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27 May, 1999GENEVA/VIENNA: The IMF is inaugurating a new project in a major transnational automotive parts producer, Magna International, with a two-day meeting which began yesterday in Vienna of the IMF Magna Internet Action Group.
The IMF's Austrian affiliate, the GMBE, is hosting the meeting of the group, which will be made up mainly of people who have direct involvement with representing or organising workers in Magna or its subsidiaries.
With headquarters in Ontario, Canada, Magna employs approximately 49,000 people at 159 manufacturing divisions and 31 product development and engineering centers in 17 countries. Its revenues in 1998 totalled $5.7 billion (up from just $1.3 billion in 1990).
Essentially, the IMF will use an Internet Study Circle (ISC) technique to study the company and to form an international union network in the process. ISCs were initiated by the International Federation of Workers' Education Associations in 1997 for a global research and education project. ISCs use the Internet to facilitate global research and education through bringing together working people who share their local problems internationally.