UAW Deal with Automakers Appears Imminent

DETROIT September 12, 2003; Michael Ellis writing for Reuters reported that a contract agreement between Detroit's Big Three and the United Auto Workers appeared imminent on Friday, a company and a union source said, although last-minute issues could still derail efforts to beat a midnight Sunday deadline.

"We would expect it to go today," a Detroit-based car company official familiar with the talks told Reuters. He added that there was no reason to expect a tentative deal would not be reached before Saturday.

"It's possible," a union source said, meanwhile, when asked about a Friday settlement.

Company and union sources have said repeatedly that UAW President Ron Gettelfinger hopes to achieve an unprecedented simultaneous resolution of the talks, ahead of the Sunday deadline.

An early and noncontentious agreement would signal labor solidarity with management at General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and the Chrysler unit of DaimlerChrysler, companies fighting a pitched battle for their declining U.S. market share with powerful, nonunion foreign rivals led by Toyota Motor Corp.

Doing so would also allow Gettelfinger to soften the traditionally hard-line image of the UAW, which has a long history of militancy on shop floors and picket lines, as he pursues a top priority of organizing more auto parts suppliers.

The contract talks also cover auto parts suppliers Delphi Corp. and Visteon Corp.

Despite expectations of an early resolution, some company sources cautioned that the talks could still drag out beyond Friday.

A Ford spokeswoman said negotiations were continuing at the world's second-largest automaker, which is struggling to implement a multiyear turnaround plan and wants to close at least four plants and cut thousands of UAW hourly jobs under a new master contract

"I honestly can't say that," Ford spokeswoman Anne Marie Gattari told Reuters, when asked if a deal appeared imminent to her. "We're working hard and we're moving in the right direction," she added.

PINS AND NEEDLES

The UAW's current four-year contracts with the Big Three, which affect the livelihoods of roughly 760,000 current and retired workers and their spouses, were signed in 1999 when the companies were coming off record profits. They include a ban on plant closings that is expected to be at least partially lifted under a new labor agreement.

While Ford was expected to pursue plant closings and job cuts in the contract talks, GM was expected to press the union for help in controlling massive pension and health-care costs and Chrysler wanted UAW approval to sell or close several of its parts plants.

The talks have been so secretive that Ken Dearing, president of UAW Local 325, at an assembly plant in St. Louis, Missouri, where Ford builds its Explorer, Mountaineer and Aviator sport utility vehicles, said he and other union officials were being kept completely in the dark about them.

"I just got off the phone with one of the other presidents of another Ford local and he's saying the same thing. It's like it's too quiet," Dearing told Reuters early on Friday. "We're just basically sitting here on pins and needles."

The St. Louis facility is one of the four facilities, including two assembly plants, that Ford has said it plans to shut down.

Gettelfinger is scheduled to speak on Saturday afternoon at LaborFest in Detroit, a festival expected to draw some 40,000 union members and supporters. One UAW source said Gettelfinger might cancel his appearance if a deal had not been reached, but added the festival would clearly be a good venue to announce an agreement.