Now that Boeing is outsourcing work on its new 787 “Dreamliner” to a worldwide web of suppliers, unions representing its workers are gearing up to go global as well.

On March 26-27, union officials from seven countries met in Portland to form a global alliance of Boeing workers. Over a two-day span, union leaders from Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States shared information and talked about ways to work more closely together.

The global aerospace industry may be doing well, but aerospace workers have faced difficult times, said Thomas Buffenbarger, general president of the U.S.-based International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

“We must make certain Boeing can never pit us against each other when it comes to determining where production will take place,” Buffenbarger told attendees.

The meeting was organized by the Geneva, Switzerland-based International Metalworkers Federation (IMF), and was scheduled in Portland just prior to an annual conference of the IAM’s Aerospace Division. Boeing, the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer, has 150,000 employees in 70 countries, though most of the work is done by workers in developed countries.

Unions have never successfully merged across national borders, IMF General Secretary Marcello Malentacchi told the NW Labor Press. But there are other ways to cooperate besides one big worldwide union, Malentacchi said. They can coordinate their demands, synchronize the expiration of their contracts, and sit in on each others’ negotiations with the company.

However, it was clear from several hours of country reports that the assembled unions face widely different circumstances. The company appears to have a different labor relations posture for each country, depending on local laws and customs.

While European unions benefit from labor-friendly legal protections and national health systems, Boeing’s U.S. unions have had five strikes in the last two years trying to defend health insurance coverage.

Australian unions are fighting for their lives after a complete rewrite of the nation’s labor laws by anti-union Prime Minister John Howard. It took an eight-month strike for one group of four dozen Boeing workers in New South Wales just to win union recognition.

In Japan, unions are fighting the spread of lower-paid part-time jobs.

In Germany, unions are focusing on more flexible rules to help weather downturns. In slow times, German aerospace employees will work four days a week as an alternative to layoffs.

In Italy, unions bargained a contract that gives wage increases each time profits rise a certain amount.