Chrysler Talks Recessed With Strike Issues Unresolved

Negotiations between Chrysler and the United Auto Workers, aimed at ending a three-day-old strike by 70,000 Chrysler workers in the United States, were recessed until Monday with the two sides still far apart on key issues that led to the walkout, UAW President Owen Bieber said Friday.

Bieber said the company and union remain split over the UAW’s demands for job security, profit-sharing, full parity on wages and benefits with General Motors and Ford workers and the union’s insistence that the company reimburse workers--apparently through one-time cash bonuses--for the $1 billion in wage concessions they granted Chrysler between 1979 and 1981 to help it avert bankruptcy.

In Canada, where another 10,000 Chrysler workers are also on strike, separate contract talks between the newly independent Canadian UAW and Chrysler were expected to continue through the weekend. Little progress has been reported in those negotiations in recent days.

The decision to break off the talks in the United States almost guarantees that the strike will last well into next week and will quickly begin to eat away at Chrysler’s financial health. Industry analysts have predicted that a walkout of just one week would cost Chrysler between $50 million and $75 million in profits.

“Everyone has worked hard. We are very tired. It is best to recess these discussions now,” Bieber said Friday afternoon.

Union workers in the United States and Canada walked off their jobs at Chrysler when their old labor contracts expired at midnight Tuesday, after union and company bargainers, who had been negotiating since August, failed to hammer out new agreements in either country.

UAW leaders in this country had hoped to reach a settlement by Friday so that they could present it to local union officials for their approval at a meeting of the union’s Chrysler council that is scheduled for today in Huntsville, Ala. Instead, Bieber and other top leaders will use the meeting to report to the council on the status of the talks.

In Canada, the key sticking points in the talks Friday apparently were the same ones that led to the strike Tuesday night--local issues at two Canadian assembly plants and some remaining wage and non-wage issues on the national level, union officials said.

On Friday, the leadership of the Canadian union decided to cancel weekend informational meetings with rank-and-file members in order to continue the bargaining efforts through today and Sunday, officials said.