GM, UAW Work to Adapt Ford Contract

Talks between General Motors and the United Auto Workers union continued Wednesday toward an informal weekend deadline as bargainers worked to adapt a Ford Motor contract to GM without hindering its chances for ratification.

Barring snags over GM’s reported efforts to negotiate separate job-protection provisions for its assembly and components operations, the chances of a strike appeared slim.

In the last 20 years, the union has rarely needed to strike auto makers to force them to accept pattern contracts established at the company the union settled with first. UAW President Owen Bieber has yet to set a strike deadline for the talks, and indicated that he would be glad to settle without setting one.

UAW leaders have called a meeting of the 300-worker GM bargaining council for Monday in Chicago. The council must approve any tentative settlement before it is offered for ratification by GM’s 335,000 active UAW workers.

Local union leaders have indicated that they would accept a contract mirroring the job-protecting Ford pact, but suggested that there could be difficulty if changes to make the contract fit GM were too dramatic.

Same Deal Expected

But they said they remained certain that there would be a settlement in time for Monday’s council meeting.

Top GM executives, including GM Chairman Roger B. Smith, who insisted before the Sept. 17 settlement at Ford that they would need a separate GM contract, changed their tone last week and said that they would work with the Ford pattern.

“Roger Smith is doing what he has to do. (Since) General Motors was not selected as the strike target, General Motors has to settle for whatever Ford did,” said Maryann Keller, industry analyst with Furman, Selz, Mager, Dietz & Birney in New York.

Keller said a strike, caused by refusal to accept the pattern, would cost GM far more than loss of production.

“A strike might have more long-term effects than any contract. In order to gain the cooperation of the people at the factories (to improve productivity), you have to have some semblance of a good relationship, a trusting relationship between those people and management,” she said.

“A strike could permanently damage those chances. It takes a long, long time to get over the emotions and the anger,” Keller said.