must be taken in a rapidly globalizing world.

Beenish Ahmed