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UAW-DaimlerChrysler Works to Create Best-Educated Workforce

10 October 2000

UAW-DaimlerChrysler Works to Create the Best-Educated Workforce in the World!

    DETROIT, Oct. 9 Assembly line workers with Master's
degrees and hi-lo drivers working toward Ph.D.s might soon be the standard at
UAW-represented DaimlerChrysler facilities.
    The UAW-DaimlerChrysler National Training Center introduces LearnNTC.com ,
an innovative, one-of-a-kind online learning program launched at a "virtual
ribbon-cutting" at the NTC on Oct. 9, 2000.
    While UAW-bargained Tuition Assistance Program benefits have long allowed
workers to attend colleges and universities, many cannot take time from busy
family and work lives to go to classes even when schools are nearby.
LearnNTC.com will let those workers go to college just about anywhere --
without leaving their homes or workplaces.
    "We're going to see that every UAW-represented DaimlerChrysler worker has
the best opportunity we can give them," said UAW Vice President Nate Gooden,
Co-Chairman of the DaimlerChrysler Joint Activities Board.
    This one-of-a-kind learning program -- a joint operation of the union and
the automaker -- is made unique by the extensive, Internet-based support
system, special online readiness guides and readily available technical-
assistance lines that have been designed to help workers and their dependents
successfully complete college courses.
    For that special kind of content, the NTC went to the education experts at
Michigan State University, where many months of work resulted in the creation
of a state-of-the-art World Wide Web site that prepares and guides workers
through the maze of higher education.
    More than a dozen colleges and universities have been screened, evaluated
and granted preferred status, and eventually LearnNTC.com expects the choices
of higher-education institutions for online learners to number in the
hundreds.
    "This is the kind of program that can make our workforce the best-educated
in the world," said DaimlerChrysler Joint Activities Board Co-Chairman John
Franciosi, who is Senior Vice President, Employee Relations for
DalmlerChrysler.
    LearnNTC.com puts UAW-DaimlerChrysler workers in the forefront of the "e-
learning" revolution.