International
workers’ contacts within the DC group
Some members of the Mercedes Coordination were particularly active
in trying to organize an information exchange with colleagues of
the former Mercedes plants in Brazil. Since the eighties, they have
established regular exchange programs between Brazil and Germany.
These have created a stable and lasting relationship between colleagues
of both countries. Contacts between Germany and both Turkey and
Spain have occurred more sporadically.
When the mega DaimlerChrysler fusion was announced in spring of
1998, the Mercedes Coordination, with the support of TIE, tried
to broaden its contacts with the USA and Canada. In the year 2000,
representatives of the Dutch Nedcar plant joined the Coordination
— Nedcar, Mitsubishi owned until then, will become part of
DC in 2004. In November 1998, unionists from Chrysler plants in
Detroit/USA and members of the factory commission of Mercedes Benz
Sao Bernardo/Brazil attended a Mercedes Coordination seminar together.
Afterwards, the US and Brazilian delegations visited different Mercedes-Benz
plants in Germany and entered into a dialogue with the respective
workers’ representatives about the different local problem
settings. Further steps followed. In spring of 1999, a group of
about 20 German DaimlerChrysler workers and a representative of
the Brazilian colleagues paid Chrysler plants in the US and Canada
an exchange visit. In autumn of the same year, a somewhat smaller
group of German colleagues travelled to Atlanta to discuss the organizing
efforts in the new DC plant in Tuscaloosa/Alabama. In November 2000,
12 colleagues of the Coordination undertook a two-week-journey to
Brazil. They visited several new modular plants which had grown
"in the green field". In a concluding seminar they discussed
the problems of the new production methods, such as modular production,
and concrete possibilities for international cooperation. From 2001
till today, other exchanges of German and Brazilian representatives
to the US and Canada followed; Brazilian and US union colleagues
travelled to Germany.
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