Soon after assuming the presidency of a union that had lost nearly 40 percent of its members under his predecessor, Bob King spoke bluntly about the need to bring workers at the foreign-owned auto plants dotting the American South into the UAW's fold. "If we don't organize these transnationals, I don't think there's a long-term future for the UAW -- I really don't," King said in January 2011. When he set a goal of organizing at least one Southern plant by that year's end, many outsiders saw it as wishful thinking. And as King's term winds down -- at 67, he's too old to run in June's election under union rules -- the UAW has yet to achieve a victory.
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