UAW Leaders Weigh Strike Target : Union Has Rejected Contract Offers From GM and Ford

The United Auto Workers executive board decides today whether General Motors Corp. or Ford Motor Co. will be the union’s strike target this fall.

The 23-member board will meet in suburban Dearborn, “weigh all the facts,” then decide, UAW President Owen Bieber said.

The union is currently negotiating a new three-year labor pact for about 375,000 of its hourly workers at GM and 104,000 hourly workers at Ford. Talks began in late July, and so far the union has rejected the two proposals offered by GM and the one set forth by Ford.

Contracts at the two leading domestic auto makers expire Sept. 14.

There was speculation that the union would tab GM as the target after the No. 1 auto maker’s second contract offer Friday, which was promptly rejected by the UAW. But Bieber dismissed that speculation.

‘Very Serious Matter’

“That would be foolhardy, and the answer is no,” Bieber said. “Nobody’s going to provoke us, simply because they’re unduly nasty to us, in picking them as a target.

“You’ve got to try to figure out where’s the best place to go to try to make a settlement that’s good for the entire union.”

“The picking of a target is a very serious matter,” Bieber said.

Traditionally, the bargaining process is intensified at the company selected by the UAW as a strike target, which also gives that auto maker more control of the negotiating process. The UAW then pressures the other car maker to follow suit in what is called a “pattern” agreement.

“I would have hoped we would have been further along,” the UAW president said when asked about the pace of the talks. “But that is not to say work has not been done.”

Bieber expressed hope that an agreement could be reached before the deadline, despite the three offers made to date by the two car makers, including the second GM offer that UAW bargainers say included takebacks like ending cost-of-living adjustments and paying lump-sum payments instead of annual wage increases.