Few Shortages Reported Yet : Teamster Car Hauler Negotiations Continue

With dealers across the country beginning to run short of hot models of domestic and imported cars, negotiators for the Teamsters and automobile transporters continued efforts Thursday to end a two-week-old walkout by car haulers.

The sessions at an Annapolis hotel were conducted behind a thick veil of secrecy. Except for confirming that talks were taking place, neither side would comment on whether any progress was being made in settling the strike.

The strike began July 26 when 20,000 Teamsters walked off the job after contract negotiations were broken off with the National Assn. of Automobile Transporters.

Only limited deliveries of new cars to dealers across the country have been made over the last two weeks.

Louis Priebe of the National Assn. of Automobile Dealers in Washington said Thursday that most dealers still have ample supplies of new cars except for “hot models,” where shortages already have developed.

He said that, when the strike began, dealers had an average 58-day supply of domestic cars and a 32-day supply of imported vehicles.

Priebe said the situation will become serious if the strike continues for another two or three weeks.

“America’s dealers will be happy if the strike is settled soon,” he said.

The strike has not yet affected production of domestic automobiles. Chrysler assembly plants are shut down for model changeovers, and spokeswomen for both General Motors and Ford say they are continuing to produce cars.

Spokesmen for major ports gave a mixed picture of the effect of the strike on imported cars.

Storage lots operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are nearly full, Theodore Endersen, assistant manager of operations at the New Jersey Marine Terminals, said Thursday.

“It will be a problem shortly, probably in the next week,” he said.

Donald Klein of the Maryland Port Administration said that lots are about 70% full in Baltimore and that the port “is in pretty good shape.”

In Norfolk, Va., Wayne Tate, manager of Nissan operations, said that there was an extremely low inventory of automobiles when the strike began and that it would be a month before the facility fills up.

Teamsters members rejected one contract offer before the strike began even though it had been recommended by union officials.

That contract offered a wage increase of 60 cents an hour each year for the next three years for hourly employees and an increase in the mileage rate for drivers delivering cars to dealers from 65 cents to 68.5 cents. But it would have cut the mileage rate for return trips in half and would have provided reduced wages for new employees.